Chapter Seven
Who were these new intruders? People of the periphery who had downed a monarch who sat on the throne of Philip and Alexander and led the army with which those monarchs had conquered the world? The other question was how had they done what they had? When Alexander had not long to live in Babylon he received an embassy,1 one of many, from a people who he had briefly encountered soon after coming to the throne and who, when in 335 he was rounding off a Thracian campaign by floating his men across the Danube on skins and canoes, piqued his interest because they claimed the only thing they feared was that the sky might fall on them. Any people in the ancient world could hardly claim a real pedigree unless there was a mystery and these Celts were no exception. The Celtic tongue probably originated as a language developed to facilitate trade along the Atlantic shores of Spain and France forming fully sometime in the second millennium BC (though there are claims for roots going back to the third millennium), before moving east and north, apparently the exact opposite of the expansion of the material culture going the other way.
The typical artifacts of the Celtic iron age, often found in warrior graves and covering the period between the ninth and the fifth centuries, were first uncovered in Austria at a salt-rich Hallstatt. This civilization centred on Austria, Bohemia and Bavaria stretching towards the Rhine, had built on the previous Urnfield culture and was probably influenced by horse-riding steppe peoples who had been migrating west into the plains of Hungary. Extraordinarily rich princely cart burials in southern Germany show how it spread and its connectivity is indicated by the unearthing of many Greek and Etruscan accoutrements for their wine-drinking parties. The lakeside settlement of La Tène in Switzerland highlights a second stage of stylistic development with chariot graves in the Moselle and Meuse river valleys showing the same expansion process for styles that were common to so much of a Celtic world that was to be subsumed by a Roman Empire, massively expanding between the third and first centuries. The practice of throwing La Tène pattern swords, shields and other artifacts into lakes has ensured wonderful finds from central Europe and southern France to the British Isles, despite the fact that the inhabitants of Britain or Ireland were never described as Celts in ancient times by the literate cultures of the south. Controversy continues about how and when the people or their styles travelled, since orthodoxy over various pulses of invasion reaching as far as Britain and Ireland have been largely replaced by more nuanced understanding of dispersal through trade, intermarriage and raiding rather than visions of whole people on the move.
This was a feasting and raiding culture with high-status bards singing the praises of warrior chiefs that had spread far and wide since at least the fourth century when some of these people began to dominate much of the Carpathians and the Danube basin while others were consolidating their position in northern Italy. Many tens of thousands had settled in Italy, Illyria and ancient Pannonia, places peppered with La Tène remains, while their hegemony covered much of west and south-central Europe with a presence felt as far away as the north-west Pontic region of modern Moldavia and the Ukraine and mineral-rich southern Poland as well. However debated the origins and spread of the Celts may be, the literate societies of the Mediterranean were pretty clear about who they meant when they referred to these Gauls or Galatians, people they had been in contact with on and off for centuries. Greeks from the Phocaean colony of Massalia in southern France had been first in their familiarity with peoples who were happy to swap slaves for wine and the intensity of other contacts is most dramatically illustrated at the Heuneburg hillfort in southern Germany, 15-odd miles from both Ulm and the Swiss border where there are unique mud-brick walls with protruding towers that surely must have been the handiwork of travelling Greek engineers familiar with the latest methods of fortification. Less adventurous compatriots of these men had become well acquainted with the Gauls as warriors for hire, fighting in the endemic wars in Magna Graecia between Greeks, Carthaginians, Sicels and Italians with Dionysius I of Syracuse establishing Ancona partly as a good contact point for mercenary recruitment. They had even been seen in combat alongside the Spartans when Dionysius had sent auxiliaries in 370 to fight in her Theban wars.2
Archaeological finds suggest military developments in the fourth and third centuries, with increased use of armour, heavier shields and longer swords that would have suited fighting from horseback, ensuring an enhanced warrior reputation and that a band of this frightening people had sacked the significant city of Rome in the early fourth century was well-known as far afield as Greece. The Gauls who inhabited the countries north of their own Balkan world would have been long known through trade, even if few were cognizant of political realities north of the Danube. Certainly raiding and population movements south of the great river were detected by the end of the fourth century, and there may even have been a considerable state organized around the conjunction of the Danube and Sava. These in fact were probably the people who are noticed roughing up a north Illyrian tribe called the Autariatae who lived in the centre of the Balkans around the Morava valley. There is a story3 that the contest was long and indecisive with the intruders having to stoop to leaving poisoned food behind in their camp for the enemy to find and eat to gain advantage. From 310 the reports of Gallic activity are more convincing in detail and we get names of leaders like Molistomos who overran sufficient Tribelli country, Dardania and Paeonia for Cassander to take notice, thwarting the raiders in the Haemus Mountains. This probe had shown that the Macedonian frontier advertised by Alexander in 335 was still vigorously held, but fifty years down the line things had changed.
When word of the collapse of the stable Macedonian-Thracian state ruled by Lysimachus passed beyond the forests of Thrace and mountains and marshes of Illyria, it found listeners eager to try for the treasures of the civilized south. Even before in 298 the borders had been tested by a warlord called Cambaules, but he only reached Thrace before turning back through fear of the numbers of defending Greeks. Yet this was sufficient to give these northern boys a taste and many of ‘Cambaules’ veterans’ were eager for another crack at a suddenly much more porous border. So another large force was mustered, its numbers enhanced by local warriors of non-Gallic extraction and womenfolk. It is also possible that these movements were encouraged by the arrival of Gauls from Italy like the Senones, who had recently been overwhelmed by the Romans and had escaped east through modern-day Slovenia.4 The idea of peoples on the move in vast numbers has long gone out of fashion when describing the migrations of Celts or Germans from 400 through the Roman era and into the Dark Ages. That small elites or even cultural influences following long-used trade routes as explanations are now more accepted as agents of change, but certainly on this occasion raiders moved south through the Balkans in numbers, whether they were ethnic Celts or an admixture combining with the local Illyrians and Pannonians among whom they had spent the last few generations. Although it might be difficult to tell, torcs offering supernatural protection were common decorations in many cultures and locals joining up might well have copied the moustaches and lime-spiked hair of the successful marauders whose banners they were following while learning enough of the Gallic tongue to get by. Beyond this there are definite reports of 10,000 Dardanians enlisting as well as venal Greeks from near the Malian Gulf and Thessaly, while the story of the blood-drinking Scordisci is particularly indicative; known from the time of Philip V, they are claimed as a hybrid of Celts who retreated from Delphi commingled with Illyrians and Thracians to settle in present-day Serbia at the mouth of the Sava.
Whatever the exact ethnic formula, it is reasonable to assume that they came in very considerable numbers, with thousands upon thousands of raiders draped in plaid cloaks with long oval shields and carrying long vicious swords pouring out of the remote north. They erupted south in 281 and 280, encouraged after tidings reached them that the previously impervious kingdom of Lysimachus had been broken. He had been the dyke who in his recent takeover of Paeonia had reminded anybody thinking of making trouble that he was still very much in charge on this border of the Hellenic world. With the dam ruptured at the Battle of Corupedium, inactivity at the border posts suggested decadence and softness, so wild tribes looking for land and loot coalesced to take advantage, with 85,000 warriors purported to be on the move by 280 at the latest. Coming from the direction of Illyria and Pannonia, long-used riparian trade routes down into the Balkans and Greece that had acquainted them with the delights of the southern littoral now became invasion roads. The Maritza valley route from the Danube down through Thrace would have seen the great body pass before splitting into three waves that would leave hardly any part of the Balkan peninsula untouched. A leader named Cerethrius took 20,000 in the direction of the Tribelli and past them into Thrace; some of these probably sacked Seuthopolis, while another horde under Brennus and Acichorius terrorized Paeonia as Bolgius led more on a different trajectory. It was the last of these, taking advantage of an astonishing exhibition of mismanagement, who piled ruin on the head of the king who had just established himself at Pella.
