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by Brian Ellis
From the years
around 1200 BCE (Before Common Era) until 82 CE, a civilization flourished in Europe,
extending at its height from Ireland and Britain, through Gaul (now France) and Italy,
Germany, Greece, even into Asia Minor. It was a tribal culture, deeply spiritual
in nature and democratic in its politics, and it kept at bay some of the greatest
empires ever to rise on the face of the planet. Yet today, scholars and historians
still struggle to see this marvelous people as more than a barbaric horde of drunken
savages, without grace or honor, prone to warlike fits of rage, and with a propensity
toward bloodshed. There exists overwhelming evidence, however, that not only were
the Celts more advanced as a culture than the Greek and Roman empires who threatened
their existence, but had they possessed the organization to band together and fight,
they likely would have won the day.
To understand the true nature of the Celts, it is first
necessary to consider what we know of them in context. The Celtic peoples of Europe
have long been portrayed as “basically a fierce warrior society, proud, ignorant,
illiterate, taking life cheaply, given to childish amusements and often drunk.” (Ellis
14) Only today are we beginning to break free of this very old bias. Where, then,
did it originate? To answer this question, we must look to our sources. The Celts
themselves had a religious prohibition on writing things down on paper -- it was
seen as much more spiritual to transfer information by word of mouth, via specially
trained singers and storytellers known as bards (S.W.). This fact led many
Romans, and indeed many later historians, to the erroneous conclusion that the Celts
were illiterate, a myth which is easily disproven by looking at burial inscriptions
and manufacturer’s marks, most of which were written in Greek to avoid the prohibition,
Greek so perfect that many Greek historians expressed their profound astonishment
(Ellis 9) Thus, our only sources are of Greek and Roman nationality. This fact takes
on a new meaning when we realize that the Greeks and Romans were among the most fearful,
hostile, and agressive towards the Celts, and that many of their writers, notably
the Roman Pliny, are well-known to falsify major events in history for purposes of
propaganda (Ellis 21). Nevertheless, this work will reference mostly these sources,
cross-referenced when possible with slightly more reliable sources such as the Roman
Polybius.
From sources such as he, as well as archaeological
finds, we have a reasonably accurate idea about the social hierarchy within Celtic
society. The culture was ruled mostly on a tribal level, and remained such for most
of its thousand-year lifespan. Each tribe was ruled by a king or chieftain, who was
elected by the common people, as were all state officers. In addition, the public
had the power to dethrone or even exile a chieftain who they felt was doing a poor
job of ruling. The next rung on the ladder of respect were the druids. Their duties
within Celtic society are many: they functioned as diviners, scholars, moral and
natural philosophers, religious leaders, and could, according to many sources, even
stop a battle in progress with a single word. Twenty years of training was required
before one attained the status of druid, and indeed many chieftains, such as the
famous Dumnorix of the Tolistoboii, were also druids. Next came the veits, or ovates
as they are sometimes called, who were responsible for divining and natural philosophy,
and then the bards (S.W.).
Some of the more interesting facets of Celtic social
hierarchy are its stances towards women, children, and religion. Women could become
bard, veits, druids, and even chieftains in their respective tribes, and often did
so. In addition, they could hold property, marry and divorce at will, and involve
themselves in the military of that tribe. Women were considered among the best military
trainers, and it was a female leader, Boudicca, who nearly expelled the Romans from
Celtic lands in the last centuries BCE (S.W.). Children were respected beyond
all else in Celtic culture; the raising of children was considered a community affair,
and many families might participate in the upbringing of one child. They were allowed
to choose their own path, both religious and mundane, and their interests were encouraged
by exposure to whatever trade they expressed a talent in (S.W.). This importance
of community is a common one in Celtic law and culture, and in one of the only written
records of Celtic law, a form of communism emerges as the basic tenet, a philosophy
which was not rediscovered until the mid-20th century (Ellis 24).
