Celts 1

‘Before
the Romans
Came; or How the Celts
mapped Europe
Who were the Celts? Many
know of them today only through
comic-strips, football teams, and
the now tragic, rather than
comic, ‘Celtic Tiger’.
Or, if you’re French, you may fondly or
romantically think of how Vercingetorix
(whose name derives from rix, ‘king’, and
cinget-, ‘step, pace’) stood up to Caesar, at a
time when the Gauls were already slavishly
imitating the Romans, among other ways by
minting coins.
The Celts as such are a recent phenomenon.The first person to
use the name Celtic, as we use it today, was George Buchanan
in his History of Scotland, published in 1598. He applied it to the
Celtic peoples. The first to speak of the Celtic languages was
Edward Lhuyd, curator of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, who
died in 1709.
Goethe
During the Romantic period, the

Celts were thought to represent
more than any other people
Rousseau’s idea of the ‘Noble
Savage’, as can be be seen from
the way in which MacPherson’s
Ossianic poems became
European bestsellers, read by
Napoleon (when he found time
between wars!) and used as a
motif by Goethe, who began to
learn Gaelic. At this time, a Celtic
Academy was founded in Paris,
with the modest (!) aim of
explaining all that needed to be
explained about humanity.
Napoleon
The Celts did not
know themselves by
that name, which
was only used of a
small part of
southern Gaul. They
knew themselves as
Galli (Gauls) or
Galatae (Galatians),
names that derive
from a word
meaning ‘courage’,
still used in Irish gal,
‘bravery’. As the
‘brave ones’, the
Celts clearly did not
underestimate their
own powers!
Wherever they went, the Celts took with them the name
beginning in Gal, from Galicia in the west, whose people
are still known as Gallegos, to Galatia in the East, the
only Celtic people to receive a mention in the Bible. Galli
(Gaul) was used of the Celts in France and northern Italy,
and the French still use Gallois to refer to the Welsh
(Pays-de-Galles).
1
The Celts spread

