"The Dying Gaul" Capitoline Museum, Rome
"And to start with, the Celts are the tallest people in the world."
Thus wrote Pausanias, a Greek writer of the 2nd century AD. Other Classical commentators were also fascinated with the people they called variously Keltoi (Celts) or Galli (Gauls).
"...The Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarrelling and of overbearing insolence." - Ammianus Marcellinus, 4th century AD
"...People of great stature and haughty disposition." - Arrian, 1st century AD
"The whole nation is madly fond of war, both high-spirited and ready for battle, and on whatever pretext you stir them up, you will have them ready to face danger, even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage. ...but otherwise simple, though not uncultured." - Strabo, IV,4,2, c. 1st century BC, a Greek geographer and historian.
"And when someone accepts their challenge to battle they proudly recite the deeds of valour of their ancestors and proclaim their own valorous quality at the same time abusing and making little of their opponent and generally attempting to rob him beforehand of his fighting spirit." - Diodorus Siculus, V, 29 , 3; c. 1 st century BC.
"They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses... they embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies... " Diodorus Siculus, V, 29 ,4- 5; c. 1 st century BC
"Golden is their hair and golden their garb. They are resplendent in their striped cloaks, and their milk-white necks are circled with gold." - Virgil, 1st century B.C. poet
In the popular mind, the Celts seem to appear suddenly, charging out of the mists of history like tigers, full of ferocity, elan, dash, and proud swagger, first sweeping all before them, then later going down to defeat before the superior military, technical, and administrative abilities of the Romans.
Much has been written about them, (including much balderdash), from ancient times to the present.
There are also the politics behind the concepts of what constitutes"Celtic" people and things- politics that began mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and which revolve around issues of national identity, territorial boundaries, race, and all the many things people use to differentiate themselves. These politics were used against the Celts by their conqerors, who often labeled them as inferior, untrustworthy, and all the usual tools of colonial dominance. People who believed themselves to be Celts also used the term (albeit fairly recently) to identify themselves as a group in order to rally the population to resist foreign domination.
Currently, almost everyone and their cat seems to be "Born-Again" Celts, or self-styled Celtic "gurus". The marketing moguls in manufacturing and Tin Pan Alley have caught on, and issued many so-called "Celtic" products and recordings that bear little or no relation to anything remotely "Celtic" in any true sense of the word.
What about the real Celts? Who were they? What were their origins?
We might start by examining the name itself. Where did it originate? What does it mean?
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." (Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking-Glass") This illustrates one problem in ascertaining what the meaning of "Celt" is - it has come to mean whatever the user wishes it to mean.
Edward Lluyd, a Welsh scholar, did a meticulous study of the Welsh, Breton, Irish and Gaulish languages (partially published in 1707), which led him to identify them as related. He termed this language family "Celtic."
Lluyd's work was later acknowledged and incorporated into the the burgeoning field of Indo-Euopean language studies. This family had been identified by the brilliant Sir Edward Jones, whose story is told in the next chapter.
William Stukeley (1687-1765) also did work that led to the term "Celtic" being applied (often as not quite incorrectly) to pre-Roman sites such as Stonehenge and Avebury, and various tombs and standing stones.
Prior to this work, none of the people of the British Isles or Ireland had used the term in reference to themselves. The Gaelic Irish, Scots, and Manx referred to themselves as Gaels, while the Welsh use the term Cymry. (Welsh is a Saxon-derived word meaning "stranger.")
To clear up one common misconception, the "Celts" are not and never were a "race." (I use this obsolete and much misused term for sake of clarity to the layperson, as from a scientific and biological standpoint, humanity is in fact only one "race." However, the term is still bandied about, mainly by the purveyors of racist ideologies.)
Indeed, from emerging DNA evidence, as well as much scholarly research, it appears that the Celts may have never formed more than a superstrate culture in many of the lands now known as "Celtic," such as Ireland. This conclusion was reached by Henri Hubert, a noted French Celtic scholar, early in the 20th century, though he had no access to DNA or other modern evidence.