Taking into account the fact that this Celtic form
of society existed hundreds of years before the Romans even existed, some comparisons
with the Roman system of doing things can be made, and indeed a general comparison
of the two cultures is possible. Apart from the rather obvious fact that Celtic social
codes were much better geared toward the public and had much less class restriction
inherent in them, as is evidenced by the fact that the Roman Empire’s rise in 32
BCE was mostly due to inter-class strife between the optimates (literally,
“best class”) and the populares, the Celtic culture itself was at least as
advanced as the Roman one. For example, the Celtic language was (and remains to this
day) a beautiful and highly advanced tongue, divided into two forms called P-Celtic
(spoken by the Gaulish continental Celts) and Q-Celtic (spoken by the Celts of Britain,
Scotland, and Ireland). Unlike Latin, which is a decidedly dead language, over two
million people speak some form of Celtic or Gaelic (its derived language) (Ellis
11-13). Furthermore, the Celtic method of timekeeping was far more advanced than
the Romans’. A calendar dating back to the first century BCE called the Coligny Calendar
shows a highly advanced five-year system synchronizing lunation with the solar year,
which was completely unheard of in the rather primitive Julian calendar, which we
have adapted and use to this day. The Celts reckoned a day by the night that followed
it, and thereby avoided a number of problems which the Romans had in trying to keep
their calendars halfway accurate (17).
Probably the most captivating argument that the Celts’
way of thinking was ahead of their time, and ahead of the Romans’, is in the history
itself. Whereas the armies of Alexander the Great experienced no problems from the
Celts, due to his simple agreement to a peace accord with them, the Romans (and to
a lesser extent the Greeks) viewed the Celts as barbaric savages, very much in the
same way European explorers viewed the Native Americans. This colored their actions
toward them in a similar fashion. The first real contact between the Romans and the
Celts occured circa 390 BCE, when Rome sent “envoys” to the Celts because their land
claims had collided. These envoys were actually spies, sent by the Romans to reconnoiter
the strength of Celtic forces pending an attack. One of the envoys killed a Celtic
chieftain, and the Celts, citing this as a breach of “international law”, demanded
the Romans’ surrender. Only upon the Roman’s refusal to this did the Celts lay siege
to the city where the envoys were camped (Ellis 9).
This is far from the only example of Celtic tolerance
and desire for peace. The Carthaginians passed through Celtic lands at one point
in their history, but instead of attacking them, the Carthaginians befriended the
Celts, and were allowed to pass through Celtic territory with no molestation whatsoever.
Sure enough, however, upon emerging from Celtic territory they were immediately accosted
by the Romans. In yet another example of Celtic leniency, the Roman Polybius notes
that a campaign against the Celts in 345 BCE involved one particular battle in which
the Celts, who were by far the more powerful army, withdrew during the night from
the Romans without a battle. After this, they did not engage the Romans again for
another thirteen years, instead electing to conclude a formal treaty with them which
they faithfully obeyed until the Romans reneged on it thirty years later (31).
In 151 BCE, in another war against the Celts, the Romans
first agreed to and then refused terms of negotiation from a Celtic tribe called
the Lusitani. They proceeded to massacre the tribe almost to a man, taking the survivors
prisoner and enslaving them. Although the Roman Senate did prosecute the leader of
this massacre, he was acquitted because frankly the Romans didn’t care much -- he’d
won the campaign. Only three years later, in 148 BCE, the Roman consul was surrounded
and -- no, not killed -- forced to sign a treaty, which the Romans broke in 140 BCE.
They then paid to have the Celtic leader assassinated while he slept, and then had
the murderers killed as well (Ellis 33)!
This treacherous trail of blood continued in 93 BCE,
when a Roman governor named Titus Didius deliberately provoked a revolt by a Celtic
tribe under his jurisdiction and then savagely put it down to gain prestige. He reduced
the tribe to starvation and then let them surrender on the terms that he would give
them new lands to resettle on. He then proceeded to disarm them and slaughtered men,
women, and children. He was honored by the Senate for this action. Forty years after
this, as he was killed by Caesar’s troops in 54 BCE, the Celtic chieftain and druid
named Dumnorix is said to have repeatedly yelled, “I am a free man in a free state.”
