ABSTRACT
Over large areas of Europe, Roman influence and then conquest brought an end to the old warrior styles. Caesar held that the Gauls had become soft through contact with Rome long before he conquered them.1 Likewise Roman monuments rarely portray Dacians fighting in the old styles: at the most they use curved swords, form a double shield wall, or stab a horse. Living in towns and being subject to kings, Dacians, like Gauls, shed the old styles through contact with Rome. Not all of Western Europe, however, shut itself off from the old warrior styles:2 Island Celts and Germani kept their freedom, their warrior spirit and their old fighting styles into the early Middle Ages.