A consensus of present generally accepted archaeological, historic, and linguistic evidence supports the theory that the people we now call the Celts were an ethno-linguistic-cultural group who first appear in Europe as an identifiable culture c. 1000 BC. They are considered a branch of the linguistic family now called Indo-European. (c. 6000 - 4000 BC).
On the other hand, there are also those (like Simon James) who question their very existence as a separate people (in his case, the Insular Celts of the British Isles and Ireland). I also once spoke with a learned Cornish minister who absolutely denied that there ever was such a group as the Celts.
In my opinion, these views overlook the fact that the Romans and Greeks described the Insular and Continental Celts as being related linguistically, by alliance, and religion. Archeology also shows that they were engaged in commerce, and that they shared art forms.
My own inclination is that they may have been in a situation analogous to the Gaels in Ulster and the Highlands prior to the Plantation - sharing a language, culture, and certain beliefs, and maintaining close ties in trade and regular interchanges of people.
Their modern popular name comes from a name given them by the ancient Greeks; "Keltoi" - though it is not really certain how they decided upon that name, or even what it means. (A matter which is still debated). Some posit that it was a name they knew themselves by and gave to the Greeks who contacted them, others that it was a name applied to them by the Greeks, and various other theories. Possibly, it was a tribal name given to the Greek ethnographers by one of their tribal groups. There is also a personal name that appears in several Classical commentaries, including Caesar; "Celtillus" which may or may not be related. The original name may have represented a tribal group, a leader, or even a god (though some writers describe this word as meaning; "hidden").
The Greeks either invented (or adapted) an origin myth for them. Their progenitor was given as Celtus, a son of Heracles, and Celtine, the daughter of Bretannus.
The Celts themselves seem to have further muddied the waters by cheerfully adopting and / or adapting Greek and Roman "ancestry" and incorporating it into their genealogies - as they later did with Judaeo-Christian Biblical personalities after they became Christians.
The earliest known reference to the "Keltoi" may be a fragment of a now lost Greek poem, the "Massaliote Periplus" c. 600 BC. (A "periplus" was a navigational aid in poetic form to help sailors find landmarks). This was preserved in "Ora Maritima" ("Song of the Sea"), a poem by Rufus Avienus Festus, c. 400 AD. It describes Keltoi as being then in the hinterlands of Massalia (present-day Marseilles in France) then a merchant colony founded by the Greeks, and later assimilated by Rome.
The earliest direct reference known is by the Greek historian Hecataeus of Miletus, c. 517 BC. He gives their location as "Rhenania" in what would now be West or South-Western Germany.
Caesar tells us that there were three distinct groups in Gaul; the Belgae, whom he termed the bravest of the three, the Aquitani, and those calling themselves Celtae, whom the Romans called "Galli" - Gauls - again, a name of uncertain derivation.
They embodied many aspects of what is considered a Indo-European tripartite culture (priests, warriors, farmers), were family and tribal-based, and were governed by a military aristocracy and powerful priesthood, the Druids.
Their economy centered on a pastoral-agrarian life, (particularly cattle and horses), and trade centered around salt and slaves as the principal exports, with wine, gold and bronze jewelry, pottery, and other manufactured goods as the main imports from Greek, Carthaginian, and other Mediterranean trading nations.
The Celts were at times a warlike people. The scale of the actions ranged from individual combats and small-scale feuds and cattle raids, to armies on plundering expeditions or conquest. They also enlisted abroad as mercenaries, and also fought as allies in foreign conflicts.
Celts (or Celtic-influenced people) appear to have controlled or influenced a vast territory at their height, from eastern Europe to Asia Minor - over 800,000 square miles of Europe (c. 390 BC). Their sphere of influence ranged from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, to Britain and Ireland in the West, and from Jutland (modern Denmark) in the North to NW Spain (Galicia) and Northern Italy (Gallia Cisalpina) in the South. Remnants of their culture endured to some extent for almost 2500 years, even after their overthrow as a major power.