This serves as yet another example of the Romans’ hypocrisy and their lust for violence
which overpowered even their best written codes of law (Ellis 62, 4).
The Romans were not completely without clemency, however.
In 51 CE, the Celtic chieftain Caratacos was to be executed upon his capture by Roman
troops. He surprised the ignorant Romans, however, with a brilliant impromptu speech:
If to the nobility of my birth, and the splendour of exalted station, I had united the virtues of moderation, Rome had beheld me, not in captivity, but a royal visitor and a friend. The alliance of a prince, descended from an illustrious line of ancestors; a prince, whose sway extended over many nations, would not have been unworthy of your choice. A reverse of fortune is now the lot of Caratacos. The event is to you glorious, and to me humiliating.
I had arms, men and horses; I had wealth in abundance; can you wonder that I was so unwilling to lose them? The ambition of Rome aspires to universal domination; and must the rest of mankind, by consequence, stretch their necks to the yoke?
I held you at bay for years; had I acted otherwise, where, on your part, had been the glory of conquest, and where, on mine, the honour of a brave resistance? I am now in your power. If you are bent on vengeance, execute your purpose. The bloody scene will soon be over, and the name of Caratacos will sink into oblivion. But if you preserve my life, then I shall be, to late posterity, a monument of Roman clemency (Ellis 6).
The Romans, completely unprepared for such an argument
from a barbarous savage, immediately cancelled the execution.
The final comparison between the Romans and the Celts
would be a military one. Surely, even if it was the Romans’ ignorance and
hostility which provoked war, the proof lay in who could finish that war.
The Romans and the Celts were more or less equally matched in this respect. The Celts,
though peaceful by nature, would fight fiercely if they deemed it necessary, and
indeed were feared by both the Greeks and the Romans as among the most well-trained
and efficient warriors in the known world (Norton-Taylor 4). They did, however, lack
a certain organization, which was mostly due to their inability to command themselves
on an inter-tribal level. This did not prove to be much of a problem during Greco-Celtic
times, because the Greeks too ruled by city-state, but against the powerful and well-organized
Roman state and later Empire, this weakness proved fatal (Ellis 15). Publius Cornelius
Tacitus, a Roman historian, wrote, “Fighting retail, they [the Celts] were beaten
wholesale. Had they been inseperable, they would have been insuperable.” (i, et
al.) It is interesting to note that although the Romans and the Celts were more
or less equally matched, the Celts caused such fear in the hearts of both Greek and
Roman troops that the first few skirmishes with each resulted in panic and desertion.
According to Polybius,
There were innumerable hornblowers and trumpeters, and as the whole army was shouting its war cries at the same time, there was such a tumult of sound that it seemed the not only the trumpets and the soldiers but all the country round had got a voice and caught up in the cry. (Norton-Taylor 5)
One of the other major reasons for this fear, and one
of the greatest examples of Roman misunderstanding of Celtic practices, was the fact
that Celtic spearmen went naked into battle. Polybius comments that the ground on
which they fought must have been “overgrown with brambles which would catch in their
clothes and impede the use of their weapons.” The real reason for this practice,
however, was spiritual in nature. By going naked into battle, they felt that they
were increasing their oneness with nature (Ellis 20).
One of the most intriguing aspects of Roman/Celtic
battles was the Celtic custom of single combat to decide the victor of an engagement.
Rather than fight as two armies, the leaders of each army would choose a champion,
and the two champions would fight to the death. Thus, the entire outcome of the battle
would be decided with only one death, as opposed to thousands. Many Roman commanders
accepted this challenge from the Celtic chieftains who they opposed, but curiously
in 340 BCE, Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus decreed that no Roman should ever
again enter into single-handed combat with a Celt to settle military disputes. How
many lives were lost by this decision will never be known, however it stands as a
sterling example of Roman pride in their way of going about things that may have
cost many hundreds of thousands of troops and countless civilians on both sides (Ellis
19).
