Abstract
The paper studies the role of late La Tène oppida within war and siege, principally through comparison of Celtic warfare with the Greek and Roman type. It is argued that in late Celtic Gaul the way of waging war was analogous to that of the ancient Mediterranean, where siege only started becoming a regular part of wars after some profound modifcations, which the society and the ways of making war underwent in the 4th c.
BC in Greece, and in the 3rd c. BC in Italy.
Before this 'poliorcetical turn', sieges were rare and made little sense in the society in question. The function of fortifcations in such societies was mainly that of deterring attempts at a siege or resisting episodic assaults.
More complex military operations were improbable, and fortications therefore did not need to attain a high degree of defensibility.