A different group embarked on a peregrination that started in 279 or 278 that would take them to another continent where the imprint of their name remains to this day. This company may5 have broken away from Brennus’ horde under a couple of adventurous heads named Leonnorius and Lutarius who saw profit calling from the east. Some 20,000 of them, 10,000 being combatants, marched through Thrace demanding money with menaces as they went, arriving at Byzantium where, if they had not already intended to cross to Asia, the talk of the rich country over the Bosporus made up their minds. Having wrung all they could from the surrounding people and finding no transport to cross over the channel, they moved to the Chersonese where they are even reported capturing the old capital Lysimachia ‘by treachery’. The local governor called Antipater in control along the Hellespont agreed to help them cross, but delays caused the fractious raiders to split again, with Leonnorius, the leader of the larger group, heading back to Byzantium where he found Nicomedes, king of Bithynia, willing to ferry his men across on condition they fought in a war with his brother. The rest got over once Antipater finally came through with a few ships, allowing both bands to reassemble for profitable service in Anatolia. However, this conflict that reunited Bithynia was only a staging post for a terrible people who, raging through Phrygia, would not settle until they reached the Halys River, from where they held large swathes of country in their thrall. Yet not everyone was so condemnatory, as there is a claim that they helped democracies in Anatolia: when the local kings tried to suppress them, the Galatians acted ‘by repelling the city’s oppressors’.6 Despite this apparent attempt to make local friends, they were largely celebrated for decades of raiding and mercenary service before Attalus I of Pergamon tamed the descendants of those who had crossed to Asia and confined them to the region known to this day as Galatia.
We may know the names of the leaders that sent shivers down the spines of Macedonians, Thracians and Greeks alike but still search in vain for real personalities. Brennus is the closest that it is possible to get and we are not even sure whether his name is really a title, as surely it is too much of a coincidence that the two most notorious Gallic marauders, one who captured Rome in the very early 300s and one who invaded Greece, would have the same personal name. What this latter Brennus did in Paeonia is unknown, the only clue being one attestation that he ‘made an irruption into Greece’,7 though in the next years he emerges as the crucial figure indignant that many loot-laden Gauls were now looking to return home with so much of the wealth of the Hellenic world left unplundered. Brennus, with war always in his head, opened a real campaign of persuasion, circulating among his independent people at public meetings and in private conversations arguing that in not continuing on to Greece, they had missed a real payday, passing up the votive offerings of gold and silver deposited at the Greek sanctuaries over the centuries. To ensure his audience’s cupidity was not diluted by worrying rumours he threatened to execute any Delphian captives who repeated what they had told him, that many of the statues at the sanctuary were of brass with a thin gold covering. He would have been uncomfortably aware that the more knowledgeable of his chiefs might have known of the depletion of the Delphic treasures during the Sacred Wars and wanted nothing to dull the rapacious gleam in the eyes of the men listening as he extolled the potential payday waiting in the sacred precincts at the navel of the world, the cherry on top of the cake of loot they could expect to acquire in the rest of Greece. Intent on showing that this rich fruit was to be had with almost effortless plucking,8 he gathered as many of his compatriots as he could for an illuminating exhibition. A band of Greek prisoners was then paraded before them. Half-starved from months of captivity with shaved heads and threadbare clothes, these feeble scarecrows shuffled between the rows of his own followers. ‘Stout handsome men, equipped with Gallic armour’, so the comparison was unambiguous, emphasizing what a pushover the enemy defending the booty would be.
Once he had won over the men, eager like meat-famished dogs for wealth earned along a sword’s edge, Acichorius was confirmed as his second-in-command in this smash-and-grab enterprise. The fearsome numbers claimed in the undertaking are frankly unbelievable; not only that these two led between 150,000 and 152,000 infantry and 15,000 to 20,400 horse, but that each cavalryman was supported by two servants who could join the fight to take their master’s place or provide him with a remount when either were wounded or fatigued. The contention that this procedure somehow mirrored the Persian immortals is odd9 but perhaps comprehensible as these new invaders would soon be treading the path followed by Xerxes two centuries earlier. What is far from certain concerning these Gallic intrusions after 280 is whether they were peoples on the move comprising not just armed men but also caravans of waggons laden with household goods followed by women and children. Or were they war bands of young warriors looking for easy pickings from plunder or as mercenaries for hire? The answer must be that they could be either; those that settled in Thrace and Anatolia certainly did bring at least some of their families along, just as their predecessors had done when they arrived in the Danube basin or ventured into Italy from north of the Alps well over a century before. Others we know were purely warrior bands whose members had little disposition to settle themselves where they had overrun, only looking to take away what they could. This other Brennus, making an attempt on the treasure houses of the Hellenic world, would surely have led this kind of fighting gang rather than any kind of people on the move. The numbers given, however, are a grotesque exaggeration. Even a tenth of the figures given would be a stretch, and if forced to venture an estimate it would be at most some few tens of thousands of armed men and if they had waggons in their train it was not to carry possessions and families but to take away the loot they were confident they would soon acquire in the urban centres and religious sanctuaries of Greece.
A path needed to be cleared for this larcenous horde and the first chore of a campaign that started late in the fighting season was to deal with the fragile arrangements put in place since the descent of Bolgius, to try to protect the core of the Macedonian kingdom around Pella and the Axius River country leading down to the Thermaic Gulf. Brennus, running along the tracks taken in the years before, burst in once again to find the only man who stood against him was the general Sosthenes who had managed to raise what was left of Macedonia’s fighting men in an attempt to impede his progress. However, this patched-up army of home defence was defeated and again every soldier who survived with their civilian compatriots fled for the safety of the walled cities. Brennus, though his followers had suffered casualties, was in control and now ravaged the countryside, taking what little had been left from previous trashings. Yet his ambitions were grander and, far from satisfied with what remained of the riches of Macedonia, he pushed on. Having cleaned out the farms and barns along the way, the invaders pressed across the southern borders leaving chaos behind them with the fields untilled and fly-blown corpses of plough teams rotting in the sun. They exited down through the Vale of Tempe, their train of men and waggons so long that by the time the last units passed it would have been evening with the silhouette of Mount Olympus showing dark behind them. They then pressed on with restless violence down into Greece and debouched into the proud old world that retained a glorious reputation, despite a decline in real influence since the rise of Macedon under Philip II. Larissa was passed and the plains of Thessaly covered with bands of rapacious marauders picking up everything that was portable in the rich estates of the horse-riding cattle barons who dominated the region, then down through country where in the past great battles had been fought and would be in the future: at the Crocus Field near Phylace where Philip II bested a Phocian-Athenian alliance; at Crannon between Greeks and Macedonians; at Cynoscephalae where Macedonians and Romans would clash; and Pharsalus where Caesar was destined to confront Pompey the Great in a terrible civil war.