Another fascinating aspect of Celtic culture was their
religion. Unlike the Romans, who worshiped anthropomorphic deities, the Celtic deities
were exclusively those of nature. Upon entering the precinct of Delphi c.
278 BCE, a Celt is said to have rolled on the ground laughing at the Greeks for what
he felt was the proposterously selfish notion that the gods had human form (W.W.D.K.).
Sadly, very little documentation of these deities’ exact natures are available because
the Romans, completely unable to understand the Celtic spirituality, recorded their
pantheon only in direct comparison to their own (W.W.D.K.). The Romans also
took advantage of Celtic religious practices. The Celts used to throw coins into
hot springs as sacrifices, a practice that continues in our culture to this day in
the form of wishing wells. Apparently the Romans would auction off these hot springs
to the highest bidder when they had been captured. One such site apparently turned
up 100,000 lbs. of silver and 100,000 of gold -- twenty times the sum paid by the
Romans to compel the Celts to leave Rome (Green 245)! One thing we can piece together,
however, was that the Celts believed their deities to be equal to all the others
in existence, and were uniquely tolerant of others’ religious choices. No holy war
was ever waged by a Celt. In addition, natural beauty was revered by the Celts. Waterfalls
and stone formation were said to be “habitats of the gods”. Also, upon venturing
into the land of another tribe, a Celt (and indeed in some cases the Romans) would
pay homage to the deities of that region, just as seriously as if they were the deities
worshiped by the Celt himself. Homosexuality and other behaviors looked down upon
even in today’s society were perfectly natural and supported by Celtic culture (S.W.,
W.W.D.K.). This falls into a direct contrast with the Roman version of religion,
which existed in a state of tension with the Roman Senate and which many Romans did
not even believe in, because it had been lifted directly from the Greeks of centuries
past.
Not only were the religious beliefs of the Celts much
more tolerant and generally more progressive than the Roman ones, they can help explain
many of the “peculiar” behaviors and practices of the Celts at which the Romans liked
to scoff. For example, the practice of human sacrifice is one that has long been
attributed to the Celts, and for once archaeological and historical evidence supports
this claim (S.W.). How, then, can one view human sacrifice as more advanced
than the Roman system? The answer to this is twofold. First, the Romans did roughly
the same thing. On a special cliff on the Capitoline Hill, prisoners and those who
were judged traitors would be thrown off to their death below. The concept of gladiatorial
combat was a uniquely Roman one, as was the concept of selling prisoners into slavery
(Ellis 56). But, you may justifiably state, these were not considered religious acts.
This is true, but the second part of the answer to the question posed previously
may shed a little light on that as well -- the Celts were wholesale believers in
reincarnation. Not just any kind of reincarnation, though. They believed that when
a soul died in this life, he or she was reborn in the “Otherworld”, and when he or
she died there, was reborn into this world. (It is worth noting that the Romans were
slightly puzzled about the fact that both deaths and births were viewed by the Celts
as times of both mourning and elation.) (Ellis 17) Thus, to a Celt, it was much more
humane and merciful to sacrifice one’s prisoners and let them get on with their next
incarnation than to cast them into bondage or make them fight one another for the
entertainment of the general public. Also, the willing sacrifice of an individual
would underline the grave significance of whatever the situation happened to be,
both to society and to any gods that might be paying attention (S.W.). Another
interesting fact concerning human sacrifice is that the Romans found it necessary
to embellish on the truth even where they did have a leg to stand on. Lucan,
a 1st century sensationalist, reported that there were three major Celtic gods, each
of whom demanded a different variety of human sacrifice. The Romans had just recently
outlawed human sacrifice in their own political arena, and obviously felt they had
a reason to feel superior to the Celts on this account (W.W.D.K.).
