Celtic Chariots

[Grendel]

Hi,

I was wondering about Celtic Chariot designs and if their have been any finds made.

I have a very old book from about 30-40 years ago which states Celtic and British chariots were quite different, the Celts using a much heavier 4 horse design compared to the British light 2 horse. However I saw one being used by a French reenactment group which was of the Wetwang Chariot Burial design, which got me wondering whether research has moved on and the Celts did in fact use the same chariot design as the British.

[Alanus]

You've got me on this one, Grendel

I always thought the Britons were Celts, like most other people think.... (especially the Welsh). Maybe there was a difference between British chariots and Gallic ones built in Gaul. The Gauls had retired chariots by the time Caesar arrived there, but the Brits still had them. There are more than a few books on the Celts, and I've seen British chariot graves shown as illustrations. Sorry, for not being much help but welcome to RAT! :-)

[Nathan Ross]

I was... wondering whether... the Celts did in fact use the same chariot design as the British.

Better, maybe, to distinguish between Gallic and British practice.

The principal witness would be Caesar, who describes the Britons using chariots as if it's something unusual (Gallic War, IV.33), but doesn't mention the Gauls using them. Most commentators have assumed from this that the Britons preserved an older form of warfare than their continental (perhaps) cousins; the Gauls were known for their cavalry, so perhaps had moved on from chariot warfare.

Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, V, 21,3) says that the Britons "preserve in their ways of living the ancient manner of life. They use chariots, for instance, in their wars". Arrian (Ars Tactica, 19), describes the British using "light, two-wheeled chariots... well adapted to running across all sorts of terrain". These use two horses, but they are "small, bad" and "wretched" animals. So no use as cavalry, presumably.

However, this is contradicted by Frontinus (Strategems 2.3.18) who says that 'Gaius Caesar met the scythe-bearing chariots of the Gauls with stakes driven in the ground, and kept them in check'. Frontinus was governor of Britain and an experienced soldier, so wasn't talking out of his hat - strange, though, that Caesar doesn't mention the incident...

Diodorus Siculus, despite his earlier point about the Britons, also claims that "the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior" (Library of History, V, 29,1-2), and Strabo writes that the Britons "use chariots for the most part, just as some of the Celti do" (IV, 5,2).

So there's some confusion about who used chariots and who didn't! The Britons certainly did, and were famous for it, and for quite some time if we believe later writers like Jordanes (the use of the chariot perhaps retreated into the north - the Caledonians and perhaps even Picts seem to have used them long after anybody else). The Gauls probably didn't, or not often enough for it to become a quintessential part of their style of warfare. Either way, all these 'Celtic' chariots seem to have been light two-wheeled, two horse affairs, perhaps like the Wetwang version or the type shown on the Roman coins of Lucius Saserna.

As for whether any of them had scythes or not, this thread has some opinions: British Scythed Chariots

And this article has a very good summary of the evidence for chariots more generally, British and Gallic, scythed or otherwise:

The British War Chariot

[Conal]

I have read somewhere that good cavalry horse breeds spread slowly west from Steppes and the Med and that by the time of Ceasar's invasion they had yet to make an impact in Britain. Hence the pony use in chariots.

It has been muted that the move to longer Gallic swords was due to increased cavalry use, which fits with generally shorter swords in Britain than in Gaul.

[Grendel]

I was... wondering whether... the Celts did in fact use the same chariot design as the British.

Better, maybe, to distinguish between Gallic and British practice.

The principal witness would be Caesar, who describes the Britons using chariots as if it's something unusual (Gallic War, IV.33), but doesn't mention the Gauls using them. Most commentators have assumed from this that the Britons preserved an older form of warfare than their continental (perhaps) cousins; the Gauls were known for their cavalry, so perhaps had moved on from chariot warfare.

Diodorus Siculus (Library of History, V, 21,3) says that the Britons "preserve in their ways of living the ancient manner of life. They use chariots, for instance, in their wars". Arrian (Ars Tactica, 19), describes the British using "light, two-wheeled chariots... well adapted to running across all sorts of terrain". These use two horses, but they are "small, bad" and "wretched" animals. So no use as cavalry, presumably.

However, this is contradicted by Frontinus (Strategems 2.3.18) who says that 'Gaius Caesar met the scythe-bearing chariots of the Gauls with stakes driven in the ground, and kept them in check'. Frontinus was governor of Britain and an experienced soldier, so wasn't talking out of his hat - strange, though, that Caesar doesn't mention the incident...

Diodorus Siculus, despite his earlier point about the Britons, also claims that "the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior" (Library of History, V, 29,1-2), and Strabo writes that the Britons "use chariots for the most part, just as some of the Celti do" (IV, 5,2).