The brutality of the invaders ensured word of their coming was soon circulating south on the wings of rumour, substantiated by hordes of refugees fleeing the Gallic terror. With the advent of these Gauls the future for Greece never looked darker, so despite their usual preoccupation with their own squabbles, local faction leaders now forswore the temptation to work for the ruin of old rivals, class warriors sheathed their rhetoric, ancient grievances between rival cities were shelved and while the invaders poured south, delegates from round central Greece, sober men with solitary inclinations and aware of the jeopardy facing their people, were in communication about the strategy and numbers they would need to confront the approaching menace. Unlike with the invasion of the Persians, they did not have many months to prepare themselves. There could be no question this time of asking for aid from the diaspora. There was no chance of an heir of Gelon, who had been approached in 480, coming to their assistance from Syracuse or from some other place in Magna Graecia. There was just no time to make such kin contacts, never mind for them to mobilize and ride to the rescue. Apart from this, there was little evidence of any lessening of the local bickering that would have made national unity any more probable than 200 years earlier as even this critical invasion scare would not unite everybody on the mainland. Some places were too touchy and provincial to conceive of united action and local anxieties still dominated even the city governments that struggled to coordinate a defence. There was hardly any involvement from the warrior peoples of the Peloponnese; just a few Achaeans came later to help their neighbours over the Gulf of Corinth. Though at least on this occasion the country was not going to be rife with Medizers; even if for some it had made sense to make quisling arrangements with the Empire of Persia to avoid the grim consequences of defeat and conquest, such a procedure was hardly really possible with the Gauls. Xerxes and his followers may have been barbarians but they had been civilized ones; these latest invaders were wolves from who little could be expected except rending and destruction wherever they passed. There may have been some who might have had hopes of paying them off (an arrangement that had, after all, been offered to Ceraunus), and the future would show some individuals would even join up for the grand tour of larceny, but for the moment these weaker links kept their mouths shut.
News of the incursions in the countries to their north had been circulating for long enough to not allow the slightest doubt of the seriousness of the danger and those most threatened knew they had to choose between surrender and fighting. Despite the risks of retribution, they had acted and answering the appeal to preserve the homeland, task forces were dispatched by the citizens of Aetolia, Boeotia, Athens, Phocis and others from central Greece. Alert to how menacing the situation was and in a unusual moment of co-operation, they determined to try to halt the avalanche of terrible northerners who they now knew were on their way. Their wise heads had good knowledge of both their geography and their history and the inevitability of being outnumbered demanded that they find a bulwark, so Thermopylae was decided upon as the natural site to try to stem the tide. Though the traditions10 that provide details of what occurred were bound to indulge in comparison with the earlier existential threat posed by the Persians, the names and numbers given suggest real veracity concerning the confederacy that decided to try to repeat the previous stand at the Hot Gates where history steamed and fizzed like the waters of the springs themselves. Among peoples across central Greece assemblies had met, and with self-defence decided upon they were eager now as arrangements were made for the call-up.
When the men brought down weapons from lofts or took them from their walls and assembled, the names in the air were redolent of ages past when the bronze-clad warriors of old Greece led by heroes shining with intelligence and courage had not flinched to face the greatest empire in the world in a war of epic dimensions. To face this latest test 10,000 hoplites and 500 horse from Boeotia were present under their generals Cephisodotus, Thearidas, Diogenes and Lysander, while the fretful Phocians, who would most immediately bear the brunt of any enemy who penetrated the pass, brought 500 cavalry and 3,000 infantry under Critobulus and Antiochus. Locris, hardly less threatened, sent 700 infantry led by Meidias, while from Megara came 400 hoplites following Hipponicus, the Aetolians, self-appointed protectors of Delphi, led by three generals Polyarchus, Polyphron and Lacrates were mob-handed including 7,000 hoplites, 790 skirmishers and some horsemen. From Athens came Callippus, the son of Moerocles, exemplifying ancient valour dispatched at the head of all the triremes the city could launch, churning up the waters of the Euboean channel with their oars and eager to protect the coastal flank of Thermopylae just as their forebears had at Artemisium during Xerxes’ invasion. Their land forces amounted to 1,000 foot and 500 horse to help defend the pass, enough of a contribution to apparently ensure their leader was given the high command, despite there being royal contingents present dispatched by monarchs who could not shrug aside responsibilities for defending people whose interests they always claimed as close to their hearts. Some 500 mercenaries under Aristodemus the Macedonian were forwarded by Antigonus Gonatus and another 500 officered by a man from Orontes in Syria called Telesarchus were dispatched by Antiochus; not that many, but as full-time warriors able to leaven the inexperience of the citizen soldiers.
This designation of Athenian leadership may well be apocryphal, a contrivance to play up Athenian involvement in an effort to mirror a Herodotean tradition, just like old times with an Athenian slant to put beside the epitaph ‘Go tell them in Sparta, O passer by, that here, in obedience to their orders we lie’.11 Indeed, this Callippus is only otherwise mentioned again during the Chremonidean War and may not have been as important as claimed as no inscriptions confirm his involvement, while the Athenian naval contribution equally could be exaggerated.12 Whoever was in charge by the time this holding force had been led into place, information had already located the invaders at Magnesia and Phthiotis and forward scouts scanning the skyline would have seen great clouds of dust appearing along the horizon in the direction of Thessaly, indicating the time of waiting was over. Learning of this and disdaining just to wait upon events, the Greeks decided on a forward defence along the Spercheus River where it ran down from the Dolopos Mountains to the Malian Gulf. An allied council approved the hazard and all the cavalry and 1,000 light armed men were pushed forward a few miles, determined to make the river crossing as costly as possible for the intruders. Swiftly traversing familiar paths, on reaching the river they looked up from the banks to see the enemy columns not far away, but still they had time to break down the bridges and encamp along the southern bank. Their hope was that the foe would be predictable in their ignorance of tactical expertise and in making a wild rush would expose themselves to being overcome in detail while in the process of crossing the river. However, Brennus was a capable military leader and learning what was waiting for his army he sent 10,000 of his best swimmers and tallest men down river towards the sea near where its waters joined the gulf. There the defenders had taken no precautions, thinking the lakes and marshes would be impassable, but the active men in this detachment either waded or swam across with some using their shields as rafts. Things had looked promising to begin with but now their enemy’s enterprise was too much for the Greeks. When they realized they would soon have to face men who had already crossed over the river and were coming at them unobstructed, there was no longer any suggestion of maintaining a forward line. They pulled back in good order, returning safely to the main defences at Thermopylae having discovered the baleful reality that their opponents were cunning as well as terrifying.
The invaders pressed their advantage with enthusiasm, utilizing the locals, eager enough to see the intruders on their way, to rebuild the bridges so the whole army could cross over this last major obstacle between them and the army blocking the way. They continued marching south, trashing the countryside as they went, until they passed by Heraclea in Trachis and if they failed to take the city itself, well defended by a garrison of steady Aetolians who had recently welcomed the place into their league, they were able to pause to rest by the Asopus River. Giving up on the well-walled town, they swarmed forward, on and on, aiming to crash through at Thermopylae and reach the riches of central Greece. The Gauls clearly had their sympathizers as deserters kept Brennus well-informed about the enemy he was about to encounter and, feeling confident in his numbers, he thrust forward towards the pass. However much their totals were exaggerated by our sources, there would still have been sufficient for the earth to shake as they drove forward before showing a great haze of smoke from pluming fires as they settled into their forward camp.