Their influence was further extended by mercenary units serving abroad. Troops from the army of a leader called Brennus (one of several of this name) took service under Nicomede I of Bythnia (c. 278-250 BC) and Antiochus I of Syria (c. 280-261 BC), eventually settling in the area which came to be called Galatia (now part of Turkey) from the numbers of Gauls there.
Pergamon Frieze
They were not exactly good neighbors. They terrorized and dominated the region, and other territories they controlled or influenced, by running the BC equivalent of an "insurance" racket, demanding tribute to defend or to refrain from attacking the Greek cities there. This was continued until a coalition under Attalus I of Pergamum defeated them c. 230 BC. The victory left us the famous marbles now in the Capitoline of the Dying Gaul see above and the Ludovisi Group, with a Gallic warrior slaying himself after killing his wife with a defiant glance over his shoulder at the enemy.
The Ludovisi Group
(Interestingly, their distant cultural descendants in the Scottish Highlands and Borders had much the same "racket," known as "black mail" {"mail" being an old term for rent}. The famous Rob Roy MacGregor, among others, seems to have run just such a "service." Though some members of Clan MacGregor may disagree on this, the evidence is rather clear - and indeed, in Celtic terms, cattle raiding and related practices were not only legitimate, but a central practice of the economy. See the (coming) section on creachs {cattle raids} and other Celtic practices and aspects of life in Scotland and Ireland, which were carried on up to fairly recent times.)
Alhough they dominated much land at their peak, the Celts lacked any unified form of central government, and thus later fell prey to more modern states, starting with Rome, who had a strong central regime. Instead, there were local princes and magnates, with loose and shifting coalitions and alliances. This, combined with their alliances with the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars, and their attacks on Roman allies and territories, led to a long and concerted effort by the Romans to first conquer or expel those in Northern Italy and bordering areas, and then to spread that conquest into Celtic lands elsewhere, in what is now France and elsewhere in Europe, and thence into Britain. There followed a series of defeats by their enemies, leading to their eventual conquest and domination by the expanding Roman Empire.
Despite their bloodthirsty tendencies, the mental abilities of the Celts were widely recognized by their Mediterranean neighbors. Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC Greek historian) described the Druids as; "..philosophers and theologians..", and stated "...they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning." This seems to be a common thread in descriptions of the Celts.
Though a non-literate culture, we can reasonably assume that the early Celts, much like their Gaelic and Welsh successors, produced a substantial volume of oral traditional poetry and legends, much of the epic type. These included, in the words of one commentator; "eulogies and elegies of great men." Battle incitements and other compositions associated with such a warlike people were probably also composed and sung.
Despite no clearly identifiable remains of these poems, we can postulate their basic forms from several sources: remnant archaic Celtic epics,(such as the Tain Bo Cuailnge), later heroic poetry and song recorded from native Celtic speakers in more recent times; by comparison with similar cultures in other lands, (such as the herding tribes of Africa); and with works of other Indo-European groups, including the Sanskrit works of the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Iliad. We will touch on these later in the section on music and poetry.
Modern nations and groups who descend from (or some of whose people identify with) the Celts of antiquity include; Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. (Galicia is also considered a Celtic region by at least some of its people.)
The Celtic family of Indo-European languages includes: Gaeilge {Irish Gaelic}, Gaìdhlig {Scottish Gaelic}, Gaelg {Manx}, Cymraeg {Welsh}, Kernewek {Cornish}, and Kernevek (Breton}, as well as the now dead Gaulish languages and Celtiberian of Classical times. (Galicia is also considered a Celtic region by at least some of its people, though its language, Galego is more akin to Portuguese, at least in its present form.)
We shall begin with a look at the origins of modern humans, and the story of the Indo-Europeans, the people who the Celts ultimately got their language and some of their customs from, then move on to discussions of the various cultures believed to have been Celtic.
