Because a horse is expensive, just like good armor. The Gepid armies consisted mainly of (light) infantry and archers according to the above. Beginning in the 530s, the Transylvanian Gepids were led by a nobility that was neither numerous nor particularly wealthy.So the gepids were not that wealthy, the nobility wasn't numerous and their army was thus lacking heavy armed warriors. The bow alone was the common equipment of 'semi-free' people, who were obliged to serve as archers. Some of the sword- and spear-bearing soldiers also had a bow and arrows.
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Free warriors equipped with only a spear are more numerous. It may be surmised, therefore, that the Gepidic military class was small in number, and that the Transylvanian Gepids felt secure. In Transylvania, sets of swords and spears are scarce, and shield bosses from iron-bound shields even scarcer. Contemporary sources indicate that the Gepids had few 'heavily-armed warriors': in 552, they contributed only 400 such soldiers to Narses' war against Totila, while the Pannonian Langobards sent 3,000. In the 6th century, the free warriors of Merovingian culture were buried fully armed, with sword, spear, and iron-bound shield, yet such weapons are found even more rarely in Transylvania than in the Gepidic graves of the Hungarian Plain. Ardaric crushed his former allies and drove them from Europe, ending their threat for all time. Thus he assembled a warhost of Gepids, rebel Germans, and some few Sarmatian remnants and faced the Huns at Nedao in 454. Instead, Ardaric determined he had enough power and support to throw off the Hunnic yoke and bring his tribe to power and independence. His sons began the battles of inheritance, but Ardaric remained aloof from these struggles. Afterwards, the Huns drew back to the Balkans, and Attila died. It is claimed he led the largest allied contingent at the Catalaunian Plains, where Aetius and the Romans, supported by Franks and the Visigoths, handed Attila his first defeat.
So when Attila came and conquered the Ostrogoths and Gepids, the Gepids shook off Ostrogothic ties and allied themselves whole-heartedly to Attila and his Huns.Īrdaric was their king, and he fought well for Attila. These Gepanta became the Gepids, and resented the name forced upon them by their cousins. The Goths split and moved on, the Visigoths heading into the West and the Otrogoths staying put- and conquering their slow cousins while they were at it. It was not until 260 AD that they managed to catch them, and that was only because the Goths slowed their advance as they ran into the borders of the Roman Empire.
Their very name means ‘slow’ or ‘sluggish’ in old Gothic, and theis tribe earned that name by moseying along after the other Goths, striving vainly to catch up to their faster cousins. This tribe literally missed the boat when it came to the Great Migrations. Less-well known are the Gepanta, the Slow Ones. The history of the Goths is a well-known and documented fact. These blonde warriors swept down from the frozen North and waged war against those who stood between them and what they desired. The Goths were known as fleet horsemen with staunch and hardy footborne warriors.