The large shield was, as then, the principal weapon of defence;
among the offensive arms, on the other hand, the long thrusting
lance now played the chief part in room of the sword. Where several
cantons waged war in league, they naturally encamped and fought clan
against clan; there is no trace of their giving to the levy of each
canton military organization and forming smaller and more regular
tactical subdivisions. A long train of waggons still dragged
the baggage of the Celtic army; instead of an entrenched camp, such as
the Romans pitched every night, the poor substitute of a barricade
of waggons still sufficed. In the case of certain cantons,
such as the Nervii, the efficiency of their infantry is noticed
as exceptional; it is remarkable that these had no cavalry,
and perhaps were not even a Celtic but an immigrant German tribe.
But in general the Celtic infantry of this period appears
as an unwarlike and unwieldy levy en masse; most of all
in the more southern provinces, where along with barbarism valour
had also disappeared. The Celt, says Caesar, ventures not to face
the German in battle. The Roman general passed a censure
still more severe than this judgment on the Celtic infantry,
seeing that, after having become acquainted with them
in his first campaign, he never again employed them
in connection with Roman infantry.

Stage of Development of the Celtic Civilization

If we survey the whole condition of the Celts as Caesar found it
in the Transalpine regions, there is an unmistakeable advance
in civilization, as compared with the stage of culture at which
the Celts came before us a century and a half previously in the valley
of the Po. Then the militia, excellent of its kind, thoroughly
preponderated in their armies;(23) now the cavalry occupies
the first place. Then the Celts dwelt in open villages; now well-
constructed walls surrounded their townships. The objects too
found in the tombs of Lombardy are, especially as respects articles
of copper and glass, far inferior to those of northern Gaul.
Perhaps the most trustworthy measure of the increase of culture
is the sense of a common relationship in the nation; so little
of it comes to light in the Celtic battles fought on the soil of what
is now Lombardy, while it strikingly appears in the struggles
against Caesar. To all appearance the Celtic nation, when Caesar
encountered it, had already reached the maximum of the culture
allotted to it, an