The Romans and the Celts

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Romans and the Celts UNIT 1 THE ROMANS 390 BC Gauls attack and destroy Rome AND THE CELTS 146 BC Romans conquer Greece 129 BC Romans conquer Turkey THE ROMANS 121 BC Romans invade Gaul One of the most important peoples in history were the Romans. Between 390 BC and 43 AD 51 BC Romans conquer Gaul they went from their city being destroyed to 400BC developing a very strong army. They then went 200BC on to build an extremely powerful empire. 117AD 43 AD Romans enter Britain 122 AD Hadrian’s Wall is built 410 AD Romans leave Britain Caledonia Hibernia Britannia Germania On the timeline above we can Gallia see that it took the Romans a long time to defeat the Gauls. The Gauls belonged to a group Hispania Italia Macedonia of people called the Celti who today are known as the Celts. Asia Mauretania Syria Aegyptus Gallic warrior 2 3 JULIUS CAESAR AND GAUL – THE ROMAN EMPIRE EXPANDS Do you recognise the country shown on this map? This was the Celtic nation known as Gaul. Do you know what it’s called today? After the Romans defeated Gaul in 51 BC, Caesar didn’t stop there. He wanted to make the Romans the most powerful people in the world. The Romans began to invade and overthrow the countries surrounding Gaul. Gradually, all countries on the c continent where Celts lived fell under Roman rule. Leponti Gaulish The Celts had their own ancient languages such as Gaulish and Lepontic and had many different customs. For example, they often lit huge fires to symbolise the changing of the seasons and to worship their many gods. These Celts who conquered Rome in 390 BC came from a land called Gaul. But Rome slowly recovered from this attack and started to build a huge empire which gradually spread all over Europe and into parts of Asia and north Africa. For four hundred years, the Romans would fight many battles and wars building their empire. In 51 BC, they finally defeated the Gauls, led by their most famous ruler of all, Julius Caesar. 4 5 One of these countries was a cool, rich, fertile island just across the sea from Gaul. Caesar’s attention turned to the Caledonia country the Romans called Britannia. THE ROMANS IN BRITAIN Hadrian’s Wall The Romans fought many battles with the British Hibernia Celts, who were led by a fierce warrior queen called Boadicea. The Romans were Britannia most powerful in southern Britain and resisted many attempts at rebellion from the Celts. HADRIAN’S WALL Scotland, which is in northern Britain, was not part of the Hadrian’s Wall Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor Hadrian had a wall built in 122 AD to protect the south from any possible attacks from the north. You can still see the remains of Hadrian’s Wall in parts of northern Britain today. Do you know of any other walls which were built to keep warring peoples apart? Boadicea, the Celtic queen 6 7 THE CELTS IN BRITAIN Scotland For the next three hundred years, the Romans ruled Britain, but eventually they had to leave. This is because their empire was coming under attack from people who lived outside the Roman borders. Their armies were needed at home and the last Romans left Britain around 410 AD. Even though the Romans defeated Boadicea and ruled over Britain, the Celts and their languages survived and still survives to this day. Isle of Man Petrus de Turre: Ptolemy Map of Ireland (RIA Manuscript: MS 24 E 38): By permission of the Ireland Royal Irish Academy © RIA HIBERNIA SUMMARY There was a country very close to • Between 390 BC and 43 AD, Britain that the Romans called the Romans gradually built an Hibernia. Historians still don’t know empire to become the most if the Romans invaded Hibernia powerful people in Europe. or, if they did, how important they Wales • The Romans invaded Celtic were there. One theory is that Britain and stayed until 410 AD. Ireland was even colder and less fertile than Britain, so it would have • Parts of France, Scotland, Wales, been no real use to them. parts of England and the Isle of Man were Celtic regions and their However, Hibernia was inhabited languages survive to this day. by Celts who called their country • The Romans referred to Ireland Cornwall Ériú. Today we call this island Éire as Hibernia. We don’t exactly or Ireland. know how powerful they were in Ireland. Ireland and other Celtic regions 8 9.