The Greeks manning the walls they had managed to repair in the brief time they had been there would have had cause for panic at the intimidating sight, but were able to keep such fears in check as they ordered their lines with previous regional hatreds sufficiently suppressed to ensure cohesion. They were well-officered by men tutored in the martial arts from absorbing tactical manuals and listening to peripatetic military instructors and weapons experts, attentive pupils who knew well how to use to best effect the troops that were present. Light infantry were deployed so their javelins, slings and arrows could have the most impact against attackers, many of whom were unarmoured, while the hoplites were deployed in phalanx formation, keeping an eerie silence that unnerved an enemy used to attacking while screaming war cries at the top of their voices. In this time of fear at least they were comfortable in their formations and if the normal pattern was adhered to, seven files stood behind the front-rank men, those rearward prepared to replace wilting and bloodied comrades used up by holding the line under a broiling sun. With comrades tucked in snugly to protect their flanks, it was a wall robust enough to break up the enemy attacks: ‘When they came to close quarters, the infantry did not rush out of their line far enough to disturb their proper formation.’13 Steady and determined with shimmering light waves flickering from the brisling mass of spearheads, these men were still relieved they would not have to face the enemy cavalry who were always some of the most effective soldiers. There was no room for wheeling horsemen to manoeuvre between the looming cliffs and the sea and much of the ground comprised smooth rocks covered by running water that would have made it difficult for horses to keep their feet.
This time there was no embassy with a proposal that the Greeks could pay them off as had been offered to the Macedonians; the invaders wanted everything these people had, not just some tithe to leave them alone. Anyway, since they had emerged out of their Pannonian and Illyrian habitats and through the Balkan passes they had experienced only thumping victory and nothing now suggested history would not repeat itself. Even if they were surprised at the combined front facing them, given their knowledge of the usual interminable feuding and snarling backstabbing habits of the Greeks, it gave them little pause.
So as the sun showed, Brennus hurled his warriors forward. The shock force approached, showing on the narrow plain in front of the defenders: a ground filled with a ferocious enemy sufficient to chill the blood, reaching to within a few hundred yards of the defensive line before increasing their speed as they got closer, then it was into a jog as the first knots of northern warriors reached the wall and tried to smash it down. Yet it was no easy task in the face of obdurate men whose forbidding visages could be perceived behind their shields, stabbing again and again at any sword-swinging attacker who approached them. Grimly resolved to stand firm in this historic corridor against a lethal threat, the example of 300 iron-hard Spartans and their hero king Leonidas were in the forefront of many minds as the enemy poured forward, filling the gap between the tree-pocked cliffs of Mount Callidromus and the marshy salt water rolling up the beach. They maintained discipline against increasing pressure, crowding in behind their stout shields and spearing where they could see an opening to reach the head or torso of the enemy fighters raising their weapons in preparation for a slashing blow. Men fell on both sides, crushed to death by enemies and comrades alike, but more of the attackers. They were less well-protected and less adept at keeping formation in such a head-on fray. Natural duellists, most were intent on isolating an opponent and hacking him down, but the encounter was not like this; in the closeness of the setting it was impossible to find the space needed. All it could ever be was a frontal assault against well-drilled armoured hoplites whose very raison d’être was this kind of fighting and who from early on realized they had the measure of their foe.
As the outlandishly apparelled horde surged forward, the sun picked out the glittering chain mail armour of the Gallic leaders through the morning haze while below a cloud of dust, high horns, shaped into animal heads, blasted out their singular cacophony. Yet with only their narrow shields for protection many attackers blanched under a hail of blows from spears and missiles while the rest were troubled by the solidity of the unbroken line of defenders facing them toe to toe. Yet bravery was a given, so they came on in fearsome assaults, ranks bunching together as the stones and javelins picked them off, and ferocity was apparent as they ground implacably forward: ‘Slashed with axe or sword they kept their desperation while they still breathed; pierced by arrow or javelin, they did not abate of their passion so long as life remained.’14 Their wounded, drawing out the spears that skewered them, fought on, even using the same weapons that had hurt them to throw or stab at the enemy. Like the Medes, Persians and Sakai centuries before, with no way round the flanks they exhausted their bodies and expended their blood against a barrier that would not give way and this was not the worst; steady at their station offshore the Athenians’ warships cruised along the muddy waters of the coast ‘and raked them’ with deadly accurate arrows, javelins and slingshot.
Among those who fell under Gallic swords in this thunderous assault was an Athenian who showed particular courage in holding the battle line. He was a youngster called Cydias who was so marked out as a hero that his family dedicated his shield to Zeus with the following inscription: ‘Here hang I, yearning for the still youthful bloom of Cydias, The shield of a glorious man, an offering to Zeus. I was the very first through which at this battle he thrust his left arm, When the battle raged furiously against the Gaul’,15 which apparently could still be seen in the time of Sulla’s siege of Athens in 86–87. In these minutes fraught with incident and jeopardy, he had died a true hero and the courage of the young soldier and his peers would be recollected as long as stories were told or accounts read in their home districts. If Athens already had Marathon as the gold standard of courage and civic sacrifice, for other places this now would be that encounter where all who had fought there would be held up as exemplars. Altogether it was not immediately clear who was having the better of the fight, but the defenders, their ash spears stabbing like the flicking tongues of thousands of snakes, fought with such valour and skill that ‘The Celts were in unspeakable distress, and in the confined space they inflicted few losses but suffered twice or four times as many.’16 The weight of numbers was not telling, even in the moments of absolute collision, and many of those fallen wounded among their comrades or just exhausted from pointless battering against the Greek shield wall must have felt they had been fed a line when Brennus spiced his recruiting efforts with displays of feeble and dishevelled Greek prisoners, an appreciation that if for the moment did not impact would in time rebound on its author.
Men began to seep away from the rear of the attacking column, while in the front blood-spattered and wearied men flinched when ordered back into the fray. Finally hopes of victory dimmed until they had had enough and their chiefs had no option but to give the signal for recall from the battle line, first to catch a breath and then to find some succour in their camp. Some even lost their lives in the crush as they attempted to escape the terrible combat they found themselves in, while their enemies continued their deadly labour. ‘Many others fell into the swamp and disappeared under the mud. Their loss in the retreat was no less than the loss that occurred while the battle raged.’17 The first test had been passed, and resting under the canopy of a night-time sky illuminated by an autumn moon, the defenders, after removing panoplies and dressing wounds, could congratulate themselves on having held the pass. The hefty white bodies of the attackers lying in piles were soon despoiled of anything of value, while the forty Greek dead were buried and their wounded tended with the defenders only confirmed in their contempt for the invaders when they left their corpses for the carrion, not even sending a herald to ask for permission to remove them for proper ritual. Not being familiar with the Gauls’ particular version of sacred magic, they already assumed these barbarians were far from properly pious from their failure to practice divination before the fight and this final failure of civilized practice confirmed prejudices ingrained by centuries of cultural programming.
