Berserks: A History of Indo-European "Mad Warriors" Author(s): Michael P. Speidel Source: Journal of World History, Vol. 13, No.

2 (Fall, 2002), pp. 253-290 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078974 Accessed: 07/09/2010 09:29
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Berserks: A History of
Indo-European
MICHAEL University

"Mad Warriors'71
P- SPEIDEL i at Manoa

of Hawai1

mad warriors and death? scorning wounds warrior the berserk of reckless attack. the spirit Though embody Berserks?blustering, tradition spans some three thousand years, its history has yet to be writ ten. The following gives an outline ofthat history in five parts. The first part deals with the earliest known berserks at the end of the bronze age. The The traces berserks through the bronze, iron, and middle ages. and the fourth probes for third part describes the berserk mind, patterns when berserks appear as attack troops alongside disciplined forces. The last, more tentative part looks at structures and functions of mad warrior styles worldwide berserks by comparing Indo-European with other similar warriors, such as Aztec quachics and India's amoks. The new sources brought forward here widen the geographical second

to include Mesopotamia. range of the berserk tradition They add sev to the time span during which berserks are now docu eral centuries of early warriors and their mented and shed light upon the mentality into battle. Berserk warriordom frenzies as they forged fearlessly thus cross-cultural that lends color emerges as a long-lived, phenomenon to the early millennia of recorded history. in the Ynglinga saga, written Snorri Sturlusson shortly after a.D. as mad fighters without i220, defines berserks body armor:2 "Woden's men went without hauberks and raged like dogs or wolves. They bit their shields and were strong like bears or bulls. They killed men, but and coherence

with

to thank my colleagues Margot Henriksen and Idus Newby for their kind help this article. 2 Snorri "Zum Namen Wolf Sturlusson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 6. Gunter M?ller, hetan und seinen Verwandten," Studien i, 1967, 207f. Fr?hmittelalterliche

1 Iwish

Journal ofWorld History, Vol. 13, No. 2 ?2002 of Hawai'i Press by University

253

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neither fire nor iron hurt them. This is called berserksgangy." Berserk warriors thus scorned armor, willfully foregoing body armor. They also a trance in two qualities define ber of raged uncontrollably fury. These sources one or the other, even in mention serks, although many only cases where warriors were both naked and mad. troops either fighting madly or showing off recklessly, but not Any "berserk-like." The Arab Ageyl were ber both, may be called merely in 1917, before the attack on Wejh serk-like when with Lawrence of Arabia, they stripped off their cloaks, head cloths, and shirts, saying that thus they would get clean wounds if hit, and their precious clothes would not be damaged. The reasons they gave were not all, for men are also proud of showing their bodies and over their skin?Lawrence himself was as were nakedness" the Romans with are both naked and mad at however, elated with the wind streaming as much taken with their "half their Celtic foes. True berserks, the same time. This article will

show that they stand in an age-old, well-defined tradition and, though not given their due by modern an outstanding form fea scholarship, ture of Indo-European culture.3

Berserks

and

the

End

of

the

Bronze

Age

civilization third-millen Babylonian-Assyrian by and large followed nium Sumerian In warfare this meant plodding, tradition. orderly rows seen on the "Standard of soldiers, the "phalanx" of Ur." There, and heavily armed soldiers trudge one behind helmeted, cuirassed, as one expects soldiers to do in disciplined and another, city-states B.c. revo In the seventeenth the battle-chariot century city-empires. lution swept over all of West Asia, and the part-Aryan Mitanni took In the Assur,4 but we do not know how these events changed Assyria. late thirteenth under Tukulti-Ninurta, century, however, something altogether foreign took place in Assyria. b.c.) Early in his reign, Tukulti-Ninurta (1243-1207 fought the Hittites and in 1228 warred against the Babylonians. routed Having

3 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New foes: York, 1935, 163. Celtic Ageyl: in Search of the lndo-Europeans, J. P. Mallory, London, Polybios 2, 29, 7. Indo-Europeans: treats them as an error. In J. P. Mallory and D. Q. Adams, 1989, no, Encyclopedia of Indo London, 1997, berserks do not rate an entry, though they are recognized European Culture, on p. 63 21". 4 Hartmut des Alten Vorderasien, Geschichte H. Schm?kel, Leiden, 1957, 187; William McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, Chicago, 1982, g?.

Speidel:

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255

an epic he commissioned and captured the Kassite king of Babylon, to justify his uncalled-for about his campaign The result aggression.5 is survive that from ing work unique; unlike the many royal inscriptions and praises the fighting the epic lavishly describes Assyria, It claims not only that of the king's warriors.6 style and battle madness fear and blindness and Tukulti-Ninurta's gods struck his foes with but that his warriors turned into furious shape blunted their weapons, and that they scorned like Anzu, the Assyrian changers eagle-dragon,
armor:7

ancient

They

are

furious,

raging,

taking

forms

strange

as Anzu.

They They They The They While

charge forward furiously to the fray without armor, had stripped off their breastplates, discarded their clothing, tied up their hair and polished ( ?) their . . .weapons, fierce heroic men danced with sharpened weapons. blasted at one another like struggling lions, with eyes aflash (?), the fray, particles drawn in a whirlwind, swirled around in combat.

outside Greek and Roman poem is highly revealing. Standing it the that descriptions tradition, escapes argument hackneyed literary even the most serious and knowledgeable of foreigners?by classical not to be trusted because time-worn authors?are clich?s repeat they This thus learn from the epic that in fits of battle-madness Mid (topoi).8 We warriors dle Assyrian "took strange shapes," shed their armor, doffed in hand, their garments, tied up their hair, war-danced with weapons a into and whirlwind roared, raging glowered fiercely, charged wildly battle. Nowhere else are Assyrian warriors made out to be as wild or to behave as strangely. tactics are customs natural Flashing eyes, frenzy, and swirling-storm to berserk-like warriors everywhere, including those of Mesopotamia.9

und Kriegskunst der Assurer, M?nster, 1995, 2i3ff; 220. "Three Unpublished of the Tukulti-Ninurta Fragments Epic," Archiv f?r Orientforschung 18, 1957-58, 38-51. 7 Tukulti-Ninurta as translated R. Foster, Before the 3 iff Epic 5, A, by Benjamin An Anthology Muses. Literature, I, Bethesda, of Akkadian 1996, 227; also Peter Maryland, Bruce Machinist, l. A Study in The Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta Middle Assyrian Literature, Ph.D. text. Geo Widengren, Der Feudalismus diss., Yale University, 1978, 121 with the Akkadian iof. For throwing off armor see the same epic 4,A,39 Iran, Cologne, 1969, in; Foster 225). (Machinist 8 als Barbar," Jahrbuch f?r internationale Germanis E.g., Klaus von See, "Der Germane tik 13, 1981, 42-72, 44f. 9 "elucebat quidam ex oculis furor." Even Romans did this: 16,12,46: Eyes: Ammianus Tacitus, Histories 3,3: "flagrans oculis"; see below, note 25, and C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry, Mircea 1952, 99. Animals: London, Eliade, Shamanism, New York, 1964, 385; an Assyrian im Alten

5Walter Politik Mayer, 6 205. W G. Lambert,

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are also customs common among berserks, Indo-European tradition. could have arisen from Indo-European By 1500 B.c., speakers held sway from Northern Indo-European India toWestern and west of Assyria. Before their east, north, Europe: a a a heroic ancestors their had shared religion, dispersal, language, some is warrior what less well and, known, poetry, striking styles. Their over for with wolf hoods their head and wolf-warriors, example, fought like wolves, while their horse-slashers dove beneath attacking to stab the steeds.10 Berserk was one of their characteristic one may indeed ask whether Tukulti-Ninurta's fighting styles, hence mad warriors were not Indo-European berserks. howled horsemen that the bigger the gap in time and space demands Sound method the more elaborate the shared custom between customs, comparable armor in sight of must be to prove a common one's origin. Shedding most is an elaborate, and the enemy gesture. Having specific, unlikely no armor is one thing; throwing it off in sight of the enemy is quite not just armor, but garments as well! While another?and this is alto gether to Near Eastern tradition,11 it is, as we will see, found unknown war ancient and Celtic often medieval and Germanic among fairly riors. If one adds to this the raging battle-madness and shape-shifting

animal head about 645 b.c.): demon with human (Niniveh, body and fantastic Mass., 1999, 30. Storm: V. Hurovitz-J. Westen Julian Reade, Assyrian Sculpture, Cambridge, Studies 42, 1990, 1-49, esp. p. 5; Otto Poem," Journal of Cuneiform holz, "LK3: A Heroic der Germanen I, Frankfurt, 1934, 323-341; H?fler, Kultische Geheimb?nde Stig Wikander, und die literarische ?ber Beck, "Die Stanzen von Torslunda 1941; Heinrich Vayu, Uppsala, Studien 2, 1968, 237-250, Der Feudalismus 247^ Widengren, lieferung," Fr?hmittelalterliche imAlten Iran, 19. 10These in my forthcoming So "Wild Warriors." styles are set forth in greater detail but good work on details far, no study has focused on the history of these styles as a whole, der Germanen has been done by H?fler, Kultische Geheimb?nde I;Otto H?fler, Der Runen stein von R?k und die germanische Individualweihe, 1952; Widengren, Feudalismus; T?bingen, und Kelten bis zum Ausgang der R?merzeit Helmut (Sb. Ost. Akad. Wiss. Birkhan, Germanen Die Struktur des voretruskischen Heidel R?merstaates, Alf?ldi, 1970; Andrew 272), Vienna, in W Meid und Krieger bei den Indogermanen" "Hund, Wolf, berg, 1974; Kim R. McCone, Innsbruck, (ed.), Studien zum indogermanischen Wortschatz, 1987, 101-154; Dean A. Miller, Heroic Studies 26, of Indo-European "On the Mythology Hair," Journal of Indo-European and their customs such as R?di surveys of Indo-Europeans 1998, 41-60. Typically, modern in Johannes Hoops, der ger Reallexikon Altertumskunde," ger Schmitt's "Indogermanische warrior fail to mention 2nd ed., Berlin, manischen Altertumskunde, 2000, 384-402, i973ff, as late as 1600 b.c.: Robert Drews, The occurred perhaps styles. Indo-European dispersal "The Problem of the Princeton, 1988, but see also Asko Parp?la, Coming of the Greeks, in George South Asia, Berlin, and the Soma," Erdosy, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient Aryans 1995, 353-401. 11 Machinist, Epic, in; commenting (p. 325) on this not being Mesopotamian.

warrior

Speidel: common seems

Berserks to Tukulti-Ninurta's

257

it warriors and Indo-European berserks, same the share that their origin. likely fighting styles warriors were thus either strongly influenced by Tukulti-Ninurta's or were themselves Neither Indo-Europeans. possibil Indo-Europeans

into often took large numbers of prisoners ity is far-fetched. Assyrians could have come by his mad warriors early their army. Tukulti-Ninurta in his reign, when he captured, as he says, "28,800 Hittites from beyond the Euphrates."12 (ardani), Besides, he calls his berserks "bondsmen" of the word which could mean his sworn war band, but the meaning of ardani shades also into "servants" and could thus mean prisoners
war.13

the berserk style from their north adopted the also fielded Iranians, who long neighbors, Indo-European a warriors.14 wild Even hence haired, naked, non-Indo-European mountain is no could have transmitted the custom?there people a to to is warrior think that of bound ground style only one speakers Perhaps the Assyrians ern cultural and incoming family. Without foreigners, however, as as is warriors the of radical berserk appearance change military a societies with stable like unlikely. Complex, disciplined population that of Assyria do not turn wild again on their own: there are no or other Indo-European examples of this in world history.15 A Hittite language or prisoners of war?is the most presence?mercenaries likely expla nation for Tukulti-Ninurta's mad warriors, all the more so since Assyr

12 See 210. This would explain how they had der Assyrer, Mayer, Politik und Kriegskunst come across the Euphrates: Hittite the conquered: Flo soldiers, attacking Assur. Enrolling rence Malbran-Labat, L'arm?e et l'organisation militaire de l'Assyrie, Paris, 1982, 89fr. 13 in the six Feudalismus, Geschichte, suggests that when Widengren, 14ft. Schm?kel, b.c. teenth century Mitanni have brought the part-Aryan Assur, they might conquered the Assyrians then would have assimilated. No certain along such warrior customs, which is not listed Andarasena=Indrasena among the middle Assyrians: Aryan names are known as Aryan im alten Vorderasien, Wiesbaden, Die Indo-Arier 1966, nor by Manfred Mayrhofer, im Vorderen Orient, Heidelberg, Die Arier Kammenhuber, by Annelies 1968, but then the were also much even in Egypt and Ugarit in their names: Robert Shardana assimilated, ca. 1200 B.C., inWarfare and the Catastrophe Drews, The End of the Bronze Age. Changes were charioteers, while Tukulti-Ninurta's Princeton, 1993, i53ff. The Mitanni, however, men were on foot. 14 Feudalismus, Machinist, Widengren, Epic, 325. Franz Rolf Schr?der, 17?', "Ursprung und Ende der germanischen Germanisch-romanische 1939, Heldendichtung," Monatsschrift 10 and 33, think Geschichte, 205 and Widengren, Feudalismus, 325-367, 337f; Schm?kel, of Aryan Mitanni influence. 15Cultural a stable population is argued for India by George (language) change within Erdosy, The Berlin, New Indo-Aryans York, 1995, of Ancient 23f?without South Asia. convincing Language, parallels, Material though. Culture, and Ethnicity,

