Captured women and children

[Carlton Bach]

I can't remember where I read it, but weren't there certain Celtic (Gaul) tribes that had their women and children killed as a last resort, rather than be taken as slaves?

That seems to be something of a standard literary topos about Northern Barbarians - familiar enough to inspire works of art needing no explanation (cf the 'Dying Gaul'). Suicide in the face of enslavement, rape and murder may well have been common, especially in times of war, though I doubt it was any kind of ethnic or tribal tradition.

Roman authors seem to associate that kind of stpory with various Germanic peoples, I recall it about Cimbri/Teutones and Saxons, and I think the 'prefer death to dishonour' is also in Tacitus 'Germania' .