Could they hope to continue to hold the line against this impious scourge? For a time after the bloody repulse Brennus was baffled, staring over the field of blood at the unbroken ranks of his enemies, firm behind their defences and clearly prepared to stay as long as necessary. One day passed without attack and then another shredding nerves among the defenders, who knowing their enemies were not going away wondered what was afoot. The deadlock had lasted seven days when after a council of war Brennus considered the option of another frontal assault. Deciding against this, he resolved to try strategy against his unwavering foe, choosing to emulate the Persian king who had come this way before, though his flanking force was directed to take a different route to the one the egregious traitor Ephialtes had shown to Xerxes, one that led towards Mount Oeta before turning off along a narrow track around the walls of Heraclea in Trachis, perched above the rock-cut Asopus River. Typically for this army of banditti, this was not all about strategy; the Gauls had also heard of riches deposited in a sanctuary to Athena in the locality. Yet as if following a hallowed script, when the chosen Gauls pushed along the trail they discovered a force led by Telesarchos, the officer sent by Antiochus, barring their way so, just like Hydarnes leading his Persian immortals, this later flanking expedition found itself blocked by armed men. However, unlike those guardians from an earlier age who withdrew to a nearby knoll and let the attackers pass by, those these Gauls encountered stood firm across their track, despite in the ferocious contest that ensued, their commander was soon dropped in his own gore. Hours of fighting could not clear a path through the guardians’ ranks, so with their flanking move aborted, the survivors returned to Brennus’ camp.
If history had not repeated itself in his favour, the Gallic chief was determined that the campaign should not be overwhelmed by any sense of drift, particularly with such a multitude to feed and a primitive commissariat ensuring belts would soon have to be tightened and he resolved to find another stratagem up his sleeve. True, the confederacy of Greeks had proved confident, brave and rock-solid so far, but these were people who had not long since been at each others’ throats and a ruse suggested itself, an opportunity to rend their alliance into pieces. As his men rested and tended their wounds, it was decided to test this show of solidarity. Brennus and his officers knew enough of their enemies to play on their weakness: that however much they considered themselves Greeks, it was always their individual city or people that in the final analysis came first. So they would foster division by dispatching a force in the direction of Aetolia, expecting this to persuade their soldiers defending the narrows to depart in an effort to preserve their threatened homes. The detachment was claimed as numbering 40,000 foot and 800 horse under a couple of chiefs called Orestorius and Combutis who left the camp in an interminable column of men, retracing their steps past the looming cliffs by the sea to reach the crossings over the Spercheus River before branching left and rounding a shoulder of mountains in the direction of Callium. Once there they began to burn and butcher, leaving the country they travelled through under a pall of black billowing smoke greasy with burned human and animal flesh. Understanding the concept of psychological warfare, they encouraged the flesh-crawling reports of their drinking blood and eating babies that fuelled a rising tide of terror, while their outrages against the local women were spoken of as the trigger for numerous suicides. Horror at their deeds sped word of their passing and eye-witness accounts from those finding refuge in flight gave dramatic evidence of barbarian brutality that would inevitably be the fate of all Aetolia if the invaders were allowed to penetrate further. With fear for families and loved ones pervading the ranks, the Aetolians holding in the pass reacted exactly as the perpetrators intended. ‘At once they raced back from Thermopylae’, and when these seasoned warriors travelling past Elateia in Phocis and through Doris reached home, they found that all the reserves of young and old men had been called out to defend the motherland: ‘Their very women gladly served with them, being even more enraged against the Gauls than were the men.’18
Raiding in the direction of Aetolia and advertising their presence by awful cruelty, the Gauls ensured that the Aetolians, faced with a prospect from their worst nightmares, called their best men back home, but having achieved their purpose and then reversed their march they found they had stirred up a hornets’ nest. Achaean hoplites who shipped over from Patrae had linked up with the locals and, gathering in sufficient numbers to take on the intruders, they deployed, determined on revenge. Catching them on the march while the armoured spearmen occupied the invaders in a frontal fight, the Aetolians supported by their women flailed the enemy with incessant missile fire from the flanks before melting back into the woods or rocks. So despite roughly handling the hoplites in their front, when the Gauls continued to withdraw it was only to find themselves pursued by an eager and dangerous enemy. Aware of the need to keep out of the range of the enemy swords, the Aetolians skirmished from a distance and it is asserted that no more than half the invaders were able to get back to the main force at Thermopylae, the rest falling ‘along every road’ to the projectiles of the inhabitants. Yet the battered and bloody task force, trailing its comet’s tail of missile-pierced corpses already crawling with carrion flies, had done what was asked of them. What is not reported is what the others thought when the Aetolians declared their intention to leave. Many of these Greeks had long histories of rivalry, sometimes including instances of shocking outrages against each other, so it is difficult to believe that accusations of treachery were not bandied about, particularly after they had recently heard that locals from Thessaly and elsewhere had actually joined the invaders’ ranks. Yet we not only do not hear of any such thing; there is no mention of any inter-allied tension in the fighting to come. None had an interest in destabilizing the confederation; all were too aware of the ever-present danger that the alliance might fragment and then dissolve, sinking any chance of success, to be critical of any one member’s decision-making.
Once it was confirmed that the defenders’ numbers were significantly reduced, Brennus determined on another attack, but still not feeling that his opponents had been sufficiently diminished for a direct assault it was decided to attempt yet another flanking move. The Gallic high command had been apprised of another path, less steep than the one leading above Heraclea in Trachis, that instead proceeded over Mount Oeta and skirted Aeniania before joining the track that the Persians had used in the fatal year of 480. The locals around the Gallic camp were prepared to do anything to be rid of their unwelcome guests who were stripping out every barn and orchard they owned, so self-interest trumped any patriotism as they offered guides to lead them up and over the mountains. Brennus took the lead now in what he intended as the decisive blow after leaving his lieutenant Acichorius in charge of the main army with instructions to attempt another onslaught when the flanking force had got behind the Thermopylae defences. Taking a detachment that again is claimed to comprise some 40,000 men, they attempted the highland path, a journey that took them first a few miles west, tens of thousands of feet pounding along the shore in a cloud of dust beside the sparkling sea, before the hike around the pass was truly begun with the sweating men climbing higher and higher until a thick and threatening mist came rolling down, masking the sunshine. This was troubling to men who had never travelled these difficult wooded paths before, but they huddled together and for hours kept on and on. Difficult as the shadow-darkened terrain was, as they breasted oak- and pine-covered ridges where leaves and twigs crunched underfoot, it became clear the lack of visibility gave them an advantage, as stumbling through the mist-shrouded trees, the Gauls found themselves confronted by a Phocian formation posted in their way on a stretch of open greensward. These men were surprised and rolled over almost before they knew it. The sound of surprised sentries shouting warnings broke the silence as the rest of the defenders, though appalled by the danger, struggled to grab their shields and spears with little choice but to brace themselves for a gallant last stand. It turned into a frightful combat with just-formed Phocian spearmen confronting big-boned, be-torqued swordsmen emerging from the gloom. Outnumbered and far from fully aware of their attackers’ whereabouts or intentions, they were forced back and out of the path of the onrushing column, though the delay at least allowed time for runners to carry bleak news of the imminent blood-red danger sweeping towards the main confederate forces in the pass.