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ians of the thirteenth else in politics and century b.c. adopted much warfare from their Hittite neighbors.16 B.c.?sets The date of Tukulti-Ninurta's it in a very battle?1228 context: the end of the until then specific flourishing Egyptian, West and Greek bronze age, when waves of fighters from the north Asian, in Syria. and the kingdoms destroyed Mycenae, Troy, Hittite Hattusas, newcomers were battle Egypt itself barely fended off the invaders. The the battle deciding infantry. For 400 years chariots had dominated fields. Now, at the end of the thirteenth century, all of a sudden infan
try overcame them.

well-researched study has shown how this happened.17 some infantry "runners" who kept up with the Chariotry always needed it came to hand-to-hand chariots to support them when fighting and to finish off the crews of disabled enemy chariots. Such runners were dar ing elite troops, "those who bear the hand-to-hand fighting, beautiful even in appearance." in served the rulers' They guards. By and large, such as they were foreigners hired for their stamina and recklessness, II (1279-1212 III shardana of Ramses b.c.) and Ramses time it became that these "run 1155 b.c.).18 Over apparent defeat chariotry?all could by themselves ners," if they were many, was to to had do with wound their javelins one horse of a char they iot. That would the runners to attack the stop the chariot, allowing crew in a fight for which were better trained than and equipped they the Sardinian (1186mail-clad charioteer archers. Hitherto the first-known campaign based on these new tactics was that in 1208 B.c. by Meryre of Libya who, to "from all the northern lands." To fend conquer Egypt, hired warriors off such invasions, established rulers likewise hired foreign infantry "Warrior Vase" shows, these were men, and as the famous Mycenaean infantry. equipped with body armor for close combat against opposing warriors this means For Tukulti-Ninurta's that they were among the warriors of the time. This may be why finest, or at least most modern, in such detail. the king was so proud of them and had them described now 1228 becomes the Tukulti-Ninurta's of earliest known campaign armor its for for and the new, instance, battle-deciding infantry, body

recent

16 Politik, 22iff; Mayer, 235t 17 Drews, End of the Bronze Age, passim, esp. 135-163. 18 "Beautiful.. . ": as Indo-Europeans Merneptah's phrase: Drews, End, 142. Shardana The Aryans, A Study of Indo-European Origins, V. Gordon Lon (with illustrations): Childe, don, 1926, 72-76.

Speidel:

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its tactics, 20 years before Meryre's thus campaign. Assyria Egyptian of the time, and was not hired foreign foot soldiers like other kingdoms the Assyrians scholars had it thought to be.19 It befitted the exception to be the first to have berserk troops in their service?always keen to modernize their army, they soon were to pioneer cavalry.20 to is more, we now see what spirit bore these infantrymen some new was of Even if the berserk mind. the iron, metal, victory: it seems to have had little to do with the berserks' victory: available, that one must believe the epic describes the men's spirit so intensely What it was the decisive factor. Certainly and training mat spirit, discipline, ter as much in warfare as technology. As chariot runners these elite troops wore no body armor, as infantry in close combat they did. They thus may well have known both kinds of fighting, with and without that they could win body armor, which would give them the confidence even Kassite without the against proudly and Babylonians breastplates, no better order than at the time one might similar troops on skirmisher fights his own; with no comrade say that "the barbarian to right or left, he depends on his own round shield. Mobility rather in Tukulti is mentioned than solidarity was essential."21 No cavalry Ninurta's battle, and indeed it would not be invented for another hun dred years.22 This gave berserks around 1200 B.c. the edge in speed and that they would later have to share with cavalry.23 Massed, boldness was to make its appear also only just beginning infantry heavy-armed men were his main seems ance. This to be why Tukulti-Ninurta's wild in later centuries berserks tended to be only a few cham force, while pions, hired by a ruler. men needed countries of the time rise of foreign infantry in all West Asian the conclusion drawn from the fighting style of Tukulti that they were foreigners, Ninurta's almost certainly berserks, namely Several other features of Tukulti-Ninurta's warriors, Indo-Europeans. and Germanic then, may also belong to northern warrior styles. Celtic The confirms recklessly fighting naked. As for tactics, Tukulti-Ninurta's Of that of a swirling whirlwind.

19 Drews, End, 147. Exception: 20William H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, Chicago, 1982, 14, 18; Drews, End, i?4ff. 21 Drews, End, 152, 158, 161; Reckless: ibid., 157. 22Warriors a Mycenian in the bronze age, witness rode horses already from drawing on Crete Mouliana The Oxford Illustrated Prehistory (Barry Cunliffe, of Europe, Oxford, 1994, 284), but cavalry troops came later: Drews, 23 I owe this observation to Stephen Morillo. End, 164fr.

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ecstatic

too, fought like lions or other grim animals.24 They, fighters, their foes by flashing their eyes,25 by snarling or roaring, too, frightened and by tying up their long hair; before going into battle at Strasbourg in a.D. 354, King Chonodomar of the Alamanni wound a round, gold warriors bound band into his hair. Thracian their hair embroidered was a into a topknot.26 hair of Indo well-ordered hallmark Long,

account of the European warriors, best known perhaps from Herodotus' at Spartans Thermopylae.27 Further reason to believe that the berserk style of Tukulti-Ninurta's comes from their shape-shifting. warriors is Indo-European in When and Germanic their faces berserks contorted the grip of fury, Celtic in frightening is C? Chulainn and bodies Irish ways. Among heroes, came to when he famous for this.28 Likewise claim tenth-century Egil: the wergeld for his slain brother, he showed the king how mad he was by drooping one eyebrow down towards his cheek, raising the other up and moving his eyebrows up and alternately in battle.30 Mad down.29 Celtic heroes, moreover, grew huge shape or done by Tukulti-Ninurta's and Germanic Celtic shifting, whether is a telling trait of Indo-European berserks. men, also Half-naked among the Hittite fighters appear king's guard, but us b.c. in that the second millennium epic tells only Tukulti-Ninurta's armor as off such "naked" fighters fought recklessly mad, throwing well as garments, shape-changing, inducing flaunting trance-like flowing battle madness flashing eyes, hair, and by dancing and attacking to the roots of his hair

24 Gr?n 20; Wilhelm Struktur, 36f. G?ntert, Geschichten, saga Kraka; Alf?ldi, Hr?lfs 12th ed., Darmstadt, 1997, 274; Georges bech, Kultur und Religion der Germanen, Dum?zil, lions: Iliad 7, 256; Karl Hauck, "Zur The Destiny 1970, 139-147; Chicago, of theWarrior, et al.) der Goldbrakteaten IV," Festschrift Siegfried Gutenbrunner (ed. O. Bandle Ikonologie 1972, 47-70. Heidelberg, 25 See Tacitus, Germa 1,39: "acies oculorum"; above, note 9. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum nia 4: "truces et caerulei oculi"; Ammianus "elucebat quidam ex oculis furor"; also 16,12,36 1,6: "hvessir augo sem hildingar"; 31,13,10; saga 42; Volsunga Hundingsbana Helgaqvi3a Die Germania des Tacitus, Heidelberg, Rudolf Much, 101; Gr?nbech, 266; Kultur, 1967, Bowra, Poetry, 99. 26 Pre from Letnitsa, Iliad 4, 533; silver bridal decoration (Cunliffe, Homer, Bulgaria roaring: Ammianus 16,12,46. history, 385). Snarling, 27 Herodotus Lacedaimonians 10, 3; Plutarch, 7, 208; Xenophon, Lycurgus 22, 1; Taci 12. Michael Carmina Germania C?ltica 8; Ammianus tus, 16, 12, 24; Sidonius, 38; Appian, R Speidel, "Commodus and the King of the Quadi," Germania 193-197; 78, 2000, 1998, 41-60. Mythology, 28 T?in B? Helmut Birkhan, Kelten, Vienna, 1997, 968ff (riastrad). Cuailnge; 29 Christine Fell, Egils Saga, London, 1975, 84 (chapter 55). 30 1997, 975. Birkhan, Kelten, Miller,

Speidel:

Berserks

261 are the essential and mad-fighting they appear together, while in isolation. The Tukulti-Ninurta must otherwise glean from less It is a major source for the berserk here

like a whirlwind.31 characteristics elsewhere epic

warrior

explicit

thus sources
style.32

Armor-scorning of berserkdom, and are two the often found that one confirms much in later centuries.

Berserks The

of

the

Bronze,

Iron,

and

Middle

Ages

at the King's Gate in a is half (Boghaz K?y, Turkey) clearly bronze-age warrior.33 Armed with ax and sword, "kilt" around his loins. He flaunts a tall, elabo no body rate comb helmet with ear and neck guards. Since wearing armor but a helmet was an Indo-European berserk custom,34 the guard ian very likely was a berserk. Standing in the King's gateway, however, he no doubt ranked very highly; hence archaeologists have wondered a cuirass after all, perhaps a leather jerkin. whether he is not wearing Yet as his nipples he is also show, he is clearly barechested. Moreover, some and other confirm that of Hittites' the bare-footed, sculptures wore a warriors warriors kilt.35 Hittite elite highest ranking only clearly took pride in fighting "naked," even those who served in the king's guardian carved the Hittite capital of naked Indo-European he wears only a short Hattusas guard. Such nakedness meant reckless blustering in the face of the

in relief on a huge monolith

31 Not to mention they would fight along calling on one's gods in battle and believing side one, striking one's foes with fear and blindness and blunting their weapons. Snorri II, Sturlusson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 6; Jan de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte 2, 12, 8; 10, 121, 6; 6, 25, 6; Hein 56 (2nd ed., Berlin, vol. I, 1956, vol. II, 1957). RigVeda rich Zimmer, Altindisches Leben. Die Cultur der vedischen Arier, Berlin, 1879, 294; Iliad, pas Heinrich Bilddenkm?ler 1, 3 (Hercules); sim; Tacitus, Germania Beck, Einige vendelzeit?che und die literarische ?berlieferung, KL 1964, Phil.-Hist. Munich, 1964 (Sb. Bayer. Ak. Wiss., Heft 6), 32; in the middle Beck, "Feldgeschrei," 8, 1994, 305-306. ages: Heinrich Hoops 10. It is even possible "God with us": Vegetius that the 2, 18, 3; 7, B16, 3, 5, 4; Maurice it says that (only) the breastplates of helmets when and garments implies the wearing taken off. 32 cannot have been spread by fighting on horse berserkdom Being this old, moreover, back, which (Drews, End, 164fr); contra: began only by the end of the second millennium Wikander, Vayu, gift, who suggests that ecstatic cult forms (and warrior styles) spread with to the Thracians to the Germans. and hence cavalry warfare from the Aryans 33 G. inAsia Minor, The Hittites and their Contemporaries London, J. Macqueen, 1986, epic were frontispiece. 34 Below, Figs. 1, 3. 35 O. R. The Hittites, Gurney,

Harmondsworth,

1952,

107, 2oof.

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enemy which points to the berserk fighting style. We cannot be certain war about their battle madness, but the parallel of Tukulti-Ninurta's not it likely that the Hittite riors makes naked but only guard fought like true berserks.36 also recklessly, perhaps and kilt-clad naked guards, armed Similar helmeted but otherwise with swords and spears, are shown on a bronze-age fresco in the Myce naean palace at Pylos in southwestern In reliefs at Abydos in Greece.37 "runners" of the Ramessid Shardana Indo-European pha an elaborate dress when in battle, they serve as guardsmen; berserk-like however, they too wear only kilt and helmet.38 Another a warrior comes from the bronze age of northern tenth-cen Europe: at in found Denmark, tury statuette, portrays a naked Grevenswaenge a a neck and belt.39 Like the Hit warrior, wearing helmet, ring, only Egypt the raons have tite guardian, these Mycenaean, and Danish Sardinian, bronze-age in their battle garb indeed look like berserks, but we do not warriors know for certain whether Here, they fought in a trance of madness.40 some comes from the Tukulti-Ninurta too, however, epic, as it help frenzy and thereby suggests that naked bronze-age like berserks. and fought recklessly break of naked warrior without The tradition images continues statuettes portray archaic Greek through the iron age. Eighth-century, warriors naked but for helmet, and belt, sometimes with a neckband, a seen in the to shield flung their back, telling berserk gesture.41 When art context in of bronze- and iron-age Europe and West Asia, larger it likely that in archaic times some Greek war these statuettes make riors also fought naked, that is, as berserks. B.c. found at Hirschlanden statue in A from the sixth century a warrior shows similar, fully naked Celtic wearing only W?rttemberg hat or helmet, neckband, belt, and sword (Fig. i).42 With Celts we are speaks of reckless warriors blustered

36 amoks, below. Compare Trajan's berserk guards, below, Fig. 2; also the Malabar 37 Drews, End, i4of; i74f. 38 Drews, End, 144f; i74f. 39 Katie et al., Gods and Heroes of the European Bronze Age, London, Demakopoulou 1999, 94. 40 The warrior shared also other Indo-European Hittites, styles: for a Hittite certainly, see Alf?ldi, in the Veda) seal with animal warriors 1974, Struktur, (the latter also known plate B.C. 42 Photo: Arch?ologisches 9; neg. no. M 41/12273. Frey, "Keltische Grossplastik," 64, Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, Baden-W?rttemberg, The Ancient Celts, Oxford, 1997, Barry Cunliffe, 16, 2000, 395-407. Hoops inv. no. V 62f; O. H. 2/1; McCone, 41 Statuettes: "Hund." Boardman, Greek Art, London, 1985, 31: the Karditsa statuette, ca. 700

Figure
sixth

i . Berserk warrior from Hirschlanden,

century B.c.

