Who were the Celts? Were they a barbaric tribe who patrolled the borders of ancient Rome and Greece? Or were they much more? The Celts recalled history orally and wrote down nothing of their historical nature. This is the main cause for the tremendous gap in the history of the Celtic peoples before their encounters and wars with the classical cultures of Greece and Rome. What we do know of them is known only because of the observations of the Romans and others poets or scholars who wrote of them. And since most if not all of these accounts were written in wartime one cannot assume that they are of the best credibility to the Celtic peoples. The best seemingly solid evidence is that which has been taken from archaeological research and even that is open to many varying interpretations (Culbreath “Celtic History” 1).
The Celts were indeed elusive. What we do know of them is mostly theoretical though some generalizations have been concluded. By 300 BC the Celts lost their political balance and their territories began to break into tribes. Tribes began wandering off on themselves and looking for new lands to lay claim to. In the 4th century BC the Celts invaded the territories of the Greeks and the Romans. They sacked Rome in 390 BC and Delphi in 279 BC. They then went as far in their conquest as Asia Minor (Culbreath “Celtic History” 1).
The Celtic way of battle was obviously not as ineffective as one might think if they could just come virtually out of nowhere and sack Rome and Greece.
The Celts tore through the countryside and several battalions of Roman soldiers to lay siege to the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Seven months of siege led to negotiations whereby the Celts promised to leave their siege for a tribute of one thousand pounds of gold, which the historian Pliny tells was very difficult for the entire city to muster. When the gold was being weighed the Romans claimed the Celts were cheating with faulty weights. It was then that the Celts’ leader, Brennus, threw his sword into the balance and uttered the words vae victis “woe to the Defeated”. Rome never withstood another more humiliating defeat and the Celts made an initial step of magnificent proportions into history. (Culbreath “Celtic History” 3)
As Culbreath quotes Diodorus we find just what these Celts looked like:
Their aspect is terrifying…They are very tall in stature, with rippling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond but not naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially washing it in lime and combing it back from their foreheads. They look like wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse’s mane. Some of them are clean-shaven, but others-especially those of high rank shave their cheeks but leave a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food…The way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulders with a brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. (Culbreath “Celtic History” 4)
The Celts fought barbarically and naked. They also, as observed by Ovid, Caesar, and other Roman poets, had painted themselves blue before battle or religious activities (Papanek 16).
“The Celts dominated Mid and Western Europe for a thousand years…The Celts as an identifiable race or ethnic group have long since disappeared, except in places such as Ireland and the Scottish Highlands” (Culbreath “Celtic History” 5). Thus, the Celts were very influential on Europe’s early history even though they are rarely mentioned in classrooms or nations other than those in Europe. Their customs were similar to today’s Thanksgiving, and they celebrated like people do in modern bars. They left behind their customs of partying and lavish drinking. Culbreath explains: “Central to Celtic life were feasts. These feasts were an opportunity for people to revisit their pasts in glories and stories, to form new and strengthen old bonds, a place where societal and political problems were addressed and resolved” (Culbreath “Celtic Customs” 1). Their feasts also contained pork, beef, ox, game, fish, honey, butter, milk, cheese, wine, mead, and beer (Culbreath “Celtic Customs” 2). The Celts also enjoyed the company of bards or poets and storytellers who sang or spoke poetry to all that would hear their deep recitations of history and lore. They loved to gather, drink, and be merry amongst themselves. “When not feasting or working the farms or pursuing the respective crafts, the Celtic people engaged in a variety of games. A board game called fidchell was particularly popular. This game can be seen as a derivative of chess, though played with pegs rather than figures” (Culbreath “Celtic Customs” 3). The Celts also loved dancing, rock throwing, and any athletic sport.
Thus the Celts soon became absorbed into the Roman Empire by way of the battles fought with Caesar. The Celtic nations were also subject to many invasions all in a short amount of time by the Germanic tribes, the Scandanavians, and the Christian expansion as well.
There they were conquered and merged into new nations. In the islands, they resisted. Then they retired. They were turned back on themselves; they were partly absorbed by the Roman Empipre. What survived the fall of the Celtic states in Britain was absorbed by the Normans, the last Germanic people to emigrate. There remains nothing but one small, indomitable nation, full of vigor, on the outer most edge of their earliest conquests, and, behind that front, in Scotland, in Wales, in Brittany, Celtic-speaking communities which are no longer nations. (Hubert 184)
And so the Celtic spirit lives on in their art, sculptures, and myths so that we may remember simpler war-filled, spiritual times.