Recommended publications
  • 1 Gallo-Roman Relations Under the Early Empire by Ryan Walsh A
    Gallo-Roman Relations under the Early Empire By Ryan Walsh A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Ancient Mediterranean Cultures Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2013 © Ryan Walsh 2013 1 Author's Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. ii Abstract This paper examines the changing attitudes of Gallo-Romans from the time of Caesar's conquest in the 50s BCE to the start of Vespasian's reign in 70-71 CE and how Roman prejudice shaped those attitudes. I first examine the conflicted opinions of the Gauls in Caesar's time and how they eventually banded together against him but were defeated. Next, the activities of each Julio-Claudian emperor are examined to see how they impacted Gaul and what the Gallo-Roman response was. Throughout this period there is clear evidence of increased Romanisation amongst the Gauls and the prominence of the region is obvious in imperial policy. This changes with Nero's reign where Vindex's rebellion against the emperor highlights the prejudices still effecting Roman attitudes. This only becomes worse in the rebellion of Civilis the next year. After these revolts, the Gallo-Romans appear to retreat from imperial offices and stick to local affairs, likely as a direct response to Rome's rejection of them.
    [Show full text]
  • DBG Book 1 Outline
    Caesar’s De Bello Gallico BOOK I OUTLINE Chapter I 1-4 Gaul has three parts, inhabited by three tribes (Belgae, Aquitaini, and Celtae/Galli) who are different in language, institutions, and laws. 4-5. The rivers that separate the three areas. 6-11. Three reasons why the Belgae are the bravest. 11-15. The final reason explains why the Helvetians surpass the other Gauls in courage, because they fight regularly with the Germans, either in Germania or in their own land. 15-18. The boundaries of the land the Gauls occupy. 18-21. The boundaries of the land the Belgae occupy. 21-24. The boundaries of the land the Aquitani occupy. Chapter II 1-6. The richest and noblest Helvetian made a conspiracy among the nobility because of a desire for power and persuaded his people to leave their land with the argument that because of their surpassing courage they would easily get control of all Gaul. 6-12. He easily swayed them because the Helvetians were hemmed in on all sides by natural barriers. 12-15. As a result they had less freedom of movement and were less able to wage war against their neighbors, and thus their warriors were afflicted with great sorrow. 15-18. They considered their land, 240 miles by 180 miles, too small in comparison with their numbers and their glory in war. Chapter III 1-6 Persuaded by their situation and the authority of Orgetorix, the Helvetians decide to get ready for departure: they buy all the wagons and pack animals they can; plant as many crops as possible for supplies on the trip, and make alliances with the nearest states.
    [Show full text]
  • Historical Background of the Contact Between Celtic Languages and English
    Historical background of the contact between Celtic languages and English Dominković, Mario Master's thesis / Diplomski rad 2016 Degree Grantor / Ustanova koja je dodijelila akademski / stručni stupanj: Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences / Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Filozofski fakultet Permanent link / Trajna poveznica: https://urn.nsk.hr/urn:nbn:hr:142:149845 Rights / Prava: In copyright Download date / Datum preuzimanja: 2021-09-27 Repository / Repozitorij: FFOS-repository - Repository of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Osijek Sveučilište J. J. Strossmayera u Osijeku Filozofski fakultet Osijek Diplomski studij engleskog jezika i književnosti – nastavnički smjer i mađarskog jezika i književnosti – nastavnički smjer Mario Dominković Povijesna pozadina kontakta između keltskih jezika i engleskog Diplomski rad Mentor: izv. prof. dr. sc. Tanja Gradečak – Erdeljić Osijek, 2016. Sveučilište J. J. Strossmayera u Osijeku Filozofski fakultet Odsjek za engleski jezik i književnost Diplomski studij engleskog jezika i književnosti – nastavnički smjer i mađarskog jezika i književnosti – nastavnički smjer Mario Dominković Povijesna pozadina kontakta između keltskih jezika i engleskog Diplomski rad Znanstveno područje: humanističke znanosti Znanstveno polje: filologija Znanstvena grana: anglistika Mentor: izv. prof. dr. sc. Tanja Gradečak – Erdeljić Osijek, 2016. J.J. Strossmayer University in Osijek Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Teaching English as
    [Show full text]