The Greeks in Thermopylae did not panic, but nothing could hide what was self-evident: they could still see the extensive enemy camp in front from which at any time a tidal wave of Gauls might howl into the assault and now it was only hours before another teeming detachment would arrive in their rear. The implication for the stalwarts there was clear: it was only ever by fighting on one front that they had any hope of surviving, so in near-desperate alarm they realized the defence of the pass was no longer tenable and all they could do was to make provisions to ensure they were not surrounded and annihilated. It was an almost exact mirror of the earlier Persian assault, except this time rather than most of the defenders withdrawing down the pass leaving the doomed Spartans, Thespians, exiled Thebans and helots to make their heroic last stand, instead they all packed up their arms and baggage as the adept mariners of the Athenian fleet, as if in answer to their prayers, came to the rescue. As the war cries and flashing spear tips of the flanking Gauls came into sight, the Greek warriors massing along the beach were hauled aboard in a fighting withdrawal through the marshy shallows to escape an enemy determined to drive them into the sea and seize and burn any ships they could capture. With boat decks crowded with rescued soldiers, the warships backwatered out of the Malian Gulf and manoeuvred down the Euboean channel, conveying each national detachment back to their homes intent on spearheading the resistance of communities haunted by the question, would they be next to face an increasingly imminent Gallic menace?
The Hot Gates were clear and Brennus did not hesitate; without waiting for the forces under Acichorius to catch up, having descended to the shore he ordered his officers to press on along an invasion road to Delphi. The target they were in motion to reach after plundering the rest of the riches of Locris and Phocis was a sacred precinct, home of Apollo for most of the year and where glimpses of the future might be mistily perceived. It nestled in the pine-clad heights of Mount Parnassus that were themselves sacred to the god Pan and the Muses, where Orpheus learned his licks from Apollo and young Odysseus came to grief in a boar hunt, leaving him with a recognizably scarred thigh.19 The town was situated in a steep and defensible place, ‘not walls, but precipices, not defences formed by the hand, but by nature, protect the temple and the city’.20 Near the centre was a great natural amphitheatre where echoes from shouts and blaring trumpets, constantly repeated and increasing in volume, were interpreted by ignorant visitors as an awful illustration of the powers of Apollo, while winding up the hill the sacred fissure itself is found ‘for a cold exhalation, driven upwards by some force, as it were by a wind, produces in the minds of the priestesses a certain madness, and compels them, filled with the influence of the god, to give answers to such as consult them.’21 Since time immemorial, people had come to ask guidance of the oracle from the hugely rich Croesus of Lydia to proud king Tarquin of Rome and the tyrants of Syracuse; all beat a path to Delphi and the cities and states of mainland Greece, the islands and coastal Asia Minor regularly sent envoys to receive either mischievous riddles or at best highly ambiguous advice during key moments of communal crisis. Nor was it just rich fees for the service of the priestess (Pythia), but temple dedications of precious metals that were deposited from the loot of warfare from half the world. The devout and the expectant came either across the plains of Boeotia and Phocis to reach this greatest of cult centres or disembarked from the Gulf of Corinth at the port of Cirrha to make the short journey up to the sanctuary.
Delphi had suffered disasters in the past: as early as the mid-sixth century, fire had consumed Apollo’s temple, and even before that there had begun a centuries-long sequence of destructive Sacred Wars. It was horror from the start when the Amphictyonic League (‘league of neighbours’, organized originally to manage the affairs of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi) states attacked Cirrha, the port of Delphi, blaming them for harassing pilgrims but really wanting their land, and cursed annihilation followed an assault against a population weakened by hellebore added to the city wells. More than 100 years later, a Pericles-inspired Athens backed the Phocians destructively contesting with a Spartan-sponsored coalition of locals to control the sacred places. It was the third war in over ten years in the 350s and 340s that saw the most terrible desecration when the Phocians, stirred up by a fine demanded by the Amphictyonic League, dared to risk anathema by seizing many of Apollo’s treasures to fund mercenary armies. Some 10,000 looted talents translated into an army of 10,000 mercenaries, paid premium rates to overcome any scruples about ‘dirty money’, that allowed them to punch considerably above their weight in central Greece in opposition to a Thebes intent on humiliating a hated neighbour. Years of conflict ended finally with the eruption of Macedonian power, first south of the Vale of Tempe and later below Thermopylae, that merged into a conflict with an Athenian-Theban alliance that ended at the Battle of Chaeronea. Dramatic stories littered these years, with a Phocian leader throwing himself to his death off a mountain rather than be captured after being injured in battle, leaving his second-in-command Onomarchos to salvage the army by liquidating his opponents and sequestering their property.
Phocians stripping the temple treasuries to fund their military had been bad enough, but at least they had been Greeks who honoured the home of Apollo; they respected the Pythia, even if they tried to manipulate her, and had an interest in preserving a place they knew had such importance for the whole Hellenic world. Now the terrible host approaching on the pilgrim road was intent not on leaving riches behind but on taking everything away. Crossing Phocis had been easy until the Gallic army reached the walls of the Parnassus range that came as a real shock. Jagged limestone ridges that reached heights of 8,000ft showed ahead and the roads they were crowding down seemed to threaten the possibility of ambush at every turn, a region that looked more like the habitation of wild beasts than sophisticated men dripping with the precious possessions they were after. Not that they had not seen plenty of mountains before in Illyria, Thrace and Macedonia, but this was not the soft country they had been promised. For nearly 10 miles they snaked along with Brennus and his officers at their head, a Gallic command that was careful as they travelled the unfamiliar and threatening valleys, sending out scouts who would have warned them that despite seeing so few inhabitants on the immediate approach, a considerable force was waiting in defence of Delphi.
Along with now knowing they would have to fight for the treasures of the gods came the realization of how difficult this might be. The narrow road pushing below a mountain ridge made their immediate approach to their target deeply problematic; even the small number of hoplites on hand for defence could easily fill the passage that the Gauls needed to push through and there seemed no way round as coming up from the valley below entailed climbing something like a cliff that could hardly be assailed even if it was only lightly held. As the designs on the hoplite shields and bristling spears came in sight, Brennus was in two minds, calculating whether to attack immediately or allow his exhausted men to rest overnight before sending them in to the attack. Spokesmen from the Aenianians, Greeks living west of the Malian Gulf and Thessalians, who had joined the Gauls in a murky compact when they traversed their country and who knew the foes they were challenging, were eager to attack straight away so as not to give the defenders a breathing space to receive further reinforcements, organize themselves and block the approaches with stone walls. It was indiscipline in the ranks that eventually decided the matter as many of Brennus’ warriors dispersed over the country, finding wine and food in the houses and barns that the locals had left behind at the behest of the oracle, suggestive of a stratagem against people notorious for liking a drink and one that achieved exactly what was intended.