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on firmer ground when looking for the spirit of their naked warriors. Celts were famous for fighting naked. In the battle at Telam?n in Italy, in 225 b.c., their Gaesati they wore only trousers and capes, while to bluster, threw off even these.43 Like the in the forefront, spearmen wore golden tores to dare Hirschlanden warrior, the Celts at Telam?n to come and get these neckbands.44 the enemy The Hirschlanden statue with its tore thus portrays a warrior not in idealized nudity, but in the actual battle gear of naked warriors. it is quite clear that the From the bronze-age images discussed, warrior stands in a long Indo-European Hirschlanden tradition going back to the second millennium of the B.c., and that the nakedness warrior wearing only a sword belt and neckband did not only "become a characteristic of the Celts in battle in the fifth century and after."45 The custom was both widespread and long lived. In 189 B.c. the Celts of Asia Minor thus when their bare, white skin, fought they exposed so the blood of their wounds would show to greater effect and to their greater glory.46 The Romans who faced them knew how to deal with reckless foes and blind rage: they showered them with arrows, javelins, and slingshot and did not let it come to hand-to-hand fighting.

in western Europe. The iron age is the high point of naked fighting area where Celts of the inte In southern Spain, in the Sierra Morena rior met with Iberians from the south who had adopted archaic Greek art, bronze statuettes show naked warriors of the 5th~3rd centuries B.c. with a sword, a small round shield (caetra), a "power belt," and some times a helmet?all Spain in the early style along, and The Celts who came to typical berserk weapons. iron age seem to have brought the berserk fighting it flourished there down to the Roman period.47

43 of Halicarnassus 2, 28, 7f; 29, 7; cf. Dionysius 14,13; Livy 22, 46, 5; 38, 21, Polybius art in Rome's 9; 38, 26, 7; Diodore 5, 30, 3; see also the naked Celtic warrior of Pergamene the bronze statuette of a slinger in Berlin's Pergamon Museum Museum, (Hel Capitoline mut Birkhan, other works of art; F. Fis Kelten, Bilder, Vienna, 1999, no. 723), and many der Lat?nezeit," and 2, 1976, 414; H. R. Ellis Davidson, "Bewaffnung Hoops Myths Symbols in Pagan Europe, Syracuse, 1988, 89; Birkhan, Kelten, 867; 96of. 44 Golden worn in battle by Germanic warriors had the same role: Pro wristbands i6of. 3, 24, 24; Battle ofMaldon, copius, Gothic Wars 45 Contra Cunliffe, Celts, 62?f. The "power belt" was true battle gear, witness Diodore "with no more than a girdle." 5,29,2: 46 se pugnare putant." He also makes much of their rage. Cf. Livy 38, 21, 9: "gloriosius 11, 646: "pulchramque per vulnera mortem." Fischer, Bewaffnung, petunt Vergil, Aeneid sees here a contradiction between 414 needlessly glory seeking and religious belief. 47 Gerard Bronces Nicolini, ib?ricos, Barcelona, 1977, e.g., nos. 15, 41, 44, 68. The in Madrid Museum has a fair collection of such statuettes, which I studied Archaeological come from shrines, in June 2001. Since most of the statuettes their sometimes overlong are not meant to be grotesque Adam penises ingens priapus in Uppsala, (compare Woden's cher,

Speidel: While

Berserks warriors

265 of naked

in their battle show men over came to portray art images of naked warriors time gear, in Greek ideal bodies rather than their true battle dress. Classical the warriors' serve as art from the sixth century B.c. onward thus cannot Greek in classical and in Hellenistic about berserks. Nevertheless, evidence still fielded berserk-like times backward areas of Greece troops: tribes Celtic images men such as the Aetolians fought lightly armed and barefoot.48 warriors also fought recklessly Thracian "naked": a silver coin of a b.c. kilt-clad Thracian shows bare-chested, 335-315 infantryman a tries to from The Thracian Paionian horseman Macedonia. fighting the spirit in which such the enemy's steed. Livy describes dive beneath an attack unfolded. In 171 B.c., he says, "Thracians, loudly yelling, wild animals, ran ahead of all others and furious like long penned-up and their lances. They cut the horses' legs or up to the Italic horsemen source stabbed them in the belly."49 The coin as an archaeological while Livy as a literary source attests the Thracians' nakedness, warrant for Thracians the two defining char their fury: together they acteristics and madness. of berserk warriors, nakedness too. Looking in early Rome, Fighting naked was once well known the Etruscan Herminius back at old Italy's prowess, Vergil describes thus:50 attests
Great-souled, great-bodied, greatly armed warrior,

flowing blond hair on his helmless head, bare-shouldered, unafraid of wounds huge that he was, fighting uncovered.

in der griechischen Kunst, Berlin, Ideale Nacktheit Himmelmann, the Greeks: influenced Celts, however, Jason inApollonios' Argonautica, is a reflection which of Greek battles against 3,i28off, fights "naked," for greater heroism, b.c. in the third century naked Celts (Himmelmann, ibid., 2?ff). Aetolians: Thucydides Saturnalia 5, 18, 13fr". 3, 97fr";Macrobius, 49 retentae haud secus quam diu claustris Thraces, Livy 42, 59, 2f: "Primi omnium cum ingenti clamore ut in dextrum incurrerunt It?licos ?quit?s cornu, ferae, ita concitati + usu belli et ingenio tre [?] is hastas petere pedites [?] equo impauida gens turbaretur; crura [?] ilia suffodere." Coin: of succidere silver Tetradrachma is, nunc rumque nunc 1990, 29ff. Naked Patraos of Paionia, Nordgriechenlands der paionischen images. 50 Aeneid Collection III 2, 2oif; K?nige," of the American Numismatic 1040; Antike M?nzen Society H. Gaebler, "Zur M?nzkunde IX. Die Pr?gung Makedoniens, with several variant 1927, 237-242, Zeitschrift f?r Numismatik cf. 11, 666f; Propertius 4, 1, 27-28. Georges Dum?zil, Mythes 86 reckons also Indian Gandharvas and Greek Centaurs

of Bremen 4, 26f ). Celtic in Cunliffe, Celts brooch and helmet. 48 Greek art: Nikolaus

93,

in Spain is confirmed naked fighting also by the Celt-Iberian that shows a naked warrior with "power belt," shield, sword,

11, 641-644, et dieux des Germains, Paris, among them.

1939,

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ancient Italic tribes51 Odd as this description may seem for Rome, warriors who fought naked, had in their ranks berserks or berserk-like and often in single combat.52 Their shouting, barefoot, flowing-haired, trance of ecstatic a berserk-like recklessness and a get-up bespeaks efforts.53 thirst for fame that goaded them to awesome Germanic berserks appear first on Trajan's Column. art often half-naked northern portrays Europeans, triumphal to frighten, but whose whose wild recklessness was meant loyal service was to show the emperor as ruler of the world who gathers, from the Barefoot Roman ends of the earth, hosts of fighters against all who stand in his way.54 In scene 36 of Trajan's Column, bare-footed bare-chested, young men the the behind the Column, up emperor. Higher youths of throng scene 36 appear again in scene 42 (fig. 2).55 In the scene shown in Fig ure 2, the emperor gives a speech to thank the men who won the bat are shown, though No weapons the soldiers hold tle at Adamklissi. wear strip armor and carry standards, the but the berserks are barechested and helmets, the berserks loom and barefooted. well, Having fought outstandingly are seen unlike others who the those emperor: large among praised by shields. auxiliaries The legionnaires wear cuirasses turn to the viewer. The one to the left, the back, they halfway the and clean-shaven strikingly holds ruggedly handsome, youthful, of the scene. The one to the right is a towering figure, almost middle from

and also shared the wolf-warrior Celts, Dacians, Iranians, Greeks, style with on Polybius, vol. 1, A Historical Commentary W. Walbank, 6,22,3 with F. Polybius tegmen 1957, 703; Vergil, Aeneid 1,275; 7, 688f: "fulvosque Oxford, lupi de pelle galeros as is clear from the sources of information habent capiti," cf. 11,68of: Vergil had valuable 10,16; Alf?ldi, 4,10,20; Struktur, 81. Celts: Strabo Propertius Pliny NH parallel of Polybius; "Kelt 0\)UMK?V KOCt Ta%\) rcp?? jx?xnv. Birkhan, Germanen, 4,4,3: 39of; K. H. Schmidt, in Heinrich in heutiger Sicht, Beck (ed.), Germanenprobleme Isoglossen" isch-germanische Dacians: Mircea Paris, 1970, Eliade, De Zalmoxis ? Gengis-Khan, Berlin, 1999, 231-247. They Germans, cf. Silius and Italy: Vergil, Aeneid (bears: Italicus, Punica 8, 356ff 7, 64iff, see e.g., a hair: Aeneid 11, 64off. Barefoot: Vergil. Aeneid 7, 689^ Naked: 8,523). Flowing statuette Hall and Rainer-Maria from Umbria: bronze Weiss, Ingrid Gersa sixth-century stattzeit, Mainz, 1999, plate 14. Open combat, single combat: Livy 1, 24ff; 42, 47; Polybius Der Idealstaat, Berlin, 1993, 252fr. Use of clich?s here: Hans !3> 3*?36, 9; Demandt, J?rg Schweizer, 1967, i6f. Vergil und Italien, Aarau, 53 Demandt, Idealstaat, 25off. 54 Ruler of the world: Karl Friedrich und Sp?tantike, Z?rich, Germanentum Strohecker, The Emperor and the Roman Army, Oxford, 1984, 46f; i46ff. Any 1965, 19; J. B. Campbell, Italicus 3, 354?. where on earth: "remotis extractum lustris," Silius 55 Photo Deutsches Inst. Neg. 41, 1336. O Cichorius, Institut, Rome, Arch?ologisches is Die Reliefs der Trajanss?ule II, Berlin, 1896, 209, rightly states that the dress of the youths in scenes 36 and 40. the same as that of the bare-shirts 13-30. 52 Rome

51

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a head taller than the men next to him. This is not happenstance, for his tall build marks him as a northerner and as a berserk.56 We do not know to which Roman or allied unit these men belong. in the Roman Tacitus cohorts says that German army fought in their or native hence Germanic berserks berserk-like troops style, naked,57 men in Figure 2 may could rank as regular Roman and the auxilia, to these cohorts or even to Trajan's guard, comparable have belonged to Ramses IPs Shardana berserks. and, it seems, Tukulti-Ninurta's Like the Gaesati spearmen in the battle at Telam?n who fought

Figure

2.

Two

barefoot,

shield-bearing

berserks

among

Roman

troops

(middle and right foreground). Trajan's Column,

Rome,

scene 42.