  • Caesar and Tacitus Reading Introduction to the Caesar Reading Julius Caesar Wrote Accounts of His Campaigns in Gaul to Justify His Power and Actions
    Caesar and Tacitus Reading Introduction to the Caesar Reading Julius Caesar wrote accounts of his campaigns in Gaul to justify his power and actions. Here he gives his most extensive accounts of the peoples of Gaul and Germany. What customs, values and practices among the Gauls and the Germans seem significantly different from customs, values and practices at Rome? Are there ways in which he may use these differences as a justification for the military campaigns he is carrying out? Caesar, Gallic Wars Book 6 (chapters 11-20) (Trans. by H. J. Edwards, 1917) 6.11 Since I have arrived at this point, it would seem to be not inappropriate to set forth the customs of Gaul and of Germany, and the difference between these nations. In Gaul, not only in every state and every canton and district, but almost in each several household, there are parties [= political factions]; and the leaders of the parties are men who in the judgment of their fellows are deemed to have the highest authority, men to whose decision and judgment the supreme issue of all cases and counsels may be referred. And this seems to have been an ordinance from ancient days, to the end that no man of the people should lack assistance against a more powerful neighbour; for each man refuses to allow his own folk to be oppressed and defrauded, since otherwise he has no authority among them. The same principle holds in regard to Gaul as a whole taken together; for the whole body of states is divided into two parties.
    [Show full text]
  • The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity
    The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Wilkinson, Ryan Hayes. 2015. The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467211 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity A dissertation presented by Ryan Hayes Wilkinson to The Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 Ryan Hayes Wilkinson All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Michael McCormick Ryan Hayes Wilkinson The Last Horizons of Roman Gaul: Communication, Community, and Power at the End of Antiquity Abstract In the fifth and sixth centuries CE, the Roman Empire fragmented, along with its network of political, cultural, and socio-economic connections. How did that network’s collapse reshape the social and mental horizons of communities in one part of the Roman world, now eastern France? Did new political frontiers between barbarian kingdoms redirect those communities’ external connections, and if so, how? To address these questions, this dissertation focuses on the cities of two Gallo-Roman tribal groups.
    [Show full text]
  • Was Galatian Really Celtic? Anthony Durham & Michael Goormachtigh First Published November 2011, Updated to October 2016
    Was Galatian Really Celtic? Anthony Durham & Michael Goormachtigh first published November 2011, updated to October 2016 Summary Saint Jerome’s AD 386 remark that the language of ancient Galatia (around modern Ankara) resembled the language of the Treveri (around modern Trier) has been misinterpreted. The “Celts”, “Gauls” or “Galatians” mentioned by classical authors, including those who invaded Greece and Anatolia around 277 BC, were not Celtic in the modern sense of speaking a Celtic language related to Welsh and Irish, but tall, pale-skinned, hairy, warrior peoples from the north. The 150 or so words and proper names currently known from Galatian speech show little affinity with Celtic but more with Germanic. Introduction In AD 386 Saint Jerome wrote: Apart from the Greek language, which is spoken throughout the entire East, the Galatians have their own language, almost the same as the Treveri. For many people this short remark is the linchpin of a belief that ancient Celtic speech spread far outside its Atlantic-fringe homeland, reaching even into the heart of Anatolia, modern Turkey. However, we wish to challenge the idea that Galatians spoke a language that was Celtic in the modern sense of being closely related to Welsh or Irish. Galatia was the region around ancient Ancyra, modern Ankara, in the middle of Turkey. Anatolia (otherwise known as Asia Minor) has seen many civilisations come and go over the millennia. Around 8000 BC it was a cradle of agriculture and the Neolithic revolution. The whole family of Indo-European languages originated somewhere in that region. We favour the idea that they grew up around the Black Sea all the way from northern Anatolia, past the mouth of the river Danube, to southern Russia and Ukraine.
