Women in the Battlefield. (Female Units?)

With how popular the topic is about how of women fighting in the battlefield in the ancient in this current time. Basically, I've heard from the Roman accounts that the Gauls, Iberians and many other "Barbarians" had women fighting in battle.

Same goes for the Nomadic Tribes and there's even archological evidence of it by the discovery of ancient tombs in which women were given a warrior's burial.

What's the team stance regarding this topic? I do know that you are planning of creating a female model of a scythian noble cavalry so that you would see a few women fighting alongside thr mostly male scythian noble cavalry. But so far this model hasn't been seen the light of day.
http://mobile.twitter.com/EBTeam/sta...442881/photo/1



Would this also apply to the all the barbarian factions above? Would there be an all female unit someday?

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With how popular the topic is about how of women fighting in the battlefield in the ancient in this current time. Basically, I've heard from the Roman accounts that the Gauls, Iberians and many other "Barbarians" had women fighting in battle.

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It is not impossible that some women were warriors with a special status. There are accounts in the viking era evoking some traditions where women could be accepted as a warrior or a male for specific reason. We can imagine something similar to the albanian sworn virgins (burrnesha). There is this publication that examines this question:
http://briai.ku.lt/downloads/AB/08/0...Simniskyte.pdf

However, it is hard to imagine a whole unit only constituted by women warriors.

Women-only units, none planned. We would like to add some female models to the Skythian Nobles, there was evidence that both sexes of the Skythian aristocracy fought.

The Illyrians had a custom of their nobility hunting and fighting, Alexander the Great's half-sister Cynane was a noted warrior and general in her own right.

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I've heard from the Roman accounts that the Gauls

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can you recall the source? i have read in one of my celtic texts a suggestion of gallic women being fierce enough to match their mates, and capable of violently defending their homestead, i wonder if that line of text was inspired by some roman account. i don't, unfortunately, recall anything about women being mobilized in a military fashion beyond just accompanying the baggage train or being present in migratory incursion e.g. the cimbrian wars

Many classical sources use the role of women in foreign people in order to show how "barbarian" and uncivilized these people were. It's more an stereotypical derision like "look, their women don't even behave like women ought to, that's how perverted and uncivilized they are", than actual interest in how other societies function. I would take anything said by classic authors with caution.

Definetely interested to see some intermixed in Scythian Units, has anyone evidence for this also occuring in the Sarmatian tribes ? I always thought Sarmatians also had an tradition of "Spearmaidens" so to say.

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Originally Posted by Hellenikon

Many classical sources use the role of women in foreign people in order to show how "barbarian" and uncivilized these people were. It's more an stereotypical derision like "look, their women don't even behave like women ought to, that's how perverted and uncivilized they are", than actual interest in how other societies function. I would take anything said by classic authors with caution.

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Yeah it is true they wrote these accounts on purpose. But the question is still there: Are these accounts based on something real or are they totally made up? There are archaeological findings that challenges the idea of totally made up accounts.