across Europe during
two main periods (1)
c. 1000 Bc to 500 BC
and (2) 500 BC to
300 BC, both of
which are known to 2
archaeologists by
reference to
particularly important
Celtic sites; (1)
Hallstatt (Celtic hall,
‘salt’; German statt),
and (2) a lake in
Switzerland called La
Tène.
The people of Hallstatt grew rich from
trade in salt, which was particularly
plentiful in this part of Austria, as can be
shown by such other local names as
Hallein (otherwise famous as the home of
the priest who composed ‘Silent Night’
(Stille Nacht)) and Salzburg (otherwise
famous for its association with Mozart)!
Now a ‘plage’, where you
can hire pedal-boats, La
Tène was once a place at
which offerings,
sometimes human, were
made to a Celtic divinity.
By being the first people in Europe to exploit
iron, the Celts achieved superiority over others,
especially in the area of weaponry, and this
greatly facilitated their expansion
As a rule, Celtic warriors wore neither armour nor anything else,
hoping to terrify their foes by going stark naked into battle. The
most famous example of a naked Celt was made at Pergamon in
Asia Minor.
Also facilitating Celtic expansion was their skill in carpentry, which gave
them great mobility in journeys and, above all, in battle. Such words as
carpenter, chariot and car, are all Celtic in origin. Their kings were usually
buried lying on chariots.
Probably the best surviving example of Celtic workmanship is
the Hochdorf chariot, now on display in Stuttgart, Germany,
which was discovered about thirty years ago in a grave that had
remained undisturbed since 600 B.C!
By 250 BC., as the Romans were about to begin their expansion, the
Celts controlled the greater part of Europe, as can be shown not only
by archaeology but also by reference to numerous names, still in use
today, including such names of countries as Ireland, Britain, Belgium,
Germany, and Switzerland, that were originally used of Celtic tribes .
Most of England’s local names are Celtic in origin, including London, York,
Devon, Kent etc. The word British means Celtic, and this is one of two things
the English do not like to hear, the other being the fact that the Irish taught
them how to write.
Celtic tribes gave name to many modern
French and German cities or regions, e.g.
Auvergne (Arverni), Calais (Caletes), Paris
(Parisii), Reims (Remi), Soissons
(Suessiones), Chartres (Carnutes), Amiens
(Ambani), Trier (Treveri). Celtic placenames,
many of them recalling divinities, also survive
in large numbers in France and Germany, e.g.
Lyon/Laon (Lugdunum), Vienne (Vindobona);
Verdun/Würtemberg (Viro-dunum); Bonn
(Bonna).
In northern Italy, as in France and Germany, the Celts left a permanent mark on
local topography; e.g. Milano (Mediolanum); Turino (Turones); Bologna (Boii). They
threatened Rome on a number of occasions, the city once being saved only by the
‘cackling of geese’! The Romans finally defeated the Celts at the battle of Telamon
in 220 BC.
During the period 400 to 200 BC, the Celts expanded into the Balkans and
eastern Europe, at one stage threatening Greece, until defeated in the battle
of Delphi, following which some tribes crossed the Dardanelles into Asia
Minor, where they established the kingdom of Galatia.
The density of Celtic settlement in Galatia can be seen by
reference to many typically Celtic placenames, such as Eccobriga;
Petobriga; Souolibroga and Toutobodiaci. According to St.
Jerome, Celtic was still spoken here in the fourth century AD.
In Bulgaria, formerly Upper Thrace, there is some archaeological and placename
evidence of Celtic occupation, for example a La Tène chariot burial at Mezek in S./E.
Bulgaria, then further north near Nikolskoe, portable La Tène objects. Among Celtic
elements in names on the map are dunon-, ‘fort’, medio, ‘middle’, and bona, ‘base’. Off
map, near the mouth of the Danube, there are more, for example, Novio-dunum, ‘new
fort’.
There could have been many more, if early medieval writers of history had
their way. Largely because of the popularity of the Legend of Troy, many
western European peoples, including the Irish, traced their ancestry to Asia
Minor (present-day Turkey). In order to support this tradition, the Irish went
even further; they established a link between the name by which they were
known in the Medieval period, the Scoti, and that of the Scythae
(Scythians), who came from an area north of the Black Sea but expanded
down into the Balkans. And not content with this, in one version of their
origin legend, contained in the Life written for an Irish/Scottish saint
(Cadroe), their coming to Ireland is described as a twist of fortune, due to a
change of wind; they really had wanted to settle in Upper Thrace, in other
words, Modern Bulgaria.
This is how the text reads:
An ancient group founded on the river
which separates the kingdoms of Caria
and Lydia the city of Choriscon, whose
inhabitants, in pursuit of commerce,
embarked in boats through the Hellespont
until they came to Upper Thrace.
Captivated by the wealth of this kingdom,
they returned to their homeland and,
having constructed a fleet, they set out,
with wives, children, and all household
goods towards the country they desired to
take possession of. But, soon after
entering the Hellespont, the north wind
rose, and while struggling in vain against
it, Ephesus and Melos fell away behind
them, until they arrived at the island of
Crete.
And leaving Crete behind, they sailed through the Mediterranean and out
into the Atlantic, finally reaching Ireland, when all the time, they really
had wanted to settle in Bulgaria! Some might say that their descendants
achieved this aim in fairly large numbers during the era of the Celtic
Tiger (now sadly at an end), when numerous Bulgarian properties were
bought up by Irish investors!
Once spoken widely
enough to provide names
for large tracts of Europe,
the Celtic languages have
now been reduced to
speakers precariously
situated on the western
extremities of the
Continent.
What brought
about the decline
of the Celts? The
Roman writer,
Cato, pithily
summed it up:
“The Celts rocked
many states but
created none’. A
lack of central
authority, and a
proneness to
internal division,
now known as the
inevitable ‘Split’, is
what turned the
Celts into easy
prey for their
Roman
successors.

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‘Before

During the Romantic period, the

The Celts spread

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