It is true that no recognizable memories of the original homeland or the
earliest migrations survived in the later poetries of which we have record.
Whatever wars early Indo-European groups may have fought among them-
selves or against aliens were in time displaced from recollection by later crises,
and the names of the oldest heroes were forgotten. Yet there are sufficient
similarities in the depictions of warfare and fighting in the different traditions
to suggest a considerable measure of continuity. There were of course his-
torical changes in the arts of war over time –– for example the development of
the long sword, the horse-drawn chariot, and weapons with iron com-
ponents –– and these were naturally reflected in heroic poetry. But the
tradition was conservative by nature, and the gradual reception of more mod-
ern elements did not wipe out the memory of more archaic ones.^1
The war-bandIn the Dumézilian scheme of things the martial function is one of the three
basic compartments of Indo-European ideology, and according to the earlier
form of Dumézil’s theory the warrior class formed a distinct constituent
of the Indo-European population. The early Celtic and Germanic world
presents us with a more focused picture. A feature of these tribal societies
is the war-band, formed from footloose young men who have not yet
married and settled down. They live on the margins of society and follow
their leader wherever he takes them, generally on raiding and looting
expeditions.^2
As Caesar represents it (Bell. Gall. 6. 23. 6–8), the Germans considered
this a useful institution for exercising the youth and keeping it occupied.
A prominent man would announce in the assembly that he planned an
expedition, and volunteers would stand up and pledge him their allegiance,
to general approbation. Tacitus (Germ. 13–15) describes a more permanent
type of comitatus in which the followers remained with their leader when
there was no fighting to be done, spending their time in eating and sleeping.
If their own civitas was tediously peaceful, they would go off to seek action
and glory among tribes at war. Sometimes a leader such as Ariovistus set out
to conquer new territories with a force gathered from a number of tribes.
(^1) For discussions of Indo-European warfare cf. Pictet (1859–63), ii. 188–234; J. P. Mallory
inEIEC 629 f.; N. Plagne, Études Indo-Européennes 12 (1993/4), 65–131; 13 (1995), 149–92;
Sergent (1995), 282–306. On warfare as portrayed in the Indian epics see Brockington (1998),
175–87, 404–8.
(^2) Cf. Davidson (1988), 80–2; Sergent (1995), 291 f.; D. A. Miller in EIEC 632.
448 12. Arms and the Man