So there's some confusion about who used chariots and who didn't! The Britons certainly did, and were famous for it, and for quite some time if we believe later writers like Jordanes (the use of the chariot perhaps retreated into the north - the Caledonians and perhaps even Picts seem to have used them long after anybody else). The Gauls probably didn't, or not often enough for it to become a quintessential part of their style of warfare. Either way, all these 'Celtic' chariots seem to have been light two-wheeled, two horse affairs, perhaps like the Wetwang version or the type shown on the Roman coins of Lucius Saserna.

As for whether any of them had scythes or not, this thread has some opinions: British Scythed Chariots

And this article has a very good summary of the evidence for chariots more generally, British and Gallic, scythed or otherwise:

The British War Chariot

Thanks for this excellent response, plenty of food for further research.

I always thought the Britons were Celts

Celt or Celti is what the people of central France called themselves, Gaul is a Roman word. It's rare to actually know what a prehistoric people called themselves so I just tend to use it.

What we the residents of this fair isle called ourselves back then is unknown or even if we had a collective name for ourselves as a whole, rather just individual regional names. Britannia is a Roman bastardization of Pretannic Isles the Greek name for Britain, which came from Pytheas a Marseilles sailor who travelled to Britain in the 4th century BC and wrote a book about it. The book was lost and only fragments survive, one being that a tribe in the far north of Scotland called themselves the Pretani. So ironically the whole country is named after one small Scottish tribe and Scotland are voting for independence, which kinda begs the question, if they vote yes, do the Scots get to take the name Britian with them and we in the rest of the country have to start calling ourselves something else?

welcome to RAT! :-)

Thanks, nice to be a member of such friendly forum.

[Vindex]

An associate of mine has just completed an MA thesis on British chariot design. I will ask her if I can share it with you, if you would like? If so, please PM me.

With regards to four and two horses; depending on how they are "poled up" to the chariot would influence if they had to be specifically designed for four ponies as opposed to two. Four ponies suggest, perhaps a heavier chariot or just heavier ground on a particular day/battle.

British native ponies have changed little over the centuries and the persistance of the chariot is more than likely related to making the best use of the equids at your disposal. Ponies are by far more manoeuvrerable. If you look at modern scurry driving, you'll get a good idea!

[Lyceum]

No. Despite the apparent similarity Gaul is unlikely to come from Gall- due to the sound changes that would have taken place in earlier forms of French. The Latin is gallus/galli for the people and it almost certainly is Celtic in origin. You can follow the phonological changes back to a word that would mean something like forest dwellers or some such. Though I've seen quite decent attempts at rendering a proto-germanic etymology for the word too.

As for whether the Britons are Celts or not. The answer is, of course, yes. You get lots of excitable little books debating stuff like this, in the same group as the "see! there wasn't really a dark age!!!" camp of fools. However the linguistic evidence is very, very, firm that the languages are very closely related. The only debate is to whether or not there was a) awareness of being related (irrelevant, probably varied, most likely not) and b) a common culture (most assuredly not).

It's a whole mess that comes from bungling archaeologists and odd 19th century ideas about language and nationalism we've all grown up with. "They speak similar languages so they must be very similar in terms of culture, ethnicity, religion etc".

As for ponies on chariots, I watched something once, from Italy, where they were racing chariots using ponies. I think on Ischia. Anyway I was really, really, surprised not just by the speed (which wasn't that bad) but as Vindex says the manoeuvrability. These weren't hardy British ponies either btw. I think that might have been scurry driving, not sure.

[Conal]

As for whether the Britons are Celts or not. The answer is, of course, yes.

I like your phrase "excitable little books" :o

It always struck me that if the Druids were the intellectual branch of Celtic/Gallic/Belgic speaking peoples and the centre of that "religion" was Anglesea in Wales and that the annual conference of Druids was in Carnutes, firmly in Celtica the largest "territory" of Gaul then there must have been quite a strong link.

Just finishing reading Celtic Warfare 1595 to 1763 and it is clear that across Ireland to Scotland there was a view or identity that they were of the same people when threatened by a foreign people but at the same time a keen clan identity, sometimes to the detriment to the whole.

[Vindex]

Thanks, nice to be a member of such friendly forum.

with my Moderator hat on, could I possibly ask you to include your real name somewhere in your subscript, please? It is within the Forum rules and makes it an even nicer, friendlier place

[petar]

This might be of interest. Celtic chariot from the 2nd c. BC, reconstructed by the Swiss National Museum in Zurich:


[attachment=9288]Chariotbt.JPG[/attachment]

[Dan Howard]

Wonderful chariot. It looks too small because of the oversized horses.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

That's what I was thinking; that the horses seemed pretty big.