Reports are in of a fierce fight between the Romans and the Gauls:
225 BC. Rome invades Cisalpine Gaul.
Fearing a further incursion by recently repulsed Gallic tribes to the north, the Senate of Rome voted to dispatch an army under the command of Consul C. Atilius Regulus. The Consul was ordered to seek out the troublesome barbarians, punish them for their temerity and remove this threat to Roman territory.
Regulus, in sole charge of Roman, allied Italian and Cenomani Gallic forces, advanced into the lands of the Boii and Senones. Hearing reports of a nearby hilltop site sacred to both tribes, he immediately gathered those Romans and allies he could at once assemble and led them onwards with all speed, aiming to destroy the site and thereby dishearten the enemy. The first wave of this force Regulus himself led, while ordering the remainder to follow on at their earliest opportunity.
The holy site, and the ridge upon which it stood, were guarded by a swathe of Gauls, these hailing from both tribes.
Upon sighting the lead elements of Roman forces, being the swift-moving Equites and Velites, this mass of warriors descended from the heights to fall upon Regulus’s army. Fighting was long and hard, with neither side giving ground, and with Consul Regulus at all times in the thick of the action.
One body of the enemy, these being skirmishers of young and headstrong nature, occupied a grove of trees in the centre of the field, resisting all attempts to eject them from it.
As the second body of Rome’s forces arrived the Italian allied contingent, being of javelinmen and slingers, engaged these youths and drove them back from the tree-line. Pursuing into this sacred grove, the Italians fought hand to hand, with the woodland contested until the battle’s end.
At the same instant that Regulus’s reinforcements entered the fray a large body of the Boii tribe arrived to the north, moving southwestward towards the ridge, aiming to bolster their colleagues around the temple. This exerted enormous pressure on Atilius Regulus and those Romans south of the ridge, with first the brave but long suffering Velites and then subsequently the noble Equites being driven from the field. Their sacrifice had not been in vain, however, as the Gauls were sorely weakened by their struggles with those most valiant of Romans.
The hard marching second wave being now at hand, Regulus despatched the Triarii and Italian close-order troops, supported by the Cenomani, on a swift encirclement to the right of the enemy positions.
Although the Senones and their Gaesati allies, under their warlord Aneröestes, had now joined the Boii in the defence of the holy site, they could make no dent in the line formed by the Triarii and Italians, although the cavalry of the allied Cenomani quit the field, defeated by Gaesati charioteers.
While fighting raged to either side, one brave body of Principes now stormed up the eastern end of the ridge, forcing the defenders of the temple to flee before them, and resisting all the enemies’ attempts to drive them out.
As the day wore on, with their casualties rapidly mounting, the sacred site now in enemy hands and with no sign of the Romans wavering, the Gauls lost heart and began to slip away. Before long their entire force was in full retreat. However, despite his victory, Regulus was unable to press the pursuit, having lost his mounted arm in this day’s battle.
With evening approaching, the victorious army toppled and despoiled the circle of standing stones abandoned by the Gauls, C. Atilius Regulus therein pouring a libation to the gods, in thanks for a victory won.
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The battle was fought solo, using a variant of Bob Cordery’s ‘Portable Wargame Rules: Ancients’ from his Developing the Portable Wargame book, and with solo mechanisms deciding the course of action for each arriving body, determined at the moment it entered the field. The scenario for this battle was based upon Scenario 8 in Neil Thomas’s One-Hour Wargames book.
Many thanks to Martin S for his refight, images, and the great report. The campaign continues!