The Battle of Telamon was fought in 225 BC when the Roman consuls Gaius Atilius Regulus and Lucius Aemilius Papus defeated an invading Celtic army under the kings Concolitanus and Aneroestes. The Celtic army was attacked from two sides and massacred, ending the Celtic threat to Italy.
Background[]
By 238 BC, Cisalpine Gaul (the Po Valley region of northern Italy) had been pacified as skirmishing between the Roman Republic and its Celtic tribes finally came to an end. In 230 BC, the Boii repelled a Gallic invasion of Italy, and Rome found that its armies were not needed to repel the Gauls. However, in 234 BC, Rome partitioned Picenum, causing resentment among the Boii and the Insubres. In 232 BC, formerly Celtic lands were granted to poorer Roman citizens, provoking Celtic opposition.
In 225 BC, the Boii and Insubres hired Gallic mercenaries from Transalpine Gaul under the kigns Concolitanus and Aneroestes to fight with them against Rome. The Romans signed a treaty with the Carthaginian general Hasdrubal the Fair and allowed him free rein in Hispania to free up Roman troops to fight off the Celtic threat. The Romans raised four legions (22,000 troops) of Roman citizens and 32,000 troops from among their Italic allies, and he encamped at Ariminum. Meanwhile, 54,000 Sabines and Etruscans were sent to guard the border of Etruria, 40,000 Umbrians and Veneti to attack the Boii homelands to distract them from the battle, and 21,500 Roman troops and 32,000 allies to defend Rome. The Celts ultimately overran Etruria and began to march on Rome, and, at Faesulae, 6,000 Romans were slain by the Gauls.
Battle[]
The Celts then withdrew along the Etrurian coast with their booty, allowing for Lucius Aemilius Papus' consular army to attack the Celtic rear; Regulus' army then crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea from Sardinia and attacked the Gallic advance guard at Telamon. The Celtic army found itself attacked on two fronts, and, during the fighting for the main hill on the battlefield, Regulus was slain and beheaded. Ultimately, the Roman cavalry secured the hill, and the Romans advanced on the Celts from both sides and threw volleys of javelins, devastating the vulnerable Celts from the rear; they had been fighting naked with small shields. Some rushed wildly at the Romans and were slaughtered, while the others fought back-to-back in an attempt to hold off the Romans advancing on both sides. The Celts were slaughtered and their cavalry put to fight, and 70% of the Celtic army was massacred or captured. Anreoestes and a small group of Gallic survivors went on to commit suicide, and Papus marched the combined Roman armies into Liguria and the lands of the Boii to retaliate against the Celts.
Aftermath[]
The Boii submitted to Roman rule in 224 BC, and the remaining Celts surrendered in 222 BC. The Celts were forced to give up large tracts of land which were then settled by Roman citizens, and Celtic resentment at the theft of their lands led to many of them siding with the Carthaginian general Hannibal after his crossing of the Alps in 218 BC during the Second Punic War.