Many modern groups have made attempts to reconstruct
the Celtic religion, including a student group at Carleton College and a number of
private religious organizations. While these attempts have met with only limited
success, druidic practices have been integrated into many “neo-pagan” religions such
as Wicca. Indeed, it is possible to find “groves” of so-called neo-druids, actively
practicing many parts of the religion of the ancient Celts (S.W.; for more
information on neo-druidry, see The Witches’ Voice, http://www.witchvox.com).
Obviously, some aspects of the old religion have been excised from neo-druidry; reincarnation
or no, sacrifice is looked down upon somewhat by our culture.
We have now looked at length at some of the fundamental
differences between the Celtic and Roman societies -- their social structure, their
religion, their cultural and political advancement, and their military strength.
You may be asking yourself why, if the Celts were so clearly ahead of their time,
were they eventually overcome and subdued by the Romans? The reason, it seems, has
more to do with the Romans’ fear of losing power and the Celts’ inability to organize
themselves on a large scale than with anything concerning the two societies. This
can be demonstrated in a very vivid way by looking at some of the times in history
when the Celts did make attempts to band together under one leader. The first
such example is the Gaulish region called Galatia.
The Celts entered Galatia, like they entered most other
regions, for the sole purpose of settling there. They did not desire warfare, like
the Romans would hundreds of years down the historical pike, and instead of invading
and occupying the cities and settlements already in Galatia, they peacefully set
up their own towns (in the traditional Celtic style) and lived amongst the indiginous
people in perfect peace. This lasted until around 90 BCE, when Mithridates, an upstart
king in the area, began to pose a danger to the Celts’ existence. Under the threat
of attack from Mithridates, a chieftain named Ortagion of the Tolistoboii made an
attempt to unite all the Celtic tribes under his rule. He did not force the issue,
however, and many of the other chieftains were unwilling to give up the traditional
tribal form of government (Ellis 89).
Sadly, this hesitation proved fatal. In yet another
example of the exploitation of Celtic values and honor, Mithridates realized that
the Celts never wore their weapons to a feast as a sign of respect. He therefore
invited all the chieftains, sixty-three in number, to a huge banquet. Sixty chieftains
accepted. Once the feast had commenced, he locked the doors and had armed guards
butcher the Celts systematically (Ellis 94). Only one chieftain managed to escape
the massacre -- his name was Deiotaros, the son of Dumnorix (who would later achieve
his own measure of fame). Deiotaros represented one of only three remaining chieftains
(one of the three who had been unable to attend the feast was subsequently assassinated
by Mithridates) out of an original sixty-three, and as such became, ironically, much
more able to unite the Celtic tribes than Ortagion had been. He did so, to a much
greater degree than Ortagion, and as a result not only was Mithridates’ local government
expelled from the area but any troops he sent to put down the Celts were soundly
routed. It can be safely said that this was not due to any weakness on Mithridates’
part -- he earned the cognomen “the Great” from his military conquests -- but even
he was unable to defeat a unified Celtic force (95).
The single greatest victory for the Celts against Rome
occured in 369 BCE, when a Roman army of 40,000 men was routed by the Celts, who
then proceeded to march south into the city of Rome itself. The panicked Romans fled
on foot from the city, but a group of venerable senators stayed behind, believing
it was their place to sacrifice their lives. Rather than attack the senators, one
of the Celts approached one and touched his beard, to determine whether the senator
was alive (they were standing stock-still in the senate, frozen with resolve). The
senator punched the Celt in the head, and the Celt punched back. The fighting soon
intensified and swords were drawn, and the senators were killed. The Celts then stormed
the Capitoline Hill, the center of the Roman government. Interestingly, the Roman
guard dogs did not warn the sleeping Romans of the attack, but the sacred geese in
the temple did. Eventually, the Celts (who really had very little left to do in the
city) were persuaded to take a sum of 10,000 lbs. of gold and leave the city peacefully.
After this humiliating defeat for the Romans, dogs were crucified on stakes of elder
wood every year to mark the anniversary of the Capitoline storm (Ellis 28).
