History
"Physically the Celts are terrifying in appearance, with deep-sounding and very harsh voices. In conversation they use few words and speak in riddles, for the most part hinting at things, and leaving a great deal to be understood. They frequently exaggerate with the aim of extolling themselves and diminishing the status of others. They are boasters and threateners and given to bombastic self-dramatization, and yet they are quick of mind and with good natural ability for learning. They have also lyric poets whom they call Bards. They sing to the accompaniment of instruments resembling lyres, sometimes a eulogy and sometimes a satire"
- Didodorus Siculus, first century B.C.
The Celts seen through Roman eyes were ferocious, flamboyant and tensed with energy.
A small bronze statue found near Rome, probably dating back to the third century B.C., gives a brilliant impression of a Celt in battle wearing only his helmet, neck torque, and belt. Polybius describes how the "Gaesatae" fought in this manner, naked but for their torques.
The Celts were the inhabitants of Europe in the pre Roman period, occupying a vast territory stretching from the Pyrenees to the Rhine and from Ireland to Romania.
They were barbarian in the classical sense of the word - energetic, quick-tempered, and war-mad, but their craftsmen created a brilliant art style and by the first century B.C. a truly urban society had begun to develop in many areas.
It was against these people that the Roman armies fought in the centuries around the birth of Christ., leaving only a Celtic fringe in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany to survive unconquered.
When the Roman world collapsed in the fifth century A.D., the Celts once more emerged from obscurity of their windswept Atlantic regions. Populations moved from Ireland and Cornwall to Brittany, while individuals - chiefly monks - carried the ideals of the Irish monasticism deep into Europe.
Politically and culturally the western Celts have been pursued and today their cry for recognition of their separate identity is getting louder.
"And this race of men from the plains were all the harder, for hard land had borne them; built on stronger and firmer bones, and endowed with mighty sinew, they were a race undaunted by heat or cold, plauge strange new foodstuffs.
For many years, among the beasts of the earth they led their life.
And none was yet a driver of the curved plough, none yet could turn the soil with iron blade, nor bury a new shoot in the ground nor prune the ripened branch from the tree."
- Lucretius
Traces of the Celts can be found almost anywhere in temperate Europe. Their fortifications - hill forts and oppida - are to be spreading in a broad arc from Yugoslavia to the north of Scotland.
The museums of Europe store thousands of objects and settlements recovered from the excavation of graves and of settlement sites or dredged from rivers and bogs, while many of our great cities, including Budapest, Paris, Belgrade, stand on Celtic foundations. The Celts were technically highly skilled. By the seventh century B.C. they had mastered all of the techniques necessary to work bronze.
The extraction and forging of iron soon became widespread, iron by virtue of its strength being much favoured for weapons and for tools. Raw materials were abundant; iron was everywhere to be found.
Efficient copper and tin extraction had been organized for thousands of years, graphite and hematite to decorate pottery were being widely distributed, while glass used to make luxury objects were readily available for those who could afford them. In short, the surviving material remains of Celtic culture shows that society was endowed with technology and the craft skills unsurpassed in Europe until the Eighteenth century A.D.
"The whole race, which is now called Gallic or Galatic, is madly fond of war, high-spirited and quick for battle, but otherwise straightforward and not of evil character.
And so when they are stirred up, they assemble in their bands for battle, quite openly and without forethought, so that they are easily handled by those who desire to outwit them; for any time or place and on whatever pretext you stir them up, you will have them ready for facing danger, even if they have nothing on their side but their own strength and courage."
- Strabo
Central to the Celtic life was the feast.
It was above all a time when the community could come together
to reaffirm its oneness. The people could relive the glories
of the past, display their hierarchies and loyalties. The
classical writers are quite specific about Celtic feasts.
It was the responsibility of kings to provide lavishly for
their people. Posidonius (quoted by Athenaeus) tells us
of the Gualish king Louernius, who built a vast square enclosure
within which "he filled vats with expensive liquor and prepared
so great a quantity of food that for many days all who wished
could enter and enjoy the feast prepared, being served without
break by the attendants." How common such a display was
in the Celtic world is difficult to say, but for the most
part feasts appear to have been more intimate and held indoors.
Drink was all-important. "The drink of the wealthy class
is wine imported from Italy or from the territory of Massilia.
This is unadulterated, but sometimes a little water is added.
The lower classes drink wheaten beer prepared with honey,
but most people drink it without, it is called "cornia"
(Posidonius/Atheneus).
The communal nature of the gathering
was further emphasized by drinking from a common cup carried
from one person to another by a slave. "The slave serves
the cup towards the right, not the left, they drink a little
at a time, not more than a mouthful - but they do it rather
frequently!" Polybius too was impressed by Celtic capacity
for alcohol.
Various foods would have been served. Strabo,
writing about the Belgae, said "they have large quantities
of food together with all kinds of meat especially fresh
and salt pork."
The importance of pork to the diet is amply
demonstrated by the evidence from graves, in many of which
the dead man was provided with a joint of pork or even a
whole pig for its first feast in the after world.
"They
also invite strangers to their banquets, and only after
the meal do they ask who they are, and of what they stand
in need. At dinner they want to be moved by chance remarks
to wordy disputes, and to fight in single combat, regarding
their lives as nought."
- Diodorus Siculus
The classical
writers all agreed that the Celts were a dramatic looking
people, quite distinctive in their appearance.
