Fighting was an obsession with the Celts, whether in bands against enemy forces or in the brawling combats that erupted incessantly between individual warriors.
Drunk on strong beer and lust for glory, the Celts did battle with a fierce exhilaration that seasoned Roman soldiers even found alarming. They were careless of life and limb, often going into battle naked but for a torque or neck ring. The stele shows that by the fifth century BC Celtic foot-warriors, wielding straight swords, dared to face enemy horsemen even in single combat.
To the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome, the Celtic warrior was the archetypal barbarian: huge in stature, immensely strong and bloodthirsty beyond description.
Charging naked into battle, impervious to wounds and wielding a terrible sword with which to take the heads of his enemies, he was antithesis of the drilled and disciplined soldiers of the Greek hoplite phalanx or the Roman legion. The Roman historians Tacitus describing an attack by the legions on Anglesey, wrote: ‘On the shore stood the opposing army with its dense array of armed warriors, while between the ranks dashed women in black attire like the Furies, with hair disheveled, waving brands.’
It was in 390 BC that the Romans first encountered Celtic cavalry, when they were faced by invasion from the area of the Po Valley and Rome was sacked by a huge Celtic army with thousands of horseman.
Celtic men were tall by Mediterranean standards; the skeleton of warrior discovered near Milan, Italy was 6ft 5in in height. Even the women were large and fearsome brawlers. Boudicca, the rebel queen of the Iceni who died in AD60, was describe as huge of frame, harsh voiced and with a great mass of bright red hair falling to her knees. She was the most outstanding Celtic woman warrior.
Celtic warriors often cut off the heads of their foes and dangled these grim spoils from their belts and saddles, or bore them aloft on spears.
The Celts: Northern Europe Warrior 500 BC – 100 AD
