Dhe History,.Character, and Customs of the Celts Prior to the Roman Conquest
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u S'-btS-j. if Y? . • t fc' /V- Dhe History,.Character, and Customs of the Celts Prior to the Roman Conquest by Hilda Isabella Lobb A Thesis submitted in Partial* Fulfilment of The Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of CLASSICS „rfO The University of British Columbia April, 1940 Contents Chapter . Page Introduction i I, The History of the Celts as Revealed by ... Ancient Authorities • 1 II. The Origin of the Celts as Revealed by Studies in Philoikogy . 12 III* Celtic Expansion in the Bronze Age 27 IV. Celtic Expansion in the Hallstatt Period 36 V. La Tene - The Golden Age of Celticism 49 VI. La Tene - The Great Age of Celtic Expansion 60 VII. She Character of the Celts 66 VIII. • /The Customs of the Celts 75 Conclusion 93 Bibliography 96 i The History, Character, and Customs of the Celts Prior to the Roman Conquest Introduction Mo "History of Europe" could possibly be considered complete which does not contain some reference to the Celts, that great people who had their origin in Central Europe, and who, at the height of their power, inhabited Gaul, Noreia, Spain, the British Isles, and seotions of Germany, Italy, and Asia Minor. In the majority of "Histories", however, the allusions to the Celts are vague and inadequate, and convey to the reader no knowledge of the real importance of these people who made a very definite contribution t'o the customs, art, and literature of the countries in which they settled, and who are, even to-day, through their descendants in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the western counties of England, exercis• ing a tremendous influence in world affairs. Undoubtedly, little has been written about the Celts because, until about a century ago, very little was known of them. The earliest references to the Celtic peoples were made by several ancient Greek historians and geographers, and they are important only because they suggest the boundaries, of the Celtic territory at certain dates. The next material of any ii consequence was Julius Caesar's account of his campaign against the Gauls, one of the great branches of the Celtic people. In his "De Bello Gallico", Caesar left the world an imperishable mine of knowledge regarding the character, customs, and history of the Gauls of his day, but he gave little or no information concerning the Gauls of an earlier period. Such was also the case with Tacitus and Livy. None of these historians traced the origin of the Celts, or their transition from their earliest abodes and customs to the environment in which the writers found them. Therefore, while the writings of these ancient authors give us very valuable information, they are extremely inadequate when considered by themselves, and it is only when they are considered in conjunction with the discoveries of modern research, that a fairly complete history of these people can be obtained. The scientific discoveries of the last hundred years in the fields of physical anthropology, archaeology, and philology have brought to light many new sources of information about the Celts. The anthropologists, through their measure• ments of human skeletons and skulls which they have unearthed in ancient graves and caverns, have been able to group the prehistoric inhabitants of central Europe into several types. The archaeologists have studied the weapons, pottery, and ornaments which were found with the skeletons, and thus have been able to fix the period of the latter. For example, skeletons found buried with stone weapons obviously belong to the Stone Age while those buried with bronze or iron iil implements date back to the Bronze or Iron Ages. From such discoveries the various types of Celtic people have been determined, and their weapons, dishes, and jewelry described. The philologists, too, who have studied the remaining fragments of the numerous Celtic dialects, and have revealed relations both internally between the dialects and externally with other Indo-European languages, have aided in establishing the Celts in time and place. In this thesis, therefore, an attempt is made to summarize, through reference to ancient authors and modern researoh, the main facts in the history and customs of the Celtic peoples prior to the Roman Conquest. Several of the ancient authors whose works have been of service have already been mentioned. Of those who have written accounts of the Celts based chiefly on the scientific material available, Hubert was undoubtedly one of the greatest, and many allusions to his work will be found herein. Chapter I The History of the Celts as Revealed by Ancient Author!ties Some modern authorities, notably M. Salomon Reinach and M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, claim that the first histori- 1 eal -allusion to anything Celtic occurs in Homer's •"Iliad" in - . „ ' . ' - ' 2 • ;•- the use of the word K»t<r<ri,Tfpos. which means "tin". They assume that this word is Celtic because the root "cassi" is found in many Celtic names such as "Cassivellaunus" and 3 • "Veliocasses", and that the Phoenicians introduced it to the Greeks from Cornwall, which was the great source of tin in the ancient world. If these assumptions could be proved, the use of "« <*. <r<ro repo & '±xi the "Iliad" would indicate that prior to 800 B.C. there were Selts dwelling along the southern coast of Cornwall. Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence to support this theory for the most commonly accepted derivation of the word kocis-a-tr^oi'is from tlie Sanskrit "Kastira", that in turn being derived from the 1. Rice Holmes, T. - "Ancient Britain and the Invasions of Julius Caesar" - Pt* II, p.433. 2. Leaf, W. - "The Iliad" - Vo^.I, Bk.ll: 25,34; Vol.11, Bk.18: 474,565,574,612; Bk.20: 271; Bk.21: 592; Bk.23:503, 561. 3. Rice.Holmes, T. - op.cit. - Pt.II, p.453. 2 1 Sumeriaxi or Semitic "kash" or "shiny metal". It therefore seems much more probable that the Phoenicians first got the name along with the metal from the East, and that they took the name to Cornwall when they went there to trade for the same commodity. In this case, the use of the word by Homer would have no value as a Celtic reference. In order to understand the next recorded allusions to the Celts, it is necessary to know something regarding the size and shape of the world as it then appeared to the ancient Greek historians and geographers. They believed that the earth consisted of an oval of land surrounding the Mediter• ranean, Aegean, and Black Seas, this land being wholly surrounded in turn by a great body of water. The civilized portion of this territory was a narrow fringe encompassing the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and between this area and the ocean there lived great barbarian peoples. Through a line quoted by Strabo from the work of Hesiod, we know that in the eighth century B.C., these bar• barians were classified by the Greeks into three groups - ALQC o TToc 5 re /It yas re c Se Z>Kve<*s Lir-rrny-o/tyons. The second people mentioned were the Ligurians who evidently had the Celts as close neighbours, for about 50G B.C. the first Greek historian, Hecataeus of Miletus, in his work 1. Liddell and Scott - "Greek-English Lexicon" - p. 648, under ,LK<X <T6-<.-rfpos 2. Jones, H. L. - "The Geography of Strabo" - Yol.III, 7.3.7, pp.196-197. ("I.saw Ethiopians and Ligurians and mare- milking Scythians.,") "Europe", fragments of which have been preserved by other writers, refers to a Celtic part of this Ligurian territory. He tells us that the Celts had a city called Nyrax^T While positive identification is impossible, this city is believed to have been on the site of the later Noreia in Noricum, on the headwaters of the Danube. Such an identification is very probable in the light of archaeological investigations which show that at that period this city would not be far distant from the centre of Celtic civilization. In addition, Hecataeus, in speaking of Massilia or Marseilles which had been founded at the mouth of the Rhone in 600 B.C. by Phocaeans described it as "a city in the Ligystic country near the 2 Celtic country." Ihese two allusions indicate that by the beginning of the fifth century the Celtic domains spread over a considerable portion of central Europe. Another reference to the Celts of approximately the same date as that of Hecataeus was made in an old "periplus" or account of a sea-voyage written by a Massilian merchant who travelled extensively in order to obtain commodities for his business. The original manuscript was lost, but its contents were preserved by Rufus Festus Avienus in a Latin verse translation called "Ora Maritima". A French translation of part of the "Ora Maritima" contains these lines: "Si au lieu de se diriger vers les Oestrymnides, on ose s'aventurer dans la mer vers le nord, on arrivera au pays qui fut ocoupe* 1. Hubert, H. - "The Rise of the Celts" 0- Introd. p.2. 2* ibid. par les Ligures, aujourd'hui depeupll par 1'invasion celtique."1 2 Because there are two Les Oestrymnides mentioned in the poem, one of which can be identified with Gape Saint-Vincent on the south-west tip of Spain, the other with Gape Finistere or Brittany, these lines have led to much controversy. As it 3b s not certain which Les Oestrymnides was referred to in the quotation, two totally different interpretations can be placed on the passage. Some authorities claim that the reference is to Les Oestrymnides in Spain, and that therefore, prior to 500 B.C., the Ligurians had been driven back from the west coast of what is now Portugal or France towards the 3 mountains.