Celts/Talk

It would be quite wrong to think of the Celts as barbaric brutes. Although they had not reached the heights of the classical civilisations, and were mostly illiterate, their intricate metalwork and well-organised social system are evidence of a high degree of development. From the third century B.C. to the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, the Gauls even minted their own coinage which were no less impressive than the Roman.

The foregoing probably needs a rewrite. This is for a number of reasons, mostly NPOV. The Celts looked down on the culture of literacy, and saw their own oral, bardic tradition as being superior and demanding of a greater degree of skill. The classical civilisations which seem to be so vaunted were themselves deeply barbarian in deed: the Romans, for example, gave us such civilised values as bread and circus, enslavement, mass genocide (Carthago delenda est); the Celts, conversely, were basically a peaceful agrarian and non-expansionist, environmentally-friendly outfit. We could learn a great deal from the Celts... sjc

Well, except for the human sacrifice bits. That we can leave behind. Despite that qualification, I agree. An unhelpful last paragraph. --MichaelTinkler

Well, yes, but even that is open to a bit of debate... sjc

The Celts were not an essentially peaceful civilization, or at least not all of them were. Whenever the classical civilizations run into them, we see a war-like and aggressive people, and here I am thinking in particular of the Galatians who spent a very long time marauding in central Anatolia, much like the Scythians before them. And there is little doubt that they practiced slavery - not on the large scale the Romans did, but it should be noted the Romans considered that to be merciful, since most people at the time simply killed their enemies when they had defeated them. Better to say that the Greeks and Romans weren't nice either. --JG

Well, the classical civilisations were writing the history... with their own agendas at the forefront. This is probably worth an article in its own right, Josh, so I'll have a look at it in the morning - I'm absolutely bushed at the moment. sjc

Later: the Galatians are a notable exception. But enslavement was low down on the Celtic list: they were more likely to be enslaved than slavers. I am beginning to think that my initial take was probably +/- 10% a good call. sjc

You see the Celts in Gaul doing an awful lot of marauding, too. The Romans may have exaggerated their ferocity or some such, but there is no doubt that they sacked Rome, attacked Marseilles, and so forth. Agragarian peoples can be quite aggressive, the Vikings being a good example. What evidence leads you to believe the Galatians were exceptional?

As for slavery, I don't know how widespread it was among Celtic society. Certainly it never reached the level of Roman latifundia, as even Greece had not, and individual groups had much smaller influence here. But if I recall correctly the workers in Celtic mines tended to be slaves, so it existed on some scale.

Gaul was an occupied nation under the Romans and Caesar's account in the Gallic Wars tends to overstate the case to emphasise the effectiveness of his campaigns. What we actually have here is an early form of guerrilla warfare, usually harrying Roman armies on the move northwards against the Germanic nations, early international cooperation. Of course, most resistance against an army as brutal and efficient as the Roman military machine was a bit on a par with the Afghanis v. USA & Britain. The Gauls not only took a heavy hit militarily, but lost in the propaganda stakes.

Marauding occurred but to say that it was a way of life for the Gauls is to misrepresent them: they typically fought back in order to protect themselves from enslavement and Roman provocations: plunder, rapine and widespread depredation. There is plenty of evidence to substantiate this.

On the subject of enslavement in mines, I have seen little archaeological evidence to date. It did occur but it was peoples who had been conquered; since, as I have already argued, the Celts were generally peaceable, this would indicate that it would have been on a relatively small scale, unlike the Romans and Greeks who ran empires on the back of it. Slavery goes against the generally sophisticated nature of Celtic societiessjc

As opposed to the generally sophisticated nature of the Greek and Roman societies? I don't think there was a single people in the ancient world who had any real qualms about slavery. I do agree, though, that the Celts practiced it on a relatively small scale. They conquered a lot fewer people (the classical civilizations also tended to enslave mainly defeated peoples, with debt slavery before this really got going).

With regards to marauding, I'm not thinking about the time period when they were in danger of invasion, but the one before that. There is absolutely no way that the Gauls sacking Rome was self-defence and I find it hard to believe that the Romans would have been idiotic enough to provoke such an attack, when the Gauls terrified them. Other attacks occur around the periphery of the Celtic world all the time, though the only one I am really familiar with is the invasion of the Galatians. But you haven't given a reason that they should be considered exceptional.

The Gallic Celts did smash the Etruscan empire and then Rome itself around 390-387 B.C. but this was just a case of getting their retribution in early :-). Seriously, the early stages of Celtic assertion were necessarily violent, they were just establishing themselves in the face of ruthless opposition; my reading of it is that they were merely protecting their corner. Other Celtic tribes pushed further east and were met by Alexander the Great on the Danube in 335-334 B.C. in a peaceful conference, and achieved an intelligent accommodation.

It was not until after Alexander's death and some serious provocation that the Celts invaded Greece and sacked the Oracle at Delphi, going on to establish the state of Galatia. About 20,000 Celts first entered what became Galatia in 278 B.C., under the pretense and invitation of one area king at war with another. The early presence of the Celtic "horde" in this region has rightly been characterized as marauding and given to plunder. Eventually they settled down and built fortified villages, and aligned themselves with local kings.

The point I am making is that once established, the generality of Celtic behaviour was to act pragmatically and intelligently. sjc

Ah, once established. Ok, with that large qualification, there is no disagreement on my part. Lots of groups started out very aggressive and then settled down to form nice, relatively peaceful communities - for instance the Scandinavians, the Magyars, the Turks, and such and such. Btw, Rome interpreted itself as merely protecting its corner throughout its entire long expansion, as did Japan in world war II. One should be careful about using that to defend attackers.

Yes, we insular Celts tend to overlook the misbehaviour of our continental cousins 2500 thousand years ago or so. But then we are historically more sinned against than sinning. sjc

To which I say bleah. The modern people speaking Celtic languages have no doubt changed considerably in composition since the ancient Celts, and indeed it has been suggested that some of the groups speaking such languages of old were not actually related to the people of La Tene, notably the Britons. Going the other way, the French doubtless have a lot of blood in common with the Gauls, but speak a Romance language. You can't maintain that an ancient people and a modern people are the same, and keeping score is silly.

Er, that last was a light-hearted aside. But as you seem intent on taking it seriously, I will. The Celtic nations were not an ethnic grouping and I would certainly never suggest such an ethnic commonality with the La Tene people. The Celts were (and still are) principally a cultural agglomeration. I am Cornish; my surname is an anglicisation of a Breton placename (not entirely uncommon in Cornwall either). Not all French speak French (nor do all of them consider themselves French); many Bretons, for example do not. Not all British people speak English or consider themselves English. I and many of my friends speak Cornish. Welsh people speak Welsh. Irish people speak Eirse. Scots speak Scots gaelic. We have culture in abundance and while we may not have freedom from cultural imperialism we are an awfully persistent collection of peoples... sjc

Oops! The intent should have been obvious, and I apologize for taking the comments the way I did. I'm just concerned that you're viewing the history of the Celts through some very colored glasses. They have had their pluses and their minuses, just like everyone else. Sorry.

No problems, Josh. I am also sceptical. My glasses are not as rosy coloured as you might believe, though: they're black, coated with black. It comes of studying history... sjc

---

Can somebody with more knowledge than I add references to the La Tene and Hallstatt cultures? --corvus13

If you insist... sjc

---