Hello there!
I'm currently working on a mini-paper about the Battle of Alesia. Seeing as the Bello Gallico doesn't specify a whole lot about which type of equipment, artillery etc was used throughout the battle, I was wondering if any of you know more about this topic.
Thanks in advance
What you must already have realized studying and writing your homework is that sources directly dealing with Gaulish military equipment, tactics, strategy and generally military tought are poor at best, either in writings or artistic depictions.
Gaulish armies, both from Vercingetorix's coalition or allies to Caesar, seem to have been mobilised out of forces gathered by a patron out of armed clients (either professional, semi-professional warriors or raised levies as auxiliaries or even servents) and organized according their local, tribal, then ethnic, then political identity under their own isignas (essentiallly similar to Romans, altough with more totemic diversity), carnyxes, and possibly with diffently stylized equipment (such as torques' decoration, but probably clothing and shields as well) which probably moved on their own and separately before gathering at a point pre-determinated during a war council. (Itself determinated by an assembly, in this case the All-Gaul assembly of 52).
Since the appearant "democratization" of Gaulish warfare in the IInd and Ist century, allowing "plebeians" to take part on it (as it happened in Rome), a system of bi-annual mobilisation as it existed among Belgians and Germans might have existed in all Gaul (where out of two mobilisable men, one was levied into campaigning, the other being sort of a "home guard") allowed to raise important theoritical numbers that were kept in writing (as Caesar found after Helvetii defeat) that could gather ten of thousands men on the battlefield. Plutarch's estimation of 170 000 men for the whole Gaulish army is a very high thresold, possibly built out of theoritical capacities, but isn't entierely dismissable in a current estimation of it being comprised between 95 000 and 170 000 men (which is, arguably, a really wide fork). These really big numbers might have caused a real managment problem for the chiefs of the coalition, however, compared to the smaller and more easily commended armies of, for instance, Ambiorix.
Most of these men were lightly equiped : we have the idea of Gauls being protected by mail coats with iron helm and a big wooden shield with a metallic umbo, but that was rather the equipment of nobles or their more wealthy or trusted clients. Textile (from wool or flax) or leather protection were more widespread, either for head, arms or thorax; while many shields were made of leather-covered wood, wicker or even bark (being multi-purpose enough to serve as well for a, possibly originally Gaulish, testudo formation or as a sledge). These shields were still carried by hand, maybe with the support of belts on the arm for the biggest shields that Caesar describe as uncomfortable to wield during a long battle, Gauls eventually leaving the biggest and heaviest models aside after a while.
Iron helms were uncommon, reserved for the semi-professional and professional warriors and simpler than in previous centuries (partly inspired by Italic models, partly inspiring them), categorized in Alesia, Pont or Agen categories. Most of the armies either didn't have protections, or used leather skullcaps, wooly or wicker hats.
Similarily, the Gaulish swords, while and because being high-technology, were mostly carried by nobles and their own domestic armies, seemingly made specifically for the weilder. Pole arms were much more widespread among Gaulish armies, albeit differenciated into three main standardized categories :
- the *lancia (a Gaulish word without equivalent in Latin or Greek). Probably used by warriors on chariot originally, it was used by horsemen of late independent Gaul as a thrusting and throwing weapon held by one hand as they charged (DBG, VIII, 48), but keeping a long and large iron end allowing it to slide when thrusted.
- a long pike whom pole easily exceeded human height, develloped from the lancia (and called as such by Diodorus Siculus), and similar to Roman hasta, likewise to be used in formations (called phalanx by Caesar, but it was already a term for any tight military formation using long spears; rather than hoplitic or hellenistic like formation precisely). It kept an iron of 30 to 50cm, but it was more thin than the previously described weapon. It was, by far, the more common weapon of Gaulish armies.
- two sorts of javeleens (whom at least one was called matera, matara or materis by Romans but it's difficult to determine which one, or if it was both). One probably common and gathered as bundles but rarely archeologically as being made entierely of wood exception made of model with iron points probably used by elite units. The other was more elaborated, thurst by hand or by some kind of belt, used on chariot or horsemen as well. Both were extremely common too, and apparently made in great numbers.
Likewise, bows and slingshots are poorly attested archeologically safe by the important finds of arrowheads (barbed, sharpened or not), including at Alesia : still they are often mentioned in various texts (DBG, VII, 31 andStrabo's Geography IV, 4, 3). As for javeleens, specialized and trained units of bowmen and slingshooters existed : Ruteni, for instance, provided Caesar with archers during the civil war (DBC I, 51); and the Roman general as well mentioned Gaulish slingshooters during the Gallic Wars as well.
Gaulish infantry was the bulk of the armies, but the cavalry took an important role after the disappearance of the chariot, essentially gathering the aristocratic and warrior elite of Gauls into an heavy cavalry, and many lightly equiped auxiliaries (mounting small horses, half-poneys really), making the horsemen/infantrymen ratio in Gaulish armies estimated being set between 1/5 and 1/2. Their mobility, the thurst power of the heavy cavalry and the harassing attacks of light cavalry equipped with aformentioned lancias made them tactically really important (to the point Caesar simply raised Gaulish cavalries at his side for the civil wars)
Eventually, in the period, a lot of mobilised men probably served as logistic servents : managing cattle and food, repairs, garrison or bridge guard, last ditch defensers, siege diggers, etc. There's few archeological and textual evidence avaible however, so it shouldn't be taken as a well organized and systematized organisation : a big weakness of Gaulish armies were their unability to get sustained over a relatively long period.
It seems, thus, that Gauls were ongoing sort of tactical and logistical specialization born out their own political developments, but as their experience fighting with a renewed pressure from beyond the Rhine and critically Romans, whom military reforms were essentially unnoticed by Gaulish peoples before the Gallic Wars. These changes allowed the relief army at Alesia thus was able to discern possible weakness in Caesar's defensive apparatus; but failing at it, quite likely, at least, because the really complex make-up of the relief army war council had disfavoured an efficient managment without being able, additionally, to work it out with Vercingetorix's forces in the oppidum while the whole plan to "fix" Caesar and attack him in masse was his idea.
As far as we know, Gauls had no artillery at disposal, either defensive or offensive. Gaulish poliorcetics were fairly simple compared to Hellenistic or Roman, while not entierely passive. They knew how to use inciendary weapons, make or destroy bridges, quickly repair defenses, dig tranches, etc. which if were probably limited in -60, got better with the experience fighting Romans (as Vercingetorix' tactics overall does point)
These reconstitutions made by the group Teuta Arverni should give you an idea of the outlook of a Gaulish army (without, unfortunately representation of more light-equipped, bowmen or slingshooters)
I'd strongly suggest to both use other sources than Caesar for the Gallic Wars, such as Strabo, Diodorus, Livy or Plutarch : not because Caesar is unreliable (quite the contrary, he generally is), but because these give more details. You might want, if you can read French, to give a look at these books for more explanations and description of late Gaulish warfare, they are fairly comprehensive, up to date and accessible : the second especially deals with the last stage of Gallic Wars and the strategical and tactical make-up and changes on Gaulish side.
These are less accessible but could be useful to you as supplementary secondary sources, the first on Gaulish warfare, the other partly on the political make-up of Gaulish coalitions.