So it was perhaps with surprise that many of the defenders realized they had been granted a temporary reprieve, allowing the inhabitants of the country who had fled to Delphi to arm themselves to aid in guarding the home of Apollo, to integrate with the allied soldiers who had arrived almost at the last minute. These locals had not been abandoned to their fate; Phocians from all over had appeared eager to make amends for the sack of Delphi by Philomelos in 356 that started the Third Sacred War, as had 400 hoplites from Amphissa a few miles to the north-west. To back them up were some Aetolians who soon found themselves reinforced by 1,200 more of their compatriots under another Philomelos. What of the rest of these formidable people? They had not been dilatory, but had redirected their steps through Doris to harass Acichorius as he moved with the main army through the Hot Gates into Phocis and now they continued to pin him down, delaying decisively any attempt to follow his leader’s orders and press swiftly on past Thermopylae with all his remaining men and the baggage containing the invaders’ already accumulated loot. If many Aetolians would not be present to defend Delphi itself, they at least made sure that Acichorius’ horde would find no easy pickings in central Greece or reach Brennus in time to offer the crucial reinforcements he looked for.
So it was just what was left of his own detachment that had travelled the mountain track behind Thermopylae that Brennus could bring to the battle. Not even all of these were in the best of moods, believing the upcoming contest was not what they had been led to expect. Greece had been advertised as a sunny land of easy pickings, but now they found themselves between threatening, craggy promontories, ramparts of jagged and fissured rocks where the wind whipped through gusts of snow and frost lay white on the terrain that might conceal lurking enemies. Yet these disappointed men knew they had to fight; they may have been hoping to get rich quick, but now thoughts were concentrated almost as much on survival as they wound up the track towards the complex of buildings, religious and secular, that made up the sacerdotal centre of Delphi. The position must have seemed like Thermopylae all over again, but now there was no possibility of an outflanking movement; all that could be attempted was a battering assault against men at the edge of mortality who called on all they knew to try to increase their chances against an enemy they saw massing in apparently irresistible might. The large round shield carried by each defender covered not just himself but his comrade on his left, meaning perfect confidence in the next man was required in an atmosphere where savage yells etched the air and reminded the Greeks of the worst stories they had heard of Gallic fury as the whole weight of Brennus’ horde swept forward like a terrible beast of prey eager to feast on the farmers and artisans manning the hoplite line to their front.
Even if the numbers in Brennus’ raiding party were exaggerated, the defenders were still facing monstrous odds with troops from different places, among whom spite had been the theme of ages, trying to coordinate in the face of annihilation. Still, it helped that in the lull before the storm, as the hoplites hefted the shields and levelled their spears and the light troops prepared their missiles, word went round that divine figures, gods, ghosts and phantoms, guardians of the sacred places, had been seen inspiring the struggle against the impious intruders who were determined on stealing what belonged to the gods. ‘Two priests, as well as the priestesses themselves, with their hair loose, and with their decorations and fillets, rushed, trembling and frantic, into the front ranks of the combatants’,22 yelling encouragement that they had seen Apollo himself leap down into his temple, seconded by Artemis and Athena appearing in armour and carrying bows to the sound of clashing arms. That there is a tradition of heavenly intervention is inevitable in such a hallowed place as Delphi where the gods would always be near and it is easy to imagine the rumours of sanctified assistance causing a surge of confidence among people already animated in defence of their homes and families. The assistance of the gods was always a mystery, but it was not to be sniffed at, particularly here at the portal to the celestial world.
Some of the attackers were still under the influence of a night spent drinking wine, so went forward uphill towards the enemy with enthusiasm and little ‘fear of danger’, while others were hungry, yet more hung-over and some not a little resentful that they were having to fight for their lives when they should have been piling up their waggons with loot. Yet all had been raised tough and had the confidence of born warriors, while to enhance their motivation, ‘Brennus, to rouse the courage of his men, pointed to the vast quantity of spoil before them, declaring that the statues, and four-horse chariots, of which a great number were visible at a distance, were made of solid gold’23 as they approached the 4,000-odd defenders in a formidable defensive position blocking their way. Jostling lines wavered and bent as biting winds whistled down between the crags, blowing out the plaid cloaks of one side and bristling the horsehair helmet plumes of the other. The front ranks crashed together with spears splintering and the attackers trying to break the enemy with great slashing sword strokes or lance thrusts and the Greeks defying all behind their wall of shields. Holding firm, the defenders found themselves not just aided by divine apparitions but by nature itself. It was said that part of the mountain fell on a section of the Gallic line, which sounds improbable, though a modern sign near the approach to the archaeological site does warn of falling rocks, suggesting that seismic intervention was not impossible. All this was while an increasing storm of wind and hail lashed the attackers, leaving their wounded in great discomfort. Hardly able to hear the orders of their officers, there were stories of warriors struck by lightning and that they too saw the apparition of heroic Greek divinities fighting beside their enemies.
Not that the casualties were only on one side: Greeks fell too and a Phocian warrior named Aleximachos was noticed falling to a fatal wound as the hero of the defence, so that a statue of him was later dedicated in the sanctuary to Apollo, but it was worth the sacrifice as it was their gods they were defending against northern demons; a crusade against warriors of the dark. After desperate combat, the sides fell apart with the attackers fading back to collapse fatigued in their temporary camp formed among the dark masses of the mountains, while the Greeks, pressing forward, moved in close to prevent the invaders from foraging for the provender they now so desperately needed. Scattering to settle down to try to sleep with little order kept and with minimal defences built, the Gauls spent a dreadful night in such terror and panic that some, thinking a huge Greek host was attacking them, started slashing at each other. It turned out it was not just imagination because as the sky began to lighten the following day, it became clear that the enemy was in no mood to leave them alone. Picking themselves up from the hard frosty ground, limbs cramped and minds hardly rested, the Gauls knew they must arm themselves for another bout of fighting. Those mandated as piquets were already raising the alarm as slingshot and javelins screamed out of the dawn into the sleeping ranks as Brennus and his officers fabricated a fighting line.
The Greeks came on, deep files of men behind their solid round shields, with only their eyes showing between rim and helmet, while Brennus led from the front with a bodyguard of tall, brave warriors slashing wildly with their long swords to hold back the spearmen driving their weapons at their torsos. He and the other chiefs would have been much better protected in fine mail shirts and decorated helmets, but they suffered too as the defenders utilized home advantage. Local men who knew every track and passable ledge led their peltasts and other light infantry beneath the broken crags, edging their way along rock shelves to get above their enemies and once in place they loosed volleys of missiles against the unguarded flanks and heads of an enemy who could not get back at them. The impact was immediate and the Greeks, revitalized, exploited this real advantage, which rather more than any airy apparitions counted as the armoured hoplites stood against the Gallic fury. Soon they were able to take the initiative with the Phocians in the lead. Sternly ordered forward, they launched an attack against the wavering enemy line that was bunching up as many tried to turn their shields to protect against the slings, javelins and arrows that were lashing them both from the wings and above where the Greek skirmishers had found positions of prominence in country they knew so well.