56 Nordic berserks huge: Hermann ?ber altisl?ndische G?ntert, Berserker-Geschichten, 1912, 12. Berserk giants: Edda, H?bars31j?d 37-39; G?ntert, ibid., 23. Heidelberg, 57 2, 22, 2; R. Wolters, Tacitus, Histories, 16, 2000, Kampfweise," "Kampfund Hoops this needlessly. esp. 208 and 212 doubts 208-214,

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naked "for love of fame and out of daring,"58 and to whom greater nakedness betokened greater daring, so the young men of Trajan's war band will have rushed into battle not only barechested but also bare other warriors of their own tribe in nakedness and footed, outdoing utter off their Their fearlessness. like that of barefootedness, showing steeled them against pain and strengthened young Spartan warriors, it.59 Itmarks them as berserks, even though the their will to overcome relief does not show them battle-mad. To show fearlessness, says Paul was also the reason why Heruls wore only loincloths in the Deacon, in a.d. 560: "whether for speed or out of the war against the Lombards scorn for wounds." Both reasons could apply,60 for speed greatly mat tered to the unarmored who had to run up to the enemy before being as for Gaesati showered with spears and arrows.61 For Heruls and Tra same: more is the the the naked the warrior, jan's berserks, principle reckless and brave.62 was part of a broader warrior ideal, spelled out by Vergil when Herminius Others he called bare-shouldered called "great-souled." to win by manhood for wishing rather northern warriors "great-souled" in a fair fight, found already in than guile. That ideal of winning This Homer, B.c. and was still held also goes back to the second millennium a.D. and by the East Saxons by Emperor Julian in the fourth century in a.d. 99i.63 in the battle of Maldon war god (recalled in the the name of the Germanic Woden, meant English "Wednesday"), "fury." To be berserk was to be like the more

58 Kai t? B?paoc. ?ux ?e xf|v (|)iX,o?o?iav 2,28,7f: Polybius 59 Lacedaemonians 2, 3; Plutarch, 16, 6; Barefootedness Lycurgus Spartans: Xenophon, in 1816: Donald R. Morris, The Washing likewise was to toughen Shaka's Zulu warriors of No More Heroes. Madness & Psy the Spears, New York, 1965, 47, 52. Richard A. Gabriel, War, New York, 1987, 102. chiatry in 60 Paulus Germaniae Historia 1, 20 (Monumenta Hist?rica, Diaconus, Langobardorum bella g?rent, sive ut inla 58, 33fr): "Qui sive ut expeditius Scriptores rerum Longobardorum turn ab hoste vulnus contemnerent, nudi pugnabant, solummodo corporis vere operientes BP 2, 25: Tpi?cbviOV a?pov cunda." Cf. Procopius (speed), no shield, cf. Ludwig Schmidt, Carmina Die Ostgermanen, 117; Sidonius Apollinaris, Munich, 1969, 563; lordanes, Getica Germania, 7, 236 (speed); Much, i39f. 61 Cf. 1,52,3; Dio 38,49,if. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum, 62 It even worked in battle took off his helmet Germanicus for Romans: (Tacitus Annals 2, 21, 2) and while he did not do it to dare the enemy, at least he did it to be seen as brave by his own men. 63 Bellum ludaicum 2, 377; lordanes, 641. Great-souled: Josephus, Vergil, Aeneid n, Bellum Africum homines Getica 24. No 73: "Contra Gallos, apertos min trickery: Caesar, non per dolum dimicare Strabo 4, 4, 2; consuerunt"; insidiosos, imeque qui per virtutem, 22: "Gens non astuta nee callida." Homer, Iliad 7,247^ Germania Tacitus, Julian, Ammi anus 23, 5, 21; Battle of Maldon 86-90.

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whose Woden,64 followers, among them Franks in the fourth century "a that life that lacked deeds was the greatest grief, while A.D., thought wartime the Franks became offered the highest happiness."65 When in a.d. 496, their traditional Christians fighting styles did not perish their army in Italy still included bare-chested fight still and helmets. hauberks Many perhaps were men: their human Woden's sacrifices, says, reporting Procopius these barbarians have become Christians, they keep most of "Though their old faith." Similarly, the historian Agathias makes Frankish war as any northerners riors out to be as mad and lacking in self-control ever were.66 To Frankish warriors, to Christianity then, conversion of one battle helper for another.67 Some the exchange mainly meant went so far as to give Christ the qualities ofWoden?witness the sixth as an elite century terracotta plaque found at Gresin depicting Christ a necklace and strutting naked.68 warrior, hair bound up, wearing as the Lord's bravest fighter was Much later, in Nordic sagas, Christ "God's berserk."69 Celtic warriors the custom of fighting naked also lived on Among into the middle it is known from antiquity from reports ages where about Irish fighters and from Irish legends.70 In Eastern Europe, too, warriors Sklavenoi without shirts.71 Since (Slav) sixth-century fought all at once. In 553 ers, men without

64 of Bremen Adam id est furor, De Vries, Religions 4,26: Wodan Eleventh-century colunt." "Mercurii dies" II, 94. Tacitus, Germania 9: "Deorum maxime Mercurium geschichte, meant Woden; became Wednesday, hence Tacitus' Mercurius Much, Germania, 17iff; Romano-Ger H?fler, Runenstein, 26ff; Dieter Timpe, i99ff; De Vries, Religionsgeschichte, manica. Gesammelte Studien zur Germaniades Tacitus, Stuttgart, 1995, ii4ff. Berserkdom's to Woden is discussed relation Ninck, Wodan 197-206; Martin by H?fler, Geheimb?nde, und germanischer H?fler, Runenstein, Jena, 1935, 34-67; 33off; De Vries, Schicksalsglaube, The Lost Gods ofEngJand, New York, 1974, 92fr". II, 94ff; Brian Branston, Religionsgeschichte 65 Libanius, Oratio 59, 128; cf. Tacitus, Germania 14: "ingrata genti quies." J.M. Wai in England and on the Continent, lace-Hadrill, Oxford, 1971, 151: Kingship Early Germanic War was "a way of life as much as a means of survival or expansion." Mircea Eliade, The Myth 1954, 29: "War or the duel can in no case be explained of the Eternal Return, New York, 2,5,3; 2>6,7- Merovingians: Bodmer, Der Jean-Pierre Procopius, Wars 6,25. Agathias und seine Welt, Die bar Z?rich, 1957, 132; Georg Scheibelreiter, Krieger der Merowingerzeit barische Gesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1999. 67 of Tours 2, 30. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 437. Gregory 68 Now in St-Germain-en-Laye; Edouard vol. 4, Salin, La civilization m?rovingienne, in Howard The World's Paris, 1959, pi. XI, facing p. 400; 573; good photograph Spodek, Sable River, I, Upper 1988, 313. History 69 Barlaam saga 54, 20; 197, 8 after G?ntert, Geschichten, 23. 70 Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, Harmondsworth, 1982, 101; Birkhan, 71 1991, Kelten, Procopius, 1910. 96of. Legends: G?ntert, Wars 7,14,26. Antes Geschichten, and Sklavenoi: 30fr". Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 3, through 66 rationalistic motives."

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shirts, they very likely threw them off to fight they must have owned in the traditional like berserks too, style. Iranians, Indo-European customs into the of battle madness the middle ages.72 upheld to strut In Europe during the middle ages the need for berserks naked grew less. As more and more warriors wore mail, all one had to do to signal outstanding bravery was to throw off one's knee-length and, more daringly, fling one's shield on the back.73 Even the time-honored dance could now be done fully dressed, spear-and-sword as seen on the seventh-century helmet from Sutton Hoo.74 in medieval Berserks fiction followed old customs and beliefs. Beo wulf took a berserk stance when he shed his mail before the fight with on its own terms, he threw off his hel the monster To meet Grendel. hauberk version and sword.75 In the handed-down Christianized met, hauberk, not trusts in in of the epic, however, Beowulf God's favor, strength as did Woden's men in earlier flowing from an altered state of mind,
times.

in his early Saxo Grammaticus years after Beowulf, "Gesta Danorum" says that Asmund flung his shield thirteenth-century on his back to fight more fiercely and daringly and hence win greater in 935 and in 961 also trod the Good fame.76 Norway's King H?kon as an armor-scorning the battlefield fighter:77 Six-hundred

72 Iranian Rustam: und Herkules," Franz Rolf Schr?der, "Indra, Thor Zeitschrift f?r deutsche Philologie 76, 1957, 23fr. 73 Even a.d. some warriors in the first and second centuries Germanic high-ranking wore hauberks: Tacitus, Germania 24; Horst-Wolfgang B?hme, Zeugnisse "Arch?ologische zur Geschichte der Markomannenkriege," Zentralmuse Jahrbuch des R?misch-Germanischen ums Mainz Studien zur germanischen 22, 1975, 153-217, 214; Wolfgang Adler, Bewaffnung, (Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, Bonn, 1993, 105. Early middle ages: Beowulf Karl Hauck, "Ger (saro, g?3hamo). 1950, 311, S. V. Byrne); Hildebrandslied im Spiegel mittelalterlicher des Nordens," Romanitas-Christian Bildzeugnisse ed. G. Wirth, Berlin, itas, Festschrift Straub, 1982, 175-216, i95f; vanishing Johannes nakedness: Karl Hauck, "Dioskuren," 5, 1984, 482-494, 485. Shirt: Saxo, p. 208, 25 Hoops tantum fretus inermem telis thoracem subucula Runenstein, (after H?fler, 93): "subarmali 212 sees this trend operating in the first century a.D., already Kampf, opposuit." Wolters, but offers no evidence. 74 "Ger The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial, London, 1978, 186. Hauck, Rupert Bruce-Mitford, mania-Texte," 197. 75 see also 25o6ff; 25i8f. "Beowulf," 67iff; 76 Saxo fama nostrae luceat?nudo "Ferocitatis i,26f: pectore?absque periculi in necem "Berser respectu reflexo in tergum clipeo complures egit"; also 2, 64. Otto H?fler, Lexington, mania-Texte 2, 1976, 298-304, ker," Hoops 302f. 77 Snorri H?konar Sturlusson, saga Goda M. Hollander, Snorri Sturlusson, Heimskringla, Berserker, 300. in part the translation 6; 30, following by Lee Austin, 4; H?fler, 1964, 120; H?konarm?l

Speidel:

Berserks He threw off his armor thrust down his mail-coat the great-hearted lord, ere the battle began. He laughed with his liege-men.

271

H?kon's
warrior

Such berserk-gestures laughter showed his scorn of wounds. often other of and leaders men, abound inNordic by individuals, kings
tales.78

Medieval berserks were often battle lords. In the tenth-century bat in Northumbria, tle on the Vin Heath the Icelandic Viking Thorolf, wore a helmet but no hauberk, and when the battle went badly, he so berserk that he swung his shield round to his back, and "became took his spear in both hands. He ran forward, striking or thrusting on . . . both sides. Men but he killed many. sprang away in all directions, on out Then Thorolf drew his sword, striking both sides, and his men also joined the attack."79 Flinging one's shield to one's back as a ber is found on reliefs of the berserk-like serk gesture Shardana guard of II and on archaic Greek warrior statuettes.80 Icelandic sagas often tell of berserks as wild, howling fighters, some as lowly drifters.81 times as high-born of kings, sometimes champions was a woman One of the last-known in North berserks, however, in America. One the eleventh the Greenlanders who century, day saw a huge host of under Karlsefni had come to settle in Vinland (Indians) bearing down on them. As the Skraelings Skraelings flung rocks at them from slings, the Greenlanders retreated between boul ders to make their stand. The woman Freydis had first stayed indoors, to follow the men. When but then went outside the Skraelings made for her, she snatched the sword of a dead Greenlander, "pulled out her breasts from under her clothes and slapped the naked sword on them, at which the Skraelings took fright, ran off to their boats and rowed Insofar away. Karlsefni's men came up to her, praising her courage."82 as Freydis fought bare-breasted and frightened her foes with unwonted Ramses
courage, she was a berserk.

78 in the battle on the Vin-Heath, in the E.g., Egil and Thoror Egils saga 53; Starkad Gautreks saga (Genzmer, 1997, 335); Agner Edda, fight against Herthjof, (Saxo 2, 64); at Br?valla Harold Wartooth (H?fler, Runenstein, 93). 79 Fell, Egils Saga, Toronto, Egils saga 53 as translated 1975, 80. by Christine 80 Drews, End, i44f. 81 Hans Kuhn, und Berserker," saga Kraka; G?ntert, Geschichten; Hr?lfs "K?mpen Fr?hmittelalterliche Studien 2, 1968, 218-227, 222fr". 82 Eiriks berserks: H?rbar$slj?$, saga Rauda, 6, translated by Gwyn 37. Jones; women

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forbade berserks,83 but their spirit lived on. Among Christianity it survived longest. Pawns of the twelfth-century chess set island Celts are as warriors from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides portrayed in 1138 King who bite their shields in battle madness.84 Also, when of Scotland met an Anglo-Norman David army in the Battle of the warriors claimed and Highlander their right his Galwegian With lances and ahead of his armored household knights. full of fury and daring, only to swords they ran into battle unarmored, be shot down by English bowmen.85 The few who reached the English line achieved against the armored, dismounted knights who nothing rest the of the Scottish led the defense. When fled, they they dragged at Telam?n 1350 army into a rout, just as did the naked Celtic Gaesati Standard, to attack
years earlier.86

effectiveness of berserk tactics this example of the waning Despite warriors in the thirteenth still "modern" Irish forces, century against went into battle barechested and barefooted, armed only with axes.87 In doing so they shared with ancient berserks the lack of armor that made them faster and more recklessly daring. Nor did the literary con sagas the word "ber cept of the berserk warrior die: in late medieval a brave, fearless warrior.88 serk" still meant shows the abidingness of of Indo-European berserks The history their warrior style over more than two and a half thousand years, from and Roman Greek 1300 B.c. to a.d. city cultures, 1300.89 Unlike and little over the centuries,90 northern Europe's tribal culture changed with it the berserk warrior style lasted as long as the culture of the tribes north of the Roman empire stayed intact, that is, to the coming of

83 Icelandic Christian law against berserks: Lily Weiser, Altgermanische J?nglingsweihen und M?nnerb?nde, B?hl, 1927, 44ff. 84 Below, p. 278. 85 Richard Chronicles II, and Richard I, vol. 3, Howlett, of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry occurrerent amatis virtute inermes istos, animi pro scuto 1886, 190: "primo ingressu utentes"; sagittis undique circumseptum, spinis, ita Galwensem 196: "Videres ut hericium nunc hostem et caeca quadam amentia proruentem vibrare gladium, nichilominus caedere, nunc ?citis aerem cassis ictibus verberare." barbaros habens Ibid., p. 35: "Scotia??ncolas amarae mortis anxium exitum pro nihilo confidentes, pedibus levique armaturae to this battle. ducentes." kindly drew my attention Stephen Morillo 86 "Battles in England and Normandy, Chronicles Howlett, Jim Bradbury, 162,192,197; in Matthew 1992, 182-193, Strickland, Angjo-Norman Warfare, Woolbridge, 1066-1154, 2, 29 (above, p. 264). esp. 191. Gaesati: Polybios 87 Maurice 1997, 84. Keen, Medieval Warfare, Oxford, 88 Laxd la saga 33; G?ntert, la saga 60 and 62; Vatnsd 23. Geschichten, 89 claims 6000 years of change when and 272, needlessly 2500 Search, nof Mallory, inanem years will do. 90 Stuart Piggot, Ancient Europe, Chicago, 1965, 22.