The next attempt at Celtic unification came in 54 BCE,
when Dumnorix, the father of Deiotaros, was slain by Roman troops. It is he who is
said to have cried “I am a free man in a free state.” as he was cut down by Roman
gladiis. After Dumnorix’s death, Celtic resistance to Roman opression grew
stronger. One by one, the tribes of the region came together under a common purpose
-- to defeat the Romans. First came the Nervii, Aduatuci, and Eburones. Then, in
53 BCE, the Senones, Carnutes, and Treveri joined in the unofficial alliance under
a chieftain named Ambiorix. Still, they were not governed at a national level, nor
was their alliance any more than military. They had only gone halfway, and their
adversary was not the type against whom halfway was effective -- his name was Julius
Caesar (Ellis 9).
Caesar managed, through an ingenious strategy of divide
and conquer, to keep Ambiorix’ armies at bay, and eventually the rebellion (for this
is what it was -- the Celtic homelands were already under Roman rule by this time)
was put down (Ellis 157). After this time, many other rebellions by the Celtic peoples
scattered throughout the region occured, many having been provoked by the Roman governors
so that they could gain fame and glory by brutally crushing them (62). The slave
revolt by Spartacus consisted mostly of Celts, Spartacus himself being Thracian.
That does not, however, mean he was not also Celtic -- Thrace had only a hundred
years before been in Celtic territory, and it is quite possible that Spartacus himself
was a Celt. Eventually, however, the Romans assimilated the Celtic culture into their
own, systematically squelching any rebellions that might rise up and nearly erasing
the name of the Celts from the face of the earth. They could not so easily erase
their rich culture, however, and many “Roman” writers, poets, artists, and bards
were actually Celts who had been integrated into Roman society (201).
One interesting footnote to the history of the Celts
is the way they were handled by the Christians. In the 1800s CE, most people were
under the impression that the Celts were monotheists who had anticipated the birth
of Jesus and were just waiting to be converted to Christianity as soon as he was
born. This is a rather typical treatment of the Celts. When the Christian era began
in Galatia, those who had converted to Christianity followed the true teachings
of Christ, as administered directly by Jesus and his apostle, Peter. Jesus thought
of himself as a Judaic leader, and did not seek to create a new sect of Judaism to
begin with. Paul, who was given authority over the Galatians, never actually knew
Jesus, and he and Peter quarreled bitterly over doctrine. The Celts became once again
the unwilling scapegoats, told by two different people to believe two different things.
Those who didn’t give up and go back to the old religions were highly offended by
Paul’s letters, which accused all the Galatian Celts of being heretical buffoons.
This historical event is recorded in the Bible, if one looks closely enough -- because
the framers of the New Testament decided that it would be unseemly for Peter and
Paul to quarrel over the true Gospel, they used a trick of language to disguise the
fact. In Greek, Peter’s name is spelled Kephas. In most passages, the name was translated into Latin
as Peter. However, in the contentious passages, it was simply transliterated,
becoming “Kephas”. Most readers of the Bible assume that this refers to two different
people, and therefore no explanation is required (Ellis 206).
This is, of course, not the last time the Celts got
the short end of the stick, nor was it the first. It marked, however, a gradual decline
in the attitude towards Celtic culture that only today are we beginning to set right.
Throughout history, the Celts have been portrayed as savage barbarians, mostly by
a culture who was far more “savage” than the Celts ever were! It is a truism that
the victors write the history books, and when one is dealing with a culture with
an aversion to writing things down this must hold doubly true. Even two thousand
years of obscurity and misinformation, however, could not keep the Celtic culture
dead. All the hardship and warfare that this beautiful and magnificent culture were
subjected to at the hands of their more “civilized” neighbors echos many similar
happenings in our own time, and perhaps by studying the past we can prevent any such
atrocities from ever happening again. Even now, the fire of Celtic ideals lives on
in our own spirits, and it is now up to us to see that it is one flame that never
dies.
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