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Berserks: A History of
"Mad Warriors'71
Indo-European
MICHAEL
University
P- SPEIDEL
of Hawai1
i at Manoa
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.
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
The
second
The
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
1 Iwish
with
253
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254
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
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,
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?.
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Speidel:
Berserks
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
ancient
are
They
They
They
They
The
They
While
furious,
raging,
taking
forms
strange
as Anzu.
warriors
everywhere,
including
those of Mesopotamia.9
5Walter
Politik
Mayer,
6
205. W G. Lambert,
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 inMiddle Assyrian Literature,
The Epic of Tukulti-Ninurta
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
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JOURNAL
256
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
these
and hence
horsemen
gether
warrior
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,
inW 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.
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Speidel:
Berserks
common
257
to Tukulti-Ninurta's
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
seems
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 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,
Widengren,
Epic, 325. Franz Rolf Schr?der,
17?',Machinist,
"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
Culture,
and Ethnicity,
though.
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JOURNAL
258
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
overcame
them.
recent
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
(1186-
mail-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
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.
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Speidel:
Berserks
259
needed
confirms
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,
End,
164fr.
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2?O
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2002
ecstatic
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
to the roots of his hair
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
hair,
flashing
eyes,
and
by dancing
and attacking
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,
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261
Berserks
Speidel:
like a whirlwind.31
Armor-scorning
of berserkdom,
and
are
two
the
often found
that one
confirms much
characteristics
elsewhere
thus
sources
epic
explicit
warrior
in later centuries.
style.32
of
Berserks
the
Bronze,
Iron,
and
Middle
Ages
The
guardian carved
the Hittite
capital of
naked Indo-European
he wears only a short
guard.
Such
nakedness
Hattusas
meant
reckless
blustering
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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2?2
JOURNAL
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2002
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
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
2/1; McCone,
41 Statuettes:
"Hund."
Boardman,
Greek
Art,
London,
1985,
statuette,
ca. 700
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.
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Figure
sixth
B.c.
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264
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2002
The
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
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,
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Berserks
Speidel:
265
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
While
Celtic
images
of naked
warriors
men
Great-souled,
great-bodied,
greatly
armed
warrior,
of Bremen
4, 26f ). Celtic
in Cunliffe,
Celts
brooch
and helmet.
48 Greek
art: Nikolaus
in Spain
is confirmed
naked fighting
also by the Celt-Iberian
that shows a naked warrior with "power belt," shield, sword,
93,
Patraos
of Paionia,
Nordgriechenlands
der paionischen
images.
50 Aeneid
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
Collection
III 2, 2oif;
K?nige,"
11, 641-644,
et dieux des Germains,
Paris,
among them.
cf.
1939,
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266
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
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.
The
legionnaires
wear cuirasses
auxiliaries
51
and
also shared the wolf-warrior
Celts, Dacians,
Iranians, Greeks,
style with
on Polybius, vol. 1,
A Historical Commentary
6,22,3 with F.W. Walbank,
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,
13-30.
52 Rome
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
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Speidel: Berserks
267
Figure
the Gaesati
2.
Two
spearmen
in the battle
at Telam?n
berserks
among
Rome,
barefoot,
shield-bearing
who
Roman
fought
troops
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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268
JOURNAL
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HISTORY,
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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
the more
Homer,
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,
chiatry inWar, New York, 1987, 102.
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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Speidel:
Berserks
269
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
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,
through
66
rationalistic
motives."
Kelten,
Procopius,
1910.
Geschichten,
and Sklavenoi:
30fr".
Oxford
Dictionary
of Byzantium
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3,
270
JOURNAL
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HISTORY,
FALL
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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.
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Speidel:
Berserks
271
H?kon's
warrior
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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JOURNAL
272
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
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
that
intact,
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,
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,
nunc
inanem
?citis
Piggot,
Ancient
Europe,
Chicago,
1965,
22.