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The berserks' social underpinning lay in their role as Christianity. was belief in their of and followers religious underpinning kings, guards a war god, and their main cultural feature was an extravagant code of to in societies which the tied honor and behavior?all they strongly flourished.

The

Berserk

Mind

so Indians had their distinct warrior As North American societies, own their had distinct warrior groups with Ancient Indo-Europeans customs and "willfulness." The Sanskrit word swadh? ("inherent power, as Greek and is the same word etymologically habitual state, custom") an Ber organization").91 English ethos and the Latin sodaks ("men of serks would have formed such groups. To do deeds of berserk daring, one had to be raging mad. Homeric warriors fought best in a powerful rage, and Gaulish warriors could not into the grip of battle madness.92 and singing Shouting help falling were ways warriors to rouse such rage. Early Greek and Roman a mark of manhood.93 With like flocks of raucous birds?a screeched the young Marut warriors of the Rig Veda song of thunder and wind, and Germanic Indra's prowess.94 Husky Thracian, awakened Celtic, war songs, like crashing waves, heartened warriors.95 even more. Not only Tukulti-Ninurta's berserks Dance emboldened

Its Practice and Concepts, Columbia, Primitive War, S.C., Harry Holbert Turney-High, 2iiff. I, Munich, 1959, Etymologisches W?rterbuch Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches 62?f. Mallory-Adams, 631. Destiny, Encyclopedia, 883. Dum?zil, 92 Iliad est gens"; Strabo ira cuius impotens 6, ioof; 9, 237fr; Livy 5, 37, 4: "flagrantes 4, 4, 2. 93 Iliad warriors 3, 2-6; Aeneid 7, 705; Julian says the same of Germanic (Misopogon to Von See, to Tacitus, Germania and hence 3 (though not, of course, 337c). To Vergil, admirable manhood; Friedrich Klingner, "Germane," 42-72, 53) such singing betokened Eduard Norden, Die germanische Aeneis, Z?rich, 1967, 5i5ff; Ge?rgica, Virgil, Buc?lica, is silence always Roman and in Tacitus Germania, 1974, 1 i5ff. Nor Darmstadt, Urgeschichte contra v. See ibid., 62f, see Caesar, Bellum Civile 3, 92. shouting always "barbarian," 94 1, 85, 2 and 10; they are heaven's singers (5, 57); Zimmer, Leben 1879, 294. RigVeda wind: Maurer, Thunder, Pinnacles, 1986, 131; 133. 95 Thracians: "Truci cantu, clam Tacitus, Annals 4,47. Celts: Livy 5, 37, 8 (387 b.c.): cuneta compleverant sono." Germans: Tacitus, Germania 3, 1: variis, horrendo oribusque accendunt relatu quern barditum vocant, "carmina quorum 2, 22; Annals ?nimos"; Histories "vires validas erige 1, 65, 1: "laeto cantu aut truci sonore"; 4, 47; Ammianus 31, 7, n: bant"; Norden, ii5ff; Much, Germania, j6?, 308; J. B. Rives, Tacitus Germa Urgeschichte, 1971, nia, Translated 16,12,43. with Introduction and Commentary, Oxford, 1999, i23f. Waves: Ammianus

91

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on the battlefield; Vedic Indians did the same.96 Indra and his band of Marut warriors danced adorned with golden plates.97 Greek and Iranian warriors likewise danced, and to Hector battle itself was on the battlefield, dance.98 Ancient Thracians danced and so did naked Celtic warriors, wearing only golden neckbands and armrings.99 In Caesar's time Romans in hand, albeit no still danced with weapons longer as soldiers but as teams of Salian priests. Dances, though done by all early warriors, their fury.100 mattered particularly to berserks as they fanned Tacitus

on the battlefield.101 Germanic too, danced warriors, describes the dance of their young, naked warriors thus:102

They have only one kind of show and it is the same at every gather into a dance ing. Naked youths whose sport this is fling themselves between threatening swords and spears. Training has produced skill, and skill, grace, but they do it not for gain or pay. However daring
their abandon, their only reward is the spectators' pleasure.

Both dancers

war dances and images of early medieval war Indo-European bear out Tacitus' tale of naked youths dancing with weapons

on whom mortals Veda 12, 1, 41: "The earth (=battlefield) sing and dance on whom various noises, the drum 'speaks,' may that earth rout they fight, on whom this I thank Walter my rivals, rid me of my foes"; for help with Maurer, my teacher. A Hit tite bear-skin dancer: Mallory-Adams, 56. Encyclopedia, 97 Der arische M?nnerbund, Lund, Feudalismus, Stig Wikander, 1938, 676?; Widengren, Archaic Roman Religion, Chicago, Dum?zil, 1970, 211; Birkhan, Germa 1969, 20; Georges see also McCone, i2of. nen, 549ff. On the Maruts "Hund," 98 Andrew in the Service of Constantine "Cornuti, A Teutonic Alf?ldi, Contingent at the Milvian in the Battle the Great and its Decisive Role Oaks Bridge," Dumbarton with 13, 1959, 169-183, 177; Beck, Stanzen, 2of, 56ff. Feudalismus, 245ff; Widengren, Iliad 7, 241. Drums frenzied Iranian warriors: Franz Altheim, der Alten Niedergang 2 vols., Frankfurt, Welt. Eine Untersuchung der Ursachen, 1952, 46f. War dances of Ameri can Indians: McCone, 126. "Hund," 99 Thracians: et tripudiis persulta Tacitus, Annals 4, 47: "more gentis cum carminibus as bant." Celts: hence 2, 97, 7; K?VT|GI? is movements, dance, not just gestures Polybius translated C?ltica 8; Mass., by W R. Paton, Polybius, vol. I, Cambridge, 1967, 315. Appian, et tripudia"; Tacitus, Agricola ineuntium ululatus 33. Livy 38, 17, 4: "Gallorum proelium 100 inter lusum ac festa t?m illi viri solebant Seneca, Dialogues, 9, 17, 4: "Ut antiqui in modum "Sur les danses arm?es des pora virilem tripudiare." Salii: Livy 1, 20, 4; R. Bloch, Annales Archaic Roman Religion, 211; McCone, Saliens," 13, 1958, 706-715; Dum?zil, Papers Hector: 2, 62. 133. Fury: Tacitus, Germania, 3, 1;Valerius Maximus the tribal name was done still 19; Much, Plutarch, Marius Germania, 84; shouting in the middle in germanischen und Kultmythen "Lebensnormen ages: Karl Hauck, und Herrschergenealogien," StammesSaeculum 6, 1955, 186-223, 2iof. 102 Germania Tacitus, 24; Histories 19, 4; H?fler, Geheim 5, 17, 3; Plutarch, Marius 157; Hauck, Germania-Texte, b?nde, 189ff. "Hund," 101

96 Atharva

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in hand. Naked, the youths were berserks. Assyrian berserks, Celtic even Aztec wild warriors all danced naked.103 Gaesati, Indeed, being as the best getup for strenuous dancing barefooted and barechested as god of may, in itself, have been a reason for fighting naked. Woden, the berserks, led the dance. A Danish bracteate gold amulet shows him a neckband, and a hitherto overlooked dancing, wearing but a helmet, belt?like the warriors from Grevenswaenge, Hirschlanden, and else

Figure Museum

the shape-shifting, 3. Woden, of Denmark).

all-round warrior

(National

103Gaesati:

Polybius

2, 29, 6; Aztecs:

below.

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like a hero, he twirls shield, ax, spear, and club, Overarmed, to show that he shakes them as he dances (Fig. 3).105 the warriors together, entranced song and dance bonded Rhythmic like war their fighting madness.106 War dances, them, and aroused and battles also re-enacted songs, however, thereby changed mythical

into mythic heroes.107 As Mircea Eliade has put it, "The fren the state of the sacred zied berserkir ferocious warriors realized precisely of the world."108 menos, fury (wut, furor) primordial on the Danish medallion wolf tail, recognizable Woden's by its a and him also wolf-warrior makes tip, shape-shifter.109 bent-up in common with into animal shapes, as it were, had much Changing warriors this may be how bear- and by battle madness; being overcome seen as came to in a wild and woundproof, be too, warriors, berserk.110 warriors all ancient naked or half-naked Whether thought as is an open did their medieval selves woundproof, counterparts, wolf word, them

ques state of fighting frenzy with tion. The psychological and physiological its rise of adrenaline levels could foster such a belief, for adrenaline to and narrows blood vessels in "dilates the airways improve breathing so an increased flow of blood reaches the that the skin and intestine . . . them to cope with the demands of the exercise. muscles, allowing to into tissues reduce bleeding."111 surgery, it is injected During rush," frenzied fighters may well have Buoyed by this "adrenaline than others. Vergil themselves stronger and less vulnerable thought

104 See Woden on the famous Finglesham "The belt buckle: S. Chadwick-Hawkes, 40, 1965, 17-32. Man," Antiquity Finglesham 105 Photo: Dansk inv. no 14/14. Museum Nationalmuseet, photograph Copenhagen, der V?lkerwanderungszeit Die Goldbrakteaten Karl Hauck, I?III, Munich, by Jesper Weng. to is the no. see also III, 2, p. 129 and I, 1, p. i35f. "Vibrare," shake, 7; 1985, I, 3, 1985, Latin word for throwing a spear: Tacitus, Germania 6,1; Seneca, 36, 7: "Si inGer Epistulae, in C? Chulainn vibraret." Overarmed: mania puer tenerum hastile (natus esset) protinus Old Irish Tales; 106 William Birkhan, Kelten, 967. H. McNeill, Keeping Together Mass., 1995, 8; 17; io2ff. in Time: Dance and Drill inHuman History,

Cambridge, 107 Eliade, Return, 28f. 31, 7, n. Dance: 3, 1;Ammianus Songs: Tacitus, Germania 108 Eliade, ibid., 29. 109 It has been taken for a horse to a wolf tail; end rather points tail, but its upturned contra: Karl Hauck, for example, the curled tail of the wolf on Frank's Casket; witness, . . ," Pietas, eines Allgottes. Festschrift K?tting Bildzeugnisse "V?lkerwanderungszeitliche M?nster, (ed. E. Dassmann), 1980, 566-583, 569. 110 bear warrior: Hr?lfs saga Kraka (Gwyn Jones, Eirik the Red and Other Wound-proof Gr?n Icelandic Sagas, Oxford, II, 94ff; Wilhelm 1961, 313O. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte 12th ed., Darmstadt, 1997, 274. bech, Kultur und Religion der Germanen, 111Charles B. Clayman (ed.), The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medi cine, New York, 1998, 414.