The Gauls were struck on their unprotected bodies or where there were weaknesses in their armour and those wounded, even if carried back out of the fight, could find no comfort in a world of frost and snow. Pushed to and then past breaking-point, the sweat-soaked and blood-flecked northerners were soon in open retreat and the Greeks saw an opportunity to rend at the heart of the sacrilegious intruders who had intended to loot their holy places. Paeans were raised and spread along the lines as a tide of hoplites swept forward past the bodies of the wounded men put out of their misery by comrades who could no longer carry them away. They followed an enemy who were hoping to find a stronger position where they could make a stand and recoup their strength, but discovered they were not allowed any such breathing space as they retreated, picking their way through unfamiliar terrain. Things may not have gone to plan but at least the Gauls could hope to get out with their lives, despite knowing their foes were shadowing the route they were bound to take, waiting to strike. There was little chance to get up speed, burdened as they were with casualties and needing to protect themselves at every step. If not exactly inching, still it was slow progress, picking their way over an unfamiliar route with groups fragmenting in an atmosphere close to panic, with so many having lost confidence in leaders who seemed to have no answer to the enemy tactics. Clan leaders and tribal chiefs might push the men in their war bands to hold their ranks and drive back the puny southerners who were daring to attack them, but few took notice. For the Greeks it was now hit and run, ceaselessly harrying a tormented enemy with stones and javelins, tactics in which the Aetolians particularly excelled.
‘Scorched thresholds testify to Brennus’ sacrilege, attacking the Pythian kingdom of Apollo, the unshorn god: and then Parnassus shook its laurel-crowned summit, and scattered fearful snow over the army of Gaul.’24 It had been terrible, a sure sign of the anger of the gods with reports of 6,000 Gauls falling in battle and the loss of a further 4,000 in the wintry storms and panic that followed; an overstatement, but one suggestive of how roughly the intruders had been handled. Nor was this anything like the end, and even if we question that another 10,000 starved to death on the road, the interlopers without doubt suffered constant harassment during their retreat. The survivors, dead-eyed and exhausted, found and joined up with Acichorius who had been delayed on his journey by the attentions of the Aetolians wanting payback for the losses their people had suffered when the Gauls trashed their country. The whole army, thirsty and hungry, now pressed on to make camp near the town of Heraclea in Trachis, a nightmare march not helped because of the attentions of the Athenians who had found out from their agents what had happened at Delphi and with no cautious voices heeded and all possible men mobilized, they hurried through Boeotia, picking up local soldiers on the way to unite with the pursuers coming from the sanctuary: ‘Thus the combined armies followed the barbarians, lying in wait and killing those who happened to be the last.’25 The Athenians had taken the road north to join others committed to revenge, ensuring the invaders left their blood to mingle with the earth they had hoped to conquer.
The image of the heroic Gaul or Galatian was made concrete after Attalus of Pergamon commemorated his victory over one of the bands despoiling Anatolia in the 230s by the dedication of groups of sculptures. One in Pergamon itself and another on the Acropolis at Athens that is reported26 standing next to a statue of Olympiodorus. Roman copies can still be seen of these noble, uncorrupted savages who in defeat could become particularly appealing to people who loved their own sophistication but knew they had lost something in the transition from the simple days of their ancestors. One of the most impressive is the Ludovisi Gaul housed in the Museo Nazionale di Roma, Palazzo Altemps depicting a warrior stabbing himself while supporting his dying woman. Whether Brennus expressed such a forceful combination of naturalism and theatricality in his own passing is unknown, but having been wounded in the fighting at Delphi the tradition is well-established that he died on the road by taking his own life. Dragged down in ruin by puny Greeks, the outcome was not uncharacteristic among Gallic leaders when they had aroused their countrymen’s anger by military failure. Fiasco had to find a target of blame to satisfy his testy followers and with his officers intent on finding excuses for themselves, it is unsurprising that he had to shoulder the responsibility. With it came self-destruction, though the method is uncertain, ranging from drinking himself to death with unwatered wine to ending it all with a knife when in unendurable pain from a wound. In whichever way, so perished the second famous Brennus, the only one of the Gallic chiefs of this period whose name lived long in the memory.
That Brennus had been wounded is no surprise as he was very far from alone with 10,000 injured warriors carried or hobbling back from the Greek campaign. These survivors and their intact comrades accomplished the hazardous journey north, despite after crossing back over the Spercheus River the stragglers were pounced on by local Thessalians and Malians eager for retribution. The details of their woes on this trail of tears entail nothing but terrible hardships; that they had already consumed most of their food and wine meant that famine dogged their steps and their suffering was enhanced by rain, frost and fatigue in the open where they were unable to find shelter or peace to sleep and were consumed by fear of the enemy falling on their rear. All this was compounded by guerrilla attacks from the people whose country they crossed, where laggards were finished off and no rest was to be had before they left Greece behind. Many more would have succumbed during the retreat, though ‘that not a Gaul returned home in safety’27 is clearly hyperbole; their assailants would have become sated with slaughter well before such a complete extirpation could have been accomplished.
Much of all this was far-fetched yarns repeated to comfort traumatized victims as it was clear that a large proportion of the invaders saved themselves, many dispersing all the way back to Illyrian and Pannonian homes, despite receiving hard knocks on the road when they passed through Dardania. There were a people reportedly living in Illyria who were plagued by the vengeance of Apollo for taking part in the attack on Delphi; they came home to a land where the rivers and streams were filled with numberless frogs producing vapours that led to a devastating plague. Others seem to have travelled even further, sufficient for a legend to arise that booty from Delphi made its way to Tolosa, modern-day Toulouse in France.28 Some 15,000 talents of silver and gold were hoarded there before being filched by a particularly grasping Roman proconsul called Quintus Servilius Caepio who, cursed by his actions, suffered by his army being annihilated by the Cimbri at the Battle of Arausio, a holocaust that fittingly saw this deeply unpleasant man stripped of his citizenship and driven into exile. Other bands of survivors joined compatriots who had continued trashing Thrace and parts of Macedonia before running up against Antigonus Gonatus or under Comontorius enjoying a lucrative protection racket at the expense of Byzantium before setting up the short-lived kingdom of Tylis in Thrace, probably in the Haemus Mountains in what is now Eastern Bulgaria.
The Greeks were still in shock in the wake of the violent fury of the Gauls’ attack when realization dawned at last that the threat was over, they had cleared the invaders out of their homeland and that age’s heroes could return to their homes without fear. It had seemed a dazzling triumph, yet there are question marks; how otherwise to explain stories like the Tolosa treasure, clearly suggesting that Delphi was sacked, even if the polluted looters were driven off afterwards? Was their departure before or after they had got their hands on Apollo’s riches? What some Hellenistic powers would become uncomfortably aware of was that the people who year by year had gained in power and reputation by the retelling of this campaign were the Aetolians. Admiration for their stirring resolve was general, despite the fact that they had left their post at Thermopylae to return and defend their homeland and however unorthodox their guerrilla tactics had been. Since steeling themselves to fight a nation of thaumaturges (magicians), they had found a way of winning and they would benefit from the repeated rendition of a heroic tale of peerless glory to be put alongside Salamis and Plataea. If the flyblown Gallic corpses lying along the road north were mute and pitiable, the Aetolians were not; they trumpeted achievements that put them into a line of greatness stretching back from Thebes and Sparta through to Athens. Those places had had their day and now it was surely theirs. The dominance of the Aetolian League at Delphi was physically advertised by a victory stele incorporating examples of captured Gallic armour and spiritually by their admittance to an Amphictyonic League that they substantially dominated for some decades after. Their recent acquisition of Heraclea in Trachis emphasizes a capacity to control the stretch of country right across the middle of central Greece where the gulfs of Actium and Malia pull in tight like a belt around the country’s waist. Were these the hardy cockroaches who had survived a barbarian Armageddon to become the advance guard of a glorious future for Greece in a post-Galatian age?