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Speidel: Berserks
273
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
91
nia, Translated
with
Introduction
and Commentary,
Oxford,
1999,
i23f. Waves:
Ammianus
16,12,43.
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274
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mattered
particularly
to berserks
as they fanned
on the battlefield.101
Germanic
too, danced
warriors,
describes
the dance of their young, naked warriors thus:102
Tacitus
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
Both
dancers
abandon,
their
only
reward
is the
spectators'
pleasure.
96 Atharva
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
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
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Speidel:
Berserks
275
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,
the warriors
belt?like
Figure
Museum
from Grevenswaenge,
the shape-shifting,
3. Woden,
of Denmark).
103Gaesati:
Polybius
2, 29, 6; Aztecs:
Hirschlanden,
all-round warrior
and else
(National
below.
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JOURNAL
276
OF WORLD
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2002
where.104
all bent
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
Irish Tales;
106William
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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Speidel:
Berserks
277
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
it likely that the berserk
and Germanic
warriors, makes
style comes from the time before the dispersal of the Indo
117Dum?zil
put it thus:118
Europeans.
Iranian,
Vedic,
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
it isM?vxcop
(note 119).
215 (= Id?es romaines,
1969).
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JOURNAL
278
OF WORLD
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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
ing together.
119
R?diger
120Heinrich
Schmitt,
Beck,
12.
Einige
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
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of
Speidel:
Berserks
and
Greece
279
Rome
in Need
of
Berserks:
Pattern
armies became
classical
Greece
disciplined
and
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
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:
Greeks
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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28o
JOURNAL
Greek
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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battle
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
well-ordered
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
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
much
on whom
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
than human,
confer
Fianna."13?
Wulf
Bonn,
and Romans
style but also
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
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Speidel:
281
Berserks
warrior
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?Yet it
oneness
to
of
warriors.
and
that
wild
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,
their classical
with
too had
Romans
138Greek
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
Dum?zil,
Religion,
209;
390.
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282
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2002
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,
beasts."145
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
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
established
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).
Scotland:
151
Tacitus,
4> 73
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Speidel:
Berserks
283
Under
emperorAllectus
were
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
Toward
Germans,
cuirasses,
warriors.156
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
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
P. Speidel,
for the Late Roman
2, 15,1 ;Michael
"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
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JOURNAL
284
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2002
of mad
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
Thus,
when
riors, had
replaced
field.159
In the battle
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
attack
Rome
more
lightly armed
fact historians
have
tribal
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,
Schwung."
160Ammianus
161
16, 12, 12: Stridore dentium
Julian: Ammianus
12, 16: immature proruperant.
infrendentes.
Valens:
Ammianus
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31,
Speidel:
Mad
Berserks
285
Worldwide
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
may
now
madness,
has often
the Aztec
in war...
reckless.'"
taking
As
also
...
otomi
otlaotzonxintin
which
means
'otomis
shorn
and
command.
stalwarts
match
That night more than a thousand knights got together in the temple,
with great loud sounds of drums, shrill trumpets, cornets and notched
. . .
They
bones.
rows
and
keeping
danced
time
nude
to
the
...
tune
in a circle,
holding
of the musicians
their
and
hands,
in
singers.164
162Manuel
Lucena
York, 1990, 202. Nature
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."
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286
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2002
nearly
naked
and
thus differ
from berserks
only
in that perhaps
they
165Ron
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.
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Speidel:
Berserks
287
the Nayro
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
who
kings,
are
accounted
more
potent,
the
greater
the
number
they
wear
on
the
right
arm.
If one
168
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
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288
JOURNAL
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
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2002
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
leader or fellow warrior
a fallen
Saxon
duties
of Anglo
warbands.175
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
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
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
warriors:
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
Germania
173
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Speidel:
Berserks
289
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
warriors
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
warriors
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
180Alvaro
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JOURNAL
2?O
America.
North
dancing
We
and naked
can follow
fighting,
OF WORLD
HISTORY,
FALL
2002
bravery.
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.
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'
the haphazard
mad attackers
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
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,
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