more celtic madness

From: Peter Metcalfe <P.Metcalfe_at_student.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:49:15 +1200


Joerg Baumgartner:

In telling the tale of the Furor Celticus, the Celtic Superweapon, Joerg compresses the chronology somewhat distorting (IMO) the facts:

>After some time of these [Celts] keeping the upper hand, the military
>leaders of the other nations found out how to [defeat the Celts].
>Marius for instance [immunized his men against the furor celticus]
>Robbed of this weapon, the barbarians were indeed easy meat for hardened
>veterans; the problem was to harden the veterans the first time...

Marius (c. 100 BC) was some time after the Gauls had sacked Rome (387 BC) or even after the Po Valley Gauls were subjugated by the Romans (before the 2nd Punic War in 221 BC). Marcus Furius Camillus was the person who reformed the Roman Army after his city was plundered by Brennus and his merry men. Since that time, the Romans fought several battles against the Gauls so they were hardly an unknown quantity.

Although Marius reformed the Roman Army in his time, the major part of it was to let in the proles for manpower purposes. Marius had to cope with Jurgurtha as well as the invading Germans (Cimbri/Teutons). So either the Po Valley Gauls under Brennus were not barbarians or or the Ceimbri/Teutons initial success was a result of other factors rather than the Romans unfamiliarity with the furor celticus that Joerg seems to think.

>After the reforms of Marius and Sulla, sure - they were especially
>trained to deal with barbarians.

Sulla's 'reforms' were more in the political (Thrick!) sphere. After the german invasion, most of Romes problems were with more civilized people (the Social War and Mithridates).

But turning this to Glorantha, the prime usage of the furor celtica is not the ability to frighten civilized people out of their formations but to increase their own fighting prowess. The Celts used it against each other which according to Joerg's theory wouldn't have been of any use. Furor Celtica is Fanaticism not Demoralize.

Speaking of the Lunars

>The first heavy involvement of Lunar Heartland troops came with the Sartar
>invasion of 1602,

Um, what about the battle of Grizzly Peak? Also, Sylila (which is Lunar Heartland) sent a force into Tarsh during the latter's civil war with great success.

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