"Almost all the Gauls are of tall stature, fair and ruddy,
terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarreling
and of overbearing insolence"Ammianus Marcellius).
"Physically the Gauls are terrifying in appearance, with
deep sounding and very harsh voices. The Gallic women are
not only equal to their husbands in stature but rival them
in strength as well" (Diodorus Siculus).
"Queen Boudicca was huge of frame and terrifying of aspect
with a harsh voice. A great mass of bright red hair fell
to her knees" (Dio Cassius)
The classical observers were particularly interested in
the Celts treatment of their hair. There was evidently some
variation. Diodorus Siculus said that some Celtic men wore
short beards while others did not. He adds, "The nobles
shave the cheeks but let the moustache grow freely so that
it covers the mouth."
Writing of the Britons, however, Caesar
tells us that, "they wear their hair long and shave the
whole of their bodies except the head and the upper lip."
Strabo provides a particularly interesting detail, "their
hair is not only naturally blond, but they also use artificial
means to increase this naturally quantity of colour. For
they continually wash their hair with lime wash and draw
it back from the forehead to the crown and to the nape of
the neck, with the result that their appearance resembles
that of Satyrs or of Pans, for their hair is so thickened
by this treatment that it differs in no way from a horse's
mane."
To confront in battle a tall, heavy-limbed Celt with
his hair standing out in spiky mass must have been, to say
the least, intimidating. The Roman name for Gaul, Gallia
Comata, means "shaggy-haired Gauls".
The Roman invasion
of Britain, in the years between A.D. 43 and 84, imposed
upon much of the country a veneer of classical civilization,
which was abruptly dispelled in the fifth century A.D. by
Germanic invasions. The result of these two cultural incursions
was that the area would become England.
In the remoter parts
of the west however - in Cornwal, Wales, and Scotland -
the Celtic language and elements of Celtic culture survived.
But it was in Ireland, protected by the wild Irish Sea from
the destructive effects of close contact with European mainland,
that the spirit of the Celts flourished and developed. While
the rest of Britain was governed by Rome, Ireland was experiencing
the rule of a flamboyant aristocracy whose exploits were
extolled in a series of ballads and poems, which together
form the great heroic traditions in European literature.
They terrified and fascinated their Greek and Roman neighbours,
these "barbarian" inhabitants of the European heartland.
They had no written history, not even a written language
of their own, no dominant city-states to impose order and
unity, no clear-cut boundaries. But as the shifting, roaming
Celtic tribes began to settle, clustered here and there
around a local chieftain in natural hilltop defensive sites,
civilized life took shape. Their skills and resources were
many; horsemanship, mastery of the wheel, mining, metalworking.
This ingenuity gave them some control over a harsh environment
and allowed for impressive cultural developments.
They traded
with the cultivated Mediterranean cities, accumulated surplus
wealth, built stronger fortress towns and ever more imposing
tombs for their leaders. Before this ancient Celtic world
dispersed, to collide fatally with Rome, it enjoyed a brief
flowering that has left enduring traces. Its hill forts
were growing into cities and, by the time of the great collision,
its craftsmen had become artists.
Now in the twentieth-century Ireland constitutes a minority
of the western world, scattered in diverse nations. The
Celts of today can point at evidence to the languages they
spoke: to Celtic, Irish, Welsh, and Breton revived by poets
and scholars and now spoken daily by many as living languages.
But the Celts do not base their identity on language and
folklore alone. The Celts today may be a fringe group in
France and Britain, and a scattered minority in the vast
United States -but in Ireland they constitute a nation.
Ireland
In 1801 Ireland was formally joined to
the rest of the British isles, but in 1921 after a serious
uprising Southern Ireland (Eire) gained its independence.
Northern Ireland still remains part of the United Kingdom.
Population: N. Ireland 1.54 million; Eire 2.98 million.
Gaelic is widely spoken, especially in the west.
Scotland
Scotland was joined to England and Wales by Act of Union,
1707. The Scottish National Party (SNP) is working towards
the separation of Scotland from the rest of the British
isles but lacks majority support.
Population: 5.18 million,
of whom only 1.8 percent can speak Gaelic.
In 1971 there
were 338 people who could speak only Gaelic.
Isle of man
Though part of the British Isles, the Isle of Man is administered
according to its own laws by the Court of Tynwald.
The island
is not bound by Brittish law unless it opts to be.
Population:
0.05 million, of whom only 165 (in 1961) spoke Manx.
Wales
Wales was united with England in 1543 and has remained in
the United Kingdom since then.
The Welsh Nationalist Party
(Plaid Cymru) seeks separation, but in 1979 the people voted
overwhelmingly against devolution.
Population: 2.64 million,
of which 0.51 million can speak welsh.
In 1971 there were
32.725 people who were able to speak only welsh.
Cornwall
One of the counties of England largely untouched by the
English emigrations of the period A.D. 400-1000.
Some sporadic
nationalist noises have arisen but no serious suggestion
of separation. Population: 0.38 million.
Cornish is a dead
language, but there are signs of its academic revival.
Brittany
Brittany became part of France in 1532.
Separatist's movements,
in particular the FLB (Front pour la Liberation de la Bretagne),
are working towards self-government though with little success.
Population: 1.5 million, of which less than 50 percent can
speak Breton.