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fire nor steel hurt him.112 Of that neither says of the Latin Messapus some Italic wolf-warriors it was said that they such as the Hirpi Sorani, too were not hurt by fire.113 These are but scattered and vague hints for are on firmer ground in the Nordic middle ages. In the antiquity. We themselves latter period, berserks, as followers ofWoden, safe thought clubs.114 Half by iron and fire, vulnerable only to wooden the around the Malabar discussed amoks, below, "stopped way world, at fire nor sword." neither to warriors of antiquity all half-naked Whether roused themselves from wounds is unknown. It is likely, though, for Strabo says that fighting madness were battle-mad, all Celts and Germans and if regular warriors were to warriors in battle elite the first line would have raged madness, prone even more. Battlefield was certainly a telling trait of many madness warriors,115 for they craved the fame and "unwilting Indo-European glory" praised in the Iliad and in the Rig Veda alike.116 To linguists, words and concepts shared by Indo-Europeans suggest in that fighting madly was a very old custom that originated perhaps B.c. The word for "mad attack," eis-, shared by the fourth millennium Vedic, it likely that the berserk and Germanic warriors, makes style comes from the time before the dispersal of the Indo 117 Dum?zil put it thus:118 Europeans. Iranian, fighting Aesma [to Zoroastrians] is one of the worst evils, and later, in the eyes of the Mazdaeans, the most frightful demon, who bodies forth the destructive fury of society. Yet it only personifies as something bad a quality that gives the Rig Veda, from the same root, an adjective of praise for the Maruts, the followers of Indra, and for their father, the dreadful Rudra: i?m?n "impetuous" and no doubt "furious." These

112Aeneid fas igni cuiquam nec sternere ferro." 7,692: "quem ?eque 113 2, 93, 207-208. Alf?ldi, Struktur, tj{; 125; 187. Pliny, Natural History 114 Edda, H?vam?l, saga 46; G?ntert, Geschichten, i2?f; H?fler, Runen 156; Vatnsdoela animal skins would guard them (like the that wearing magical stein, 93. Some also believed in a.d. reindeer coats of Thorir Hundr and his eleven 193 and 228. saga Helga 1030). ?l?fs Furs, of course, offer also some natural protection 4, 11,3. against blades: Pausanias 115 Strabo 4, 4, 2. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 94ff; Widengren, Feudalismus, 45?; 208-212. Dum?zil, Religion, 116 Fame: in indoger und Dichtersprache 1, 85, 8; R?diger Schmitt, Rig Veda Dichtung manischer Zeit, Wiesbaden, 399. Altertumskunde, 1967, 6iff; Schmitt, 117 Wikander, M?nnerbund, I, 117; Pokorny, W?rterbuch, $?f, Altheim, Niedergang S. Novak, and K. 211; H. Neumann, 19; Dum?zil, Feudalismus, 299ff; Widengren, Religion, Schmuck und Waffen mit Inschriften aus dem ersten Jahrtausend, G?ttingen, D?wel, 1995, no. nomen The unknown from this root might be the Indo-European 46: ais[i]?a?z. agentis word for berserk, unless 118 Dum?zil, Mythes, it isM?vxcop (note 119). 215 (= Id?es romaines, 1969).

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words come from the root of Greek oiOTpo?, Latin ira, and, it seems, from the Old Norse verb eiskra that describes the rage of the wild berserk warriors; hence we meet here a technical term of the Indo
European "warrior bands."

B.c. was in the second millennium The mind of berserk warriors two thousand much warriors the same, it seems, as that of medieval the word "mind," related to "mania," comes from years later. In English, the same root as the Sanskrit manas and Greek menos, both meaning warriors menos meant "a tempo "spirit" as well as "fury." For Homeric or or to of all mental do one, rary urge many, organs something bodily came from specific, an urge one can see but not influence." Menos heroic above; heroes owed their great deeds to it, and Indo-European arose one it its From forms of poetry sings praise.119 sundry abandoning self to new identities such as those of wolf-warriors and berserks.120 a bear-shirt warrior. In Old Norse the word berserk at first meant But when bera (bear) became bj?rn, the word berserk was no longer as bear-warrior and instead came to mean understood "bare-shirt." shirt and armor were reckless mad fought without on its of mad fighter.121 modern meaning the word berserk took men, is in still seen, however, the berserk cus The old bear-warrior meaning tom of "biting" one's shield. The custom is known from Snorri Sturlus Since those who son's Ynglinga saga, quoted above, but also from the famous twelfth in the Outer Hebrides. century chess set found on the Isle of Lewis set in warrior Some of the that "bite" their shields. Biting pawns their teeth rapidly on a shield makes a sound like that of bears clacking attack.122 that sounded like before just Shield-biting threatening they trance. the warrior's shape-shifting bears further deepened tradition from Berserks thus embody an abiding spirit in unbroken to times those of the Icelandic and Homeric Vedic sagas. The history warriors offers rich religious, and military detail cultural, from about 1300 B.c. to a.d. 1300 and links the bronze, iron, and mid as belong dle ages, three thousand years of history seldom understood of berserk ing together.

119 R?diger 120Heinrich

Schmitt, Beck, 12.

Einige

104. Pokorny, W?rterbuch, Dichtung, 726f, cf. M?vTC?p. und die literarische ?berlieferung, Bilddenkm?ler vendelzeitliche

Munich, 1964, 121 138. forthcoming, Speidel, Wild Warriors, 122 Sturlusson: their above, p. 253. Bears clacking vol. 3, New York, 1990, 400. Mammals,

teeth: H. Grzimek,

Encyclopedia

of

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Berserks and in Need of

279 Berserks: A Pattern

Rome

and regular, as inMesopotamia, Egypt, imperial Rome, they had to hire reckless attack had to watch over them.123 True, Tukulti troops from outside?and no mentions Ninurta's warriors other than the king's epic Assyrian must the have had him regular Assyrian with sol berserks, yet king diers as well, for wherever we meet berserks, we also find regular troops armies became Greece disciplined classical and to keep them in check, especially when berserks serve as guards. Thus, as seen on the Abu Symbel relief, Ramses IImatched his foreign Shar dana guard with a native Egyptian guard.124 Trajan had with him bare foot berserks as well as regulars (fig. 2), and so did King Harald Fairhair in a.d. 872.125 of Norway as civilized of themselves Greeks and Romans and of thought as others "barbarians." The of "barbarism" was telling characteristic in bragging or whining, whether and over wantonness, over-eating drinking, fighting rashly, or fleeing cravenly.126 To Plato and Aristotle, warriors,127 gorging on food and drink, an ideal of Indo-European lack of self-control and reasonableness, while the courage of "barbarians" was little more than mindless bragging. Besides, they had little to live for and so they rushed to their death, a view also taken of in American Indians by Western Mindlessness, anthropologists.128 their view, was also the root of "barbarian" warrior tactics, while Greeks the art of disciplined and Romans perfected fighting.129 It was not always thus. Greeks abandoned their inherited Indo we see on but In the Iliad the first this ways step European slowly. path: meant

123 Gothic Wars 4, 33, 2 (Longobards). E.g., Procopius, 124 Drews, End, 154. 125 Snorri Haralds Sturlusson, 9. Egils saga 9. Compare saga H?rfagra Heimskringla, two guards, the Schola Constantine's and the Schola Gentilium, Scutariorum Notitia Dig Das sp?tr?mische Bewegungsheer und die Notitia Dig nitatum, Oriens n; Dietrich Hoffmann, nitatum, D?sseldorf, 1969, 279fr. 126 Plato, Nomoi (Celts); Plutarch, Marius 19,3 (Germans). 637,d,8 127 Schr?der, Indra; also the warrior Vrkodarah, 1,15; Plu "Wolf-belly," Bhagavadgita Histories Historia tarch, Camillus Tacitus, (Gauls); 4,29,1 2,21,if; 5,44,6 (Germans); Maximinus Rhiannon 4,1 (a Thracian). Ash, Ordering Anarchy. Armies and Lead Augusta, ers in Tacitus' Histories, Ann Arbor, 1999, 42f. 128 Ethics 1229b, 22f; Nicomachian Ethics 1115b, 24ff; Courage: Aristotle, Euthydemian Politics 1327b, 25. Little to live for: Ammianus ad per 21, 13, 13, "Feritate speque postrema niciosam audentiam Losers: Strabo 4, 4, 5. Indians: Turney-High, War, prompti." 14iff. 129 De ira 1, 11, 3-4; Dio 38, 45, 4-5; 2, 35, 2-3; Strabo 4, 4, 2; Seneca, Polybius Herodian IIA 100); Ammianus 6, 3, 7; Dexippos, 26, 5 (Felix Jacobi, FGH 15, fragment Maximinus 4, 11; Historia Augusta, 3,1.

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the Trojans groups kept quiet, listening for orders, while most and shouted.130 the archaic Greeks laid yelled During period to live peacefully aside their weapons in cities and donned dress simple instead of the gold-gleaming warriors.131 The garb of Indo-European until array of the classical period stood unshaken hoplite the Athenians faced the backward Aetolians who, fighting barefoot, sent the hoplites Athenians later needed attack reeling.132 When

battle

well-ordered

or Thracian troops, they hired Aetolian tribesmen, whose speed, fierce as armor of lack warriors.133 and mark them berserklike ness, warrior styles. Italic still shared too, Early Romans, Indo-European to Celts kindred and Germans, those styles to the Ital tribes, brought iooo ian peninsula around B.c.134 Over lost those ways time, Romans recast their army into an Etruscan-type of fighting, and, as phalanx, the world, their warriors became uniformed soldiers. they conquered The horse, and boar standards of the legions sundry wolf, minotaur, became gave way to the eagle. Dress and weapons simplified and uni form; soldiers had their hair cut. When attacked, they stood still and kept quiet until given the signal to fight.135 Their field commanders' worst faults were speed and daring.136 "Rome," as Dum?zil put it, "lost even the memory of those bands of warriors who sought to be more than human, confer much was supposed to initiation magico-military was and whose likeness powers, very supernatural presented, its Berserkers with its and by Ireland with later, by Scandinavia and Romans style but also had shared not only in in the mythical wolf on whom

Fianna."13?

In their early centuries Greek the mad berserk Indo-European

Wulf Bonn,

130 427-431. Iliads 131 1, 6; Ammianus 23, 6, 75 (on Iranians as against Greeks). Thucydides 132 Saturnalia 5, 18, i3?f. 3, 97ff; Macrobius, Thucydides 133 and Rome at War, Greece 7, 30; Peter Connolly, London, Thucydides 1981, 49; vor Christus, in der Kunst Athens im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert Zum Barbarenbild Raeck, 1981. 134Celts

to each other and much and Germans kindred alike: Strabo 4, 4, 2; Dio 38, to each Germanen. Italic and Germanic tribes were also closely related 46, 2; Birkhan, near the end other?the shows that the two were still neighbors history of their languages b.c.: H. Fromm, "Germanisch-finnische of the second millennium und ger Lehnsforschung in Beck, Germanenprobleme manische 1999, 213-230, 2i6f; Schmidt, Sprachgeschichte" Isoglossen, 234^ 135 Stand still: Caesar, Bellum Civile 3, 92; Maurice, Miller, Mythology. Strategicon 3, 5, Sun Tsu, The Art ofWarfare, 3; i2,B 14; compare Sun Tsu, fragment 6, in Roger T. Ames, New York, 1993, 247. 136 duci quam festinationem Suetonius, 25, 4: "Nihil autem minus Augustus perfecto convenire arbitrabatur" (i.e., haste and recklessness). temeritatemque 137 210. Dum?zil, Religion,

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is famous for having been founded by a style.138 Indeed, Rome to much of Europe wolf warrior with a wolf ancestor, a myth common and Asia, Southeast and the Americas.139 Asia, Later, in including their classical with

and Rome replaced these warrior styles periods, Greece on based which allowed them stunning con others, discipline, in in because soldiers the same bond quests, step gave part marching 14? oneness to of warriors. and that wild Yet it energy ing dancing gave to claim that western would be wrong Europe shut itself off from the old styles, for Celts and Germans upheld them.141 Greeks and Romans and Germanic warriors' mad gaped at Celtic ness (vesania, their fits of reckless rage, and their iracundia, furor), mindless rush into battle.142 They themselves trusted to reason, will, was at and order.143 That, In practice, the theory. least, though, Romans to fight with madness: steadiness alone was not felt that the keenest fighting spirit, enough.144 Even classical historians found in the troops of Alexander and Caesar, came from fighting "like too had

barefoot above, p. 265; Latin barefoot fighters: Aetolians, fighters: Vergil, Iliad 9, 237-239; 459; 16,156-164; McCone, 7,689f. Greek wolf warriors: Homer, 122. "Hund," 139 in der Mythologie "Der Hund der zirkum 7, 688f. Wilhelm Vergil, Aeneid Koppers, und Linguistik 1, 1930, 359-399; V?lker," Wiener pazifischen Beitr?ge zur Kulturgeschichte et les Curiaces, Paris. 1942, i26ff; Eliade, Shamanism, Dum?zil, Horace George 355?f; 466f. 140 McNeill, Keeping. 141Claude Tristes Tropiques L?vi-Strauss, (translated by John and Doreen Weightman), New York, 1977, 28iff. 142Celts: Strabo, Geography 4, 195 (=4,4,2); Livy 5, 37, 4 (387 b.c.); McCone, Vitruvius "Hund," 113; Birkhan, Kelten, 968. Germans: 6,1,3-10; Josephus, Bellum ludaci cum 2, 377; Tacitus, Histories 4, 29: "inconsulta ira"; Appian 4, 1,3; Dio 77, 20, 2; Paneg. Lat. 12, 23, 4: "tarn pr?digos sui." Ammianus "rabies et immodicus furor"; 16, 12, 16,12,30: 36; 25, 5, 33; 26, 7, 11; 31, 6, 3: "petulantia"; 31, 5, 12: "vesania." lordanes, Getica 24: Var. 1, 24, 1: "gaudium comprobad," "beluina saevitia." Cassiodorus, cf. Beowulf 1539 gebol "Zur Bewaffnung und Kampfesart der Germanen," Acta Archeo gen. Per Gustav Hamberg, "Furor Teutonicus," 10, 1998, 254-258, logLca 7, 1936, 21-49, 39f; Dieter Timpe, Hoops see also De Vries, Religionsgeschichte, 254f. For ecstatic warriors 94ft. Cf. Tacitus, Annals 4,47 on Cohors "prompta ad pericula." Sugambra 143 19, 1, 15 (122); Appian 4, 1,3; Dio 38, Josephus, Bellum ludaicum 4,45; Antiquitates in Aristotle over found already Politics 45, 4f. This clich?, 1327, B 25, gets even more Aeneid worked during the third-century in Dexippus: Bruno Bleckmann, Die Reich wars, especially skrise des III. Jahrhunderts in der sp?tantiken und byzantinischen Geschichtsschreibung, Munich, vero militem ordinat 1992, 2o8f. Panegyrici Latini 12, 24, 2: "Romanum quem qualemque et sacramenti disciplina religio confirm?t." 144 Silius 12,499: "irarumque omnis effundit habenas"; Italicus, P?nica Vergil, Aeneid Pharsalia 7, 551; 10, 72; Tacitus, Histories 5, 158: "rabies"; ibid., 172: "furentem"; Lucanus, i, 63: "furore et rabie"; Josephus approves of frenzied attacks?if done by Romans (Bellum ludaicum 3, 485: 7tpo0\)|li(X in barbaros Ammianus fre 16, 12, 37: "iretque ?otifiovio?). mens." Claudian for Honorius, rabies!" Aeneid 7, 73, claims 8, "quae tibi turn Martis 700-703; Dum?zil, Religion, 209; 390.