    [Show full text]
  • The Early Middle Ages
    The Early Middle Ages After the collapse of Rome, Western Europe entered a period of political, social, and economic decline. From about 500 to 1000, invaders swept across the region, trade declined, towns emptied, and classical learning halted. For those reasons, this period in Europe is sometimes called the “Dark Ages.” However, Greco-Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions eventually blended, creating the medieval civilization. This period between ancient times and modern times – from about 500 to 1500 – is called the Middle Ages. The Frankish Kingdom The Germanic tribes that conquered parts of the Roman Empire included the Goths, Vandals, Saxons, and Franks. In 486, Clovis, king of the Franks, conquered the former Roman province of Gaul, which later became France. He ruled his land according to Frankish custom, but also preserved much of the Roman legacy by converting to Christianity. In the 600s, Islamic armies swept across North Africa and into Spain, threatening the Frankish kingdom and Christianity. At the battle of Tours in 732, Charles Martel led the Frankish army in a victory over Muslim forces, stopping them from invading France and pushing farther into Europe. This victory marked Spain as the furthest extent of Muslim civilization and strengthened the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne After Charlemagne died in 814, his heirs battled for control of the In 786, the grandson of Charles Martel became king of the Franks. He briefly united Western empire, finally dividing it into Europe when he built an empire reaching across what is now France, Germany, and part of three regions with the Treaty of Italy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Commentaries of Caesar, by Anthony Trollope
    Project Gutenberg's The Commentaries of Caesar, by Anthony Trollope This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Commentaries of Caesar Author: Anthony Trollope Release Date: November 9, 2017 [EBook #55926] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMMENTARIES OF CAESAR *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.) Ancient Classics for English Readers EDITED BY THE REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. C Æ S A R The Volumes published of this Series contain HOMER: THE ILIAD, BY THE EDITOR. HOMER: THE ODYSSEY, BY THE SAME. HERODOTUS, BY GEORGE C. SWAYNE, M.A. Late Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The following Authors, by various Contributors, are in preparation:— VIRGIL. HORACE. ÆSCHYLUS. SOPHOCLES. ARISTOPHANES. CICERO. JUVENAL. XENOPHON. OTHERS WILL FOLLOW. A Volume will be published on the 1st of every alternate Month, price 2s. 6d. T H E C O M M E N T A R I E S OF C Æ S A R BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXX CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTION, 1 FIRST BOOK OF THE WAR IN GAUL.—CÆSAR DRIVES FIRST THE SWISS AND II. 28 THEN THE GERMANS OUT OF GAUL.—B.C.
    [Show full text]
  • Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by Thomas William Rolleston
    The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race by Thomas William Rolleston This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race Author: Thomas William Rolleston Release Date: October 16, 2010 [Ebook 34081] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE*** MYTHS & LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE Queen Maev T. W. ROLLESTON MYTHS & LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE CONSTABLE - LONDON [8] British edition published by Constable and Company Limited, London First published 1911 by George G. Harrap & Co., London [9] PREFACE The Past may be forgotten, but it never dies. The elements which in the most remote times have entered into a nation's composition endure through all its history, and help to mould that history, and to stamp the character and genius of the people. The examination, therefore, of these elements, and the recognition, as far as possible, of the part they have actually contributed to the warp and weft of a nation's life, must be a matter of no small interest and importance to those who realise that the present is the child of the past, and the future of the present; who will not regard themselves, their kinsfolk, and their fellow-citizens as mere transitory phantoms, hurrying from darkness into darkness, but who know that, in them, a vast historic stream of national life is passing from its distant and mysterious origin towards a future which is largely conditioned by all the past wanderings of that human stream, but which is also, in no small degree, what they, by their courage, their patriotism, their knowledge, and their understanding, choose to make it.
