From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trimarcisia
(
Ancient Greek
:
τριμαρκισ?α
,
trimarkisia
), i. e., "feat of three horsemen",
[1]
was an ancient
Celtic
military
cavalry
tactic
or organisation;
[2]
it is attested in
Pausanias
'
Description of Greece
, in which he described the use of
trimarcisia
by the
Gauls
during
their invasion of Greece
in the third century BCE.
[3]
[4]
[5]
According to Pausanias:
When the
Gallic
horsemen were engaged, the servants remained behind the ranks and proved useful in the following way. Should a horseman or his horse fall, the slave brought him a horse to mount; if the rider was killed, the slave mounted the horse in his master's place; if both rider and horse were killed, there was a mounted man ready. When a rider was wounded, one slave brought back to camp the wounded man, while the other took his vacant place in the ranks.
Pausanias' view was that the Gauls had adopted this method of fighting by copying the Persian
Athanatoi
elite force with the difference that while the Persians waited until after a battle was over to replace casualties, the Gauls "kept reinforcing their full number during the height of the action".
[3]
Etymology
[
edit
]
According to Pausanias,
marka
was the Celtic name for a horse.
[3]
This corresponds to the
root
*mark-os
of words for "saddle horse" attested in
Celtic
and
Germanic
but not in other
Indo-European languages
, a root that is of uncertain
etymology
.
[6]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Daithi O Hogain (2003) [2002].
The Celts: A History
. The Collins Press, The Boydell Press. p. 53.
ISBN
9780851159232
.
- ^
"Trimarcisia"
.
Perseus Encyclopedia
.
Perseus Project
.
- ^
a
b
c
Pausanias
(1918). "10.19.10-11".
Description of Greece in 4 volumes
. W.H.S. Jones, H.A. Ormerod (translators). Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd.
Available online at the
Perseus Project
.
- ^
P. A. L. Greenhalgh (1973).
Early Greek warfare: Horsemen and chariots in the Homeric and Archaic Ages
. Cambridge University Press. p. 61.
ISBN
9780521200561
.
- ^
Green, Miranda
, ed. (1995).
"Chapter 4, Celtic Horsemanship"
.
The Celtic World
. Routledge.
ISBN
9781135632434
.
- ^
Tristram, Hildegard L. C., ed. (2007).
The Celtic Languages in Contact
. Papers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Conference of Celtic Studies. Bonn, 26?27 July 2007. Potsdam University Press. pp. 4?5.
ISBN
9783940793072
.