138Greek

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beasts."145

assessment is Dum?ziPs taken as a whole, Nevertheless, warrior ancient lost the styles. right: Rome In middle and northern Europe, on the other hand, ancient warrior and free styles and fighting spirit lived on among Sarmatians, Germans, as Strabo observed with keen insight.146 With the Cimbri in 60 B.c., the old in 120 B.c., and again with Ariovistus Celts against the somewhat Romanized styles began to make headway Ariovistus in Gaul.147 When and his and his warriors faced Caesar a speech puts into Caesar's mouth troops, Cassius Dio, for the occasion,

island Celts, and Teutons

and Roman clich?s about northern of the Greek that repeats many it is also true: is not only stereotype, warriors; but Dio's description these men were indeed tall, naked, reckless, loud, unruly, and rash.148 warriors held their own against Rome at the peak of her Northern freedom was dead which power, prompted Tacitus' quip that German After moving the Roman than Persian despotism.149 lier for Rome frontier to the Rhine, Caesar began to recruit northern warriors. Later tribal bare-chested emperors enrolled more and more of them. Many armies in the first century A.D., among them warriors served in Roman in a.d. 83 auxiliaries whose victory at Mons Graupius the Germanic established rule in Scotland.150 Roman thus stood in an established berserks tradition, and as fleet Trajan's armies.151 footed attack troops such warriors were of great use to Roman

145 ?o?KOTa. Bellum Civile 2,151: ?? |??%occ OrjpK?Seaiv Appian, 146 Sarmatians Strabo 4,4,2; Seneca, Dialogi Lucan 7, 432ff; Germans: ("Scythians"): laeta bello gens." Ammianus 16, 12, 46: "Ala 4, 16, 1: "Germani 4, 15, 1;Tacitus, Histories im Spiegel "Die Germanen der r?mischen ?neuntes." Hans Haas, manni bella alacriter vor und zur Zeit des Tacitus," Gymnasium in; George 73-114, 1943/44, 54/55, Dichtung Saeculum "Der sarmatische der germanischen V?lkerwanderung," Hintergrund Vernadsky, S. Evans, The Insular Celts: Birkhan, Germanen 2, 1951, 340-392; 1970, 391; 439; Stephen in Dark-Age Lords of Battle, Image and Reality of the Comitatus 1997. Britain, Woodbridge, 147 1, 48; 7, 65; 8, 13; 4, 12-15. Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 148Dio 1,40. 38, 45, 4-5, going far beyond Caesar, Bellum Civile 149 liber acrior est Germanorum Tacitus, Germania 37, 3, "Quippe pro regno Arsacis lacessierit." "florentissimum tas." Annals 2, 88 [Arminius]: James C. Russell, The imperium culture at 1994, 118 calls Germanic Oxford, Germaniza?on Christianity, of Early Medieval the time "the most authentic Alans, Slavs, and Baits though Sarmatians, Indo-European," more about them. might equal them if we knew 150 R Spei 1;Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 3, i4f; Michael 7,13, Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1994, i2ff. By the early del, Riding for Caesar. The Roman Emperors' Horse Guard, London, even felt a need to stand up to the northerners and forbade fourth century Rome culturally of long hair or furs in the city: Codex Theodosianus the wearing 14, 10, 4: "Maiores crines, inhiberi" etiam in servis intra urbem sacratissimam indumenta (a.d. praecipimus pellium 416). 4> 73 Scotland: 151 Tacitus, Tacitus, Agr?cola 36. Histories 2, 22 (with 2,17); see also Histories 2, 28; 2, 32; 2, 35; 3, 21; Annals

Speidel: Under

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283

berserks are seen among the emperor's escort him, bare-chested the role of unprotected, berserk-like war for the first time. Thereafter, a.d. riors in the Roman In 296 the would-be guard grew steadily.

emperorAllectus
were

joined his Frankish guards for battle dressed as they

in shirt or coat only, and without armor.152 During the conquest a.d. victorious in of Italy 311, Constantine's horseguards wore, in true no while Maxentius' berserk armor, only helmets, fashion, losing

a hauberks.153 Wearing guardsmen were burdened with knee-length no as we a armor was, have seen, berserk custom from the helmet but bronze age to the time of the Icelandic sagas.154 Constantine's foreign Tukulti-Ninurta's berserks also in that both guardsmen paralleled troops fought with the ruler in their midst. before him, wore no cuirass when he Emperor Julian, like Allectus in into the enemy during the ill-fated retreat from Ktesiphon charged a.d. not think of that "did his cuirass" Ammianus says Julian 363. to mean that Julian (oblitus hricae), which has often been understood or a in in cuirass fit The word his haste of absentmindedness. forgot can also mean that Julian purposely oblitus, however, put the cuirass out of his mind. Certainly, into the fray to Julian plunged recklessly rouse his followers to fighting madness It (iras sequentium excitons).155 was a berserk feat by an emperor who, from first to last, relied on wild
northern warriors.156

Toward Germans, cuirasses,

elite troops were the end of the empire, when most Roman men to his shed first their Gratian allowed (375-383) then their helmets.157 By this time the berserk fighting spirit

1994, Bridge: Speidel, Riding, on his arch: Hugo Meyer, "Die in Thessaloniki," Jahrbuch des deutchen Arch?ologischen Instituts 95, 1980, 394. Constantine's Libanius troops, Germanic: Or. 30, 6; Zosimus Michael P. Speidel, for the Late Roman 2, 15,1 ; "Raising New Units Oaks Papers 50, 1996, 163-170, 170. Palatina," Dumbarton Army: Auxilia 154 but no armor; figs. 1, 3; Egils saga 53. Helmets, 155Ammianus immemmor" like the "cavendi 25, 3, 3 (to be understood 25, 3, 6). See s.v. "obliviscor." Discussion: Bleckmann, Reichskrise, Oxford Latin Dictionary 384. Ammi anus 25, 3, 6: "iras sequentium semet in pugnam." Ammianus' excitans effunderet audenter of Gerhard Wirth, the suicide hypothesis Kriterien report excludes "Julian's Perserkrieg. einer Katastrophe," in Richard Klein Darmstadt, (ed.), Julian Apostata, esp. 1978, 455-509, 490. 156 25, 4, 10: "augebat fiduciam Julian, Letter to the Athenians 285 b.c.; Ammianus militis inter primos." dimicans 157 dein cassides 1,20: "itaque ab imperatore primo catafractas, Vegetius postulant Erich Sander, "Die Germanisierung des r?mischen Zeit Historische Heeres," deponere"; in Front?" Gedenkschrift P. Speidel, Eric "Who Fought schrift 160, 1939, 1-34, 3of; Michael and W. Eck, Cologne, 1999. Birley, ed. B. Dobson

152 Panegyrici La?ni 8, 16, 5. 153Constantine's arch in Rome, battle at the Milvian 161, plate 20; likewise Galerius' winning guard as shown am sogenannten des Galerius Frieszyklen Triumphbogen

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its tactics. attack had pervaded the Roman army and changed in a.d. 354 Constantius II won a battle against the Alamanni three of his officers, Arintheus, and Bappo, rushed Seniauchus, the enemy in disorderly, wild lunges: "non iusto proelio sed discursion to outdo other war ibus."158 Northern freedom, daring, and yearning order and drill; heroic replaced Roman single combat had movement units. of The berserk spirit held the disciplined

riors, had

attack Rome

at Adrianople in a.d. 378 this undisciplined spirit of sealed the fate of Emperor Valens and the Western empire. its army was no longer Roman lost the battle because but con sisted mainly of tribal warriors imbued with the spirit of reckless attack At rather than Roman these warriors charged, Adrianople, discipline. at the emperor's orders and the time, thereby upsetting wrong against a Germanic battle plan. When fell back?also custom, befitting they lightly armed fact historians have tribal

replaced field.159 In the battle

more

brought on the great rout, a troops?they cause but nevertheless the proximate overlooked, for the fall of the Roman Berserks have may empire.160 helped Assyria a great deal, for after Tukulti-Ninurta rose meteorlike in the Assyria wars of the time. Berserks for a long likewise proved useful to Rome time, as they did under Trajan. However, though berserks fought fear one to control their needed stormy unruliness. Tukulti-Ninurta lessly, in a.d. 363 still until the right

and Trajan had their berserks well in hand, and Julian warriors had the power to hold back teeth-gnashing moment. Valens did not, and so he failed.161

158Ammianus 15, 4, 11. Compare Julian's tactics criticized Emperor by Gregor Naz ianzenus Or. 5, 13 as ?x?iecoic ?K?pouxxi?. 159 120 (on Merovingians): "Nicht die Disziplin und die reibungslos Bodmer, Krieger, waren hier der kriegerische funktionierende sondern Organisation ausschlaggebend, to give ground, Germanic tactics was never tactics 31, 12, 16. Roman to the attack: Caesar, Bellum Civile included fleeing and then returning 1,44; Tacitus, Ger mania 6, 4; Anna?s cf. 2, 14; Fronto, 2, 3, 23. 1, 56; 2, 11: "fugam simulantes," Strategemata Maurice, 11,3 offers a strange contradiction (a manuscript error?), followed by Strategicon in J. Hoops, M. Springer, der germanischen Reallexikon Altertumskunde 17, "Kriegswesen" 2001, 341. More 1956, 78; Cambridge lightly armed troops: R. S. Smail, Crusading Warfare, in Roman Europe AD cf. Maurice, Elton, Warfare 3, 10, 15. Overlooked: Hugh Strategicon review thereof, American Historical Review, Oxford, 1997, 350-425, 1996, 266; see Speidel 161 16, 12, 12: Stridore dentium Julian: Ammianus 12, 16: immature proruperant. II39 infrendentes. Valens: Ammianus 31, Schwung." 160Ammianus

Speidel: Mad

Berserks

285 Worldwide may now

Warriors

outlined the history of Indo-European berserks, we Having in world history. Fighting look for mad warriors elsewhere is in the nature of mankind individual and in groups, and for example, been harnessed for military purposes; witness, Lucena Salmoral:162 quachic warriors as described by Manuel

madness, has often the Aztec

The [Aztec] army was centered around those veterans or professional soldiers called the quachic, who had vowed never to retreat in battle in combat. They and always took up the most dangerous positions were considered mad and likely to live short lives, though they enjoyed certain privileges, such as being allowed to dance with the courtesans at night in the cuicalli or house of song. Sahagun wrote: "They were is the name for deranged albeit valiant called quaquachictin, which
men in war... also otomi otlaotzonxintin which means 'otomis shorn and

reckless.'"
taking

...

They were great slaughterers but held to be incapable of

command.