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting the Achievements of the Ancient Celts
    University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses College of Arts & Sciences 5-2013 Revisiting the achievements of the Ancient Celts : evidence that the Celtic civilization surpassed contemporary European civilizations in its technical sophistication and social complexity, and continues to influence later cultures. Adam Dahmer University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/honors Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Dahmer, Adam, "Revisiting the achievements of the Ancient Celts : evidence that the Celtic civilization surpassed contemporary European civilizations in its technical sophistication and social complexity, and continues to influence later cultures." (2013). College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses. Paper 11. http://doi.org/10.18297/honors/11 This Senior Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts & Sciences at ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Dahmer 1 A Lost Civilization as Great as Any Scholars traditionally associate the advancement of Western culture from antiquity to the Renaissance with the innovations of the Romans and their Mediterranean cultural predecessors, the Greeks and Etruscans, to the extent that the word "civilization" often seems synonymous with Romanization. In doing so, historians unfairly discount the cultural achievements of other Indo-European peoples who achieved civilization in their own right and contributed much to ancient and modern life.
    [Show full text]
  • Celts Ancient and Modern: Recent Controversies in Celtic Studies
    Celts Ancient and Modern: Recent Controversies in Celtic Studies John R. Collis As often happens in conferences on Celtic Studies, I was the only contributor at Helsinki who was talking about archaeology and the Ancient Celts. This has been a controversial subject since the 1980s when archaeologists started to apply to the question of the Celts the changes of paradigm, which had impacted on archaeology since the 1960s and 1970s. This caused fundamental changes in the way in which we treat archaeological evidence, both the theoretical basis of what we are doing and the methodologies we use, and even affecting the sorts of sites we dig and what of the finds we consider important. Initially it was a conflict among archaeologists, but it has also spilt over into other aspects of Celtic Studies in what has been termed ‘Celtoscepticism’. In 2015–2016 the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland put on exhibitions (Farley and Hunter 2015) based largely on these new approaches, raising again the conflicts from the 1990s between traditional Celticists, and those who are advocates of the new approaches (‘New Celticists’), but it also revived, especially in the popular press, misinformation about what the conflicts are all about. Celtoscepticism comes from a Welsh term celtisceptig invented by the poet and novelist Robin Llywelin, and translated into English and applied to Celtic Studies by Patrick Sims-Williams (1998); it is used for people who do not consider that the ancient people of Britain should be called Celts as they had never been so-called in the Ancient World.
    [Show full text]
  • Delphic Galatomachy and Roman Traditions of the Gallic Sack
    Narratives of Impiety and Epiphany: Delphic Galatomachy and Roman Traditions of the Gallic Sack Antti Lampinen In discussing the Gallic Sack of Rome, S. P. Oakley notes that ”[o]nly three things are certain about this episode: that it happened, that it left Rome with a long- lasting fear of Celts, and that virtually everything that our sources say about it is unbelievable” (Oakley 2004, 23). While this statement is, in essence, very true indeed, it is the word ‘unbelievable’ that I would like to draw attention to, for it could be argued that the ancient accounts mentioned by Oakley are not so much unbelievable as ill-understood. That they tell us frustratingly little of the actual nature of the historical incident is undeniable; as a source of Roman imagologies and narrative topoi concerning Gauls and their perceived antagonism towards Romans, however, these accounts are extremely useful. The allegedly unbelievable nature of our Roman sources that by its various discrepant narratives and suspicious duplicate scenes forms such a formidable barrier to a historian trying to uncover the hard facts surrounding the incident, can be explained and understood by analysing the literary context of its formation and imagological content. In this paper I study the formation and nature of Roman Republican literary narratives of the Gauls and their actions in Italy, beginning with earlier Greek accounts, which wielded considerable influence on later Roman conceptions of northern barbarians – especially when it comes to imagining the Gauls as impious despoilers and cruel adversaries of both gods and men.1 These images of religious as well as factual animosity are the essence of classical galatomachy, or depictions of Celts (or Gauls) as partially mythologised adversaries either in art or in literature, constructed with the help of the narrative motif of barbarism vs.
    [Show full text]