As

match

the quachic neatly by their unusual hairstyle, as as warriors well the shorn Malabar longhaired Indo-European to we turn whom will below. The madness amoks, very likely quachics* in a trance-like refers to their fighting state, which would explain why of command. Their dances at night in the they did not reach positions "House of Song" may have been not so much sexual privilege as a form a in of "keeping together exercise that brings about an time," military marked intense

stalwarts

and energy as well as a trance that could feeling of oneness as a danced before battle, easily lead to fighting madness.163 Aztecs reports: eyewitness Spanish That night more than a thousand knights got together in the temple, with great loud sounds of drums, shrill trumpets, cornets and notched
bones. rows and . . . They keeping danced time nude to the ... tune in a circle, holding of the musicians their and hands, in singers.164

Salmoral, America 1492, Portrait of a Continent 500 Years Ago, New of mankind: John C. Spores, Running Amok: A Historical Inquiry, Athens/Ohio, Tsunemoto, (translated 1988, 7. Yamamoto (1710), Hagakure by William Scott, New York, 1979, 30): "A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges towards an irrational death." recklessly 163 8; 103fr. McNeill, Keeping, 164Antonio Herrara, 104. See also Bernai D?az del Cas quoted by McNeill, Keeping, verdadera de la conquista de laNueva las fiestas y tillo, Historia 125: "En acabando Espa?a, . . . bailes y sacrificios luego le hab?an de venir a dar guerra."

162Manuel Lucena York, 1990, 202. Nature

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"naked" may have strengthened their frenzy, but they did not Dancing scorn the quilted cotton armor that most Aztec elite warriors wore.165 Nor do we know whether and bragged, or provoked they blustered in their dancing enemies their by other shows of daring. Nevertheless, as as in well their decisive role in battle frenzy and fighting madness, and resulting high status, the quachics closely resemble Indo-European berserks. The between similarities and berserks could be due to quachics was contact shared historical between Eurasia and origins?there across the Bering Sea, and Aztec wolf warriors America look much wolf warriors. If not stemming like Indo-European from contact, such to the structure and traits common similarities must be due to human a warrior is to of all warrior societies.166 The more willing functioning attack recklessly, the more useful he may be in battle; hence warrior societies often fostered and rewarded such behavior, granting high rank to the reckless. To be reckless, a warrior had to be mad in some way, or to strike fear into whether And oath, belief, dance, magic. by drug, the heart of the enemy, he had to flaunt his recklessness by insignia, and dress, or lack thereof. Such structures and func helmet, hairstyle, as well: with tions no doubt underpinned berserkdom Indo-European out them it would not have abided so long and spread so far. from the no-retreat about such warriors Luckily we know much societies of the North American Plains Indians. Among the Arapaho, in the Dog Dance for example, the leader and his four associates into battle with scarves trailing pledged never to retreat. "They went at the beginning which of the action they staked to the ground so that they could not flee. Even worse was the plight of the Oglala Dakota men went into battle with such a vow Brave Hearts, whose no-flight iron. With but armed only with rattles or deer dew-claws tipped with inadequate weapons they rushed the enemy and tried to stab to these themselves them before they could draw the bow."167 Tying were as as brave berserks. also they recklessly They fought handicaps, these nearly naked and thus differ from berserks only in that perhaps they

bragged less during the fight.

Oklahoma, 1988, 88 and p. 38, fig. 2. Hassig, Aztec Warfare, 166Contact: 28iff. Eliade, Shamanism, 333?f; L?vi-Strauss, Tropiques, Speidel, Wild shows military Warriors, McNeill, forthcoming. Keeping, dancing frenzy to be a worldwide phenomenon. 167 Turney-High, War, 1971, 21 if.

165Ron

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character of these warrior societies and their role in The worldwide it the reckless fighting battle makes whether hard to determine style or arose In 1662, in India is of Indo-European origin independently. described serving in the Dutch East India Company, Johan Nieuhof, coast as an elite troop among the amoks he observed on the Malabar the Nayro warrior caste:168

Tho' the Nayros in general are very good soldiers, yet there is a cer tain kind among them called Amokos, who are esteemed above all the rest, being a company of stout, bold, and desperate bravadoes. They oblige themselves by most direful imprecations against themselves and their families, calling heaven to witness, that they will revenge certain injuries done to their friends or patrons, which they certainly pursue with so much intrepidity, that they stop neither at fire nor sword to take vengeance of the death of their master, but like mad men run upon the point of their enemies swords, which makes them be gener ally dreaded by all and makes them to be in great esteem with their . . . Persons of the chiefest rank, if entertain of those Amokos. they will be admitted in the number of the Nayros, must have the king's peculiar leave for it, and are afterwards distinguish'd by a gold ring
they wear on the right arm. kings, who are accounted more potent, the greater the number they

judges by their Sanskrit name, related to Greek aner, "man," the nairs ("heroes") were warriors of Indo-Euro Nero,169 customs with Indo-Euro pean tradition.170 Indeed, they share many such as calling down "dire imprecations" upon pean elite warriors, if they are not faithful to the death,171 themselves and their families and Roman

If one

Johan Nieuhof, Voyages and Travels to the East Indies 1653-1670 (1704 translation), i6f. Reid, Oxford, 1988, 263; Spores, Amok, 169 A Sanskrit-English 765; M. Monier-Williams, Dictionary, Pokorny, W?rterbuch, Les dieux souverains des Indo-Europ?ens, Oxford, Paris, Dum?zil, 1889, 529, 567; Georges von Mandelslo, "nair" still meant "hero" is reported by Johan Albrecht 1986, 214. That ed. A. 1658, 142. Morgenl?ndische Reysebeschreibung, Schleswig, 170 Dum?zil, Feudalismus, 36; 42fr. They are described Religion, 207; 2ioff; Widengren, as an exclusive warrior caste by Cam?es sos s?o "Os Naires around 1550, Lusiadas 7, 36-39: dados ao perigo das armas; sos defendem da contrar?a banda o seu Rei." 171A custom known from Indo-European oaths among Hittites, Batavi, military Indian warriors. Hittites: Norbert Oet troops, and, notably, Vedic Emperor Julian's Frankish Eide der Hethiter, Wiesbaden, 4, 15: "pater 1976; Tacitus, Histories tinger, Die milit?rischen nis execrationibus universos 21, 5, 9f: "pro eo." Julian's adigit," explained by Ammianus Franks: Ammianus Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda II, 21, 5, 10. Hoops 6, 1986, 537-542; II, G?ttingen, Oxford, 1999, 324; Vedic: Heinrich 1959, 655fr. L?ders, Varuna

168

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their by their number, wearing golden armbands,172 and determining, berserk leader's prestige.173 The amoks also shared with Indo-European like troops revenge for their leader as a cause for their reckless attacks: at the murder of Caligula in a.d. 41, the German bodyguard went ber to serk avenge the murder of their prince.174 In defeat, Germanic troops to avenge their fallen; indeed, to avenge often stayed on the battlefield a fallen Saxon More leader or fellow warrior warbands.175 was one of the main duties of Anglo

specifically berserk is the amoks' mad run at the blades of the of fire or sword.176 Another berserk trait is flaunting enemy, heedless eve of their haircut attack their madness the (on they shaved head, by in drawn their weapons and always holding face, and eyebrows),177 "loaded guns," says Alvaro Velho who in 1498 came their hands?like to Calecut.178 nairs (and Like Vedic warriors, da Gama berserks the custom of shared with Nordic amoks) furthermore to other men's women ruler nor and goods: neither themselves helping men so since such for them from needed community they doing kept as found in Plato's Republic that would grant sexual privi war, much emperors who granted leges to the best fighters, or like late-Roman with Vasco hence such rights to their Germanic guards.179 to prove that the fighting is not enough All of this, however, styles berserks share a common of the Malabar amoks and the Indo-European amok warriors were every bit as brave and madly reckless origin. While in as berserks, they seem not to have thrown off armor or garments

172 et Dieux des Indo-Europ?ens, Paris, 1992, i78f: at the time Dum?zil, Mythes Georges the elite warriors wore golden arm rings, as did Indra and his warband, of the Mahabharata, The golden arm rings worn by nair leaders are reported by other travelers dancing Maruts. as well: Mandelslo, of elite Indo-European 141. Arm rings as a custom Reysebeschreibung warriors: Feu Strabo 4, 4, 2; H?fler, Runenstein, Germania, 388; Widengren, 19if; Much, Steuer, Quellen dalismus, arch?ologischer "Interpretationsm?glichkeiten 57f, 62; Heiko zum Gefolgschaftsproblem," der in G. Neumann and H. Seemann, Beitr?ge zum Verst?ndnis

Germania 173

des Tacitus II, G?ttingen, 1992, 203-257. Bellum Gallicum 2, 17, 12; Caesar, 6, 15, 1-2 (Celts); Tacitus, Germania, Polybius 13, 2 (Germans). 174 Flavius 19, 1, 15 (122); Suetonius, 58; Speidel, Riding, Caligula Josephus, Antiquities 23^ 67. 175 at Battle of Maldon 11,3; Beowulf 590-597; Maurice, Finnsburg; Fight Strategicon S. Evans, Lords of Battle, Woodbridge, 1997, 7of. 207ff; Stephen 176 p. 277. Above, 177 London, 1903, 18-23. Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, 178Alvaro Lis ed. Neves Roteiro da prima voyagem de Vasco da Gama, Velho, Aguas, trazem aquelas armas nuas ?as manos." porque bon, 1988, 78: "S?o homenes carregados, 179Vedic warriors: Dum?zil, i4if. Destiny, 7of. Nairs: Mandelslo, Reysebeschreibung, Berserks: G?ntert, emperors: Lactan Geschichten, 9ft. Plato, Republic 468 b-c. Late-Roman 2, 42,1. tius, De mortibus persecutorum 38, 5-7; Zosimus

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as a matter of sight of the enemy, for they strutted about barechested the amoks for whether course.180 This robs us of an essential criterion

stand in the berserk tradition.Wild bands of Indo-European Vedic

warriors are known,181 them and the Malabar relation between but to claim a direct historical reck amoks, one would have to find post-Vedic between 500 B.c. and a.d. 1500. This seems pos

less Indian warbands in ancient and medieval India has been sible, for the history of warfare it is better known, the little studied, and is still largely unknown. Until and Malay amoks remains obscure and a promis origin of the Malabar ing subject for research. The title "amok" is of little help in tracing the origin of these Mal as in Itmay come from the Sanskrit amogha (unfailing), abar warriors. the warrior name Amogha-Vikrama and have valor) may (unfailing meant amok troops avenger."182 But since among Malays "unfailing were amoks may have drawn the Malabar their title from famous, word amok or hamok for "fierce them, that is, from the Austronesian attacker."183 If so, the word, and perhaps parts of the custom itself, were contact or to the Malabar coast during early Malabar-Malay brought from Malacca. the Portuguese by Since warrior customs endured for thousands of years, one may even historical that would ponder a Paleo-Eurasian-American relationship as well as Malay no-retreat societies amok include North American warriors came to of Southeast forebears Asia, whose Austronesian of Taiwan and the Indonesia from China Of all by way Philippines. or not these traditions arose this we cannot be certain, but whether to of lend themselves well each other, they comparative independently of mad warriors and their soci studies that widen our understanding

eties worldwide.

Conclusion sources allow us to trace Indo-European Literary and archaeological B.c. to the second millennium berserks from the second millennium to to from Icelandic bronze a.D., age epics sagas, and from West Asia

coast men of standing went Velho, Roteiro, 76, says that on the Malabar "E andam nus da cinta para cima ... os mais honrados"; likewise Mandelslo, 141. Reysebeschreibung, 181 notes 94, 96. Above, 182 Monier-Williams, Yule-Burnell, 83. Other suggestions: Dictionary, etymological i8ff. Hobson-Jobson, 183 B. at the Department in preparation of Blust, Austronesian Dictionary, Comparative at Manoa. of Hawai'i Linguistics, University barechested:

180Alvaro

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North dancing
bravery.

America.

We

can follow fighting,

and naked

their peculiar customs such as frenzied into their ideals of reckless and probe iron age to the middle ages thus rich evidence for berserks this warrior style in Proto-Indo

from the Indo-European history new and details gains perspectives. a presence?of points to an origin?or

The

times. However, like Aztec reckless warriors European quachics and Malabar amoics occur in many other cultures as well, which holds great for a worldwide and historical promise comparative study, here only sketched and yet to be undertaken. the haphazard mad attackers In changed over the centuries. at the end of the bronze age, fighting but later they fared badly against disci plined troops, above all those with archers in their ranks, such as the Romans184 or the Norman English. Berserk fighting survived longest in or in medieval small-troop single combat roles such as those described The berserks' role in battle greatly hand-to-hand achieved much, sources. Against Scandinavian no InWorld War chance. stand modern berserk attacks weaponry, II, for example, gallant Japanese ban

zai charges gained nothing.185 the thought of a berserk attack still arouses in us feel Nevertheless, the history of this warrior ings of empathy. That helps us understand true that, that gave rise to it. It is not altogether style and the mindset as men, ancient warriors elude us186?in berserks we understanding can bridge the gap. As Northrop joy is in those rare Frye said: "Genuine moments when you feel that although we know in part, we are also part of what we know."187

18< 6, 7, 8 (a.d. 235). Livy 38, 21, 8ff; Herodian 185 It remains to be seen whether fearlessness (the "chemical soldier") drug-induced tactics do not: and whirlwind may have a future, but socially acquired fearlessness, bragging, Heroes. Gabriel, 186Thus 260. Piggott, Europe, 187The Educated 1964, 33. Imagination, Bloomington,