Celtic regions - areas in modern Europe, inhabited by carriers of Celtic culture and Celtic languages. These are considered 6 territories: Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales. In each of these territories one of the Celtic languages is spoken or was spoken in the past. In addition, areas of the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Galicia, are sometimes also considered Celtic, due to unique culture region, but no Celtic languages are spoken there today. Before the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribes, much of Western Europe was Celtic.
The connections between the Celtic regions are maintained in different contexts such as politics, culture, language and sports.
The Celtic League is a political organization that advocates for political, linguistic, cultural and social rights affecting one or more of the Celtic peoples.
The Celtic Congress is a non-political organization, founded in 1917, which seeks to promote Celtic culture and languages, to maintain intellectual contact and close cooperation between the Celtic peoples.
Celtic cultural festivals include the Interceltique de Lorient (Brittany), the Pan Celtic Festival (Ireland), the National Celtic Festival (Portarlington, Australia), the Celtic Media Festival (film screenings of Celtic peoples), and the Eisteddfod (Wales)
Celtic names are still found in modern Europe. Among them:
Amiens - on behalf of the Gallic tribe of the Ambians;
Belgium - on behalf of the Belg tribe;
Belfast - in Celtic "bel fersde" - "sandbank ford";
Bohemia (the obsolete name of the historical region of the Czech Republic) - on behalf of the Boii tribe;
Brittany (region in France) - named after the tribe of the Britons;
Britain is the same;
Bourges - on behalf of the Biturigi tribe;
Galatia (a historical region on the territory of modern Turkey) - from the name of the Celts by the Greeks "Galatians";
Galicia (province in Spain);
Gaul -- (historical region on the territory of modern France, Belgium, part of Switzerland, Germany and Northern Italy);
Dublin is Irish for "black lake";
Kemper - in Breton "confluence of rivers";
The Cambrian Mountains - from the ancient self-name of the Welsh, Cymry;
Langre - from the name of the Gallic tribe of the Lingons;
Lyon - "Lug Fortress", from the ancient name "Lugdunum" (Lug - the Gallic god of the Sun, Gall. "dun" - a fortress, a hill);
Nantes - on behalf of the Namnet tribe;
Auvergne - on behalf of the Arvern tribe;
Paris - from the name of the Celtic tribe of the Parisians;
Perigord -- (historical region in France);
Poitiers - from the name of the tribe of Pictons (Pictaves);
Seine (river in France), from the Gaulish Sequana;
Tour - on behalf of the Turon tribe;
Troyes - on behalf of the Tricas tribe.
Celtic ornament is very often found in jewelry and tattoos, and mythology - in modern works of art, and Celtic music and dance are popular with contemporary performers.
What did the Celts leave the world?
Love for nature
Each of the Eight Celtic Feasts (Imbolg, Ostara, Belten, Lita, Lunasach, Lamas, Meybon, Sauin and Yul) contains rites of reverence for "Mother Nature". At the Belten festival, God Bel is dressed in a tunic with green leaves and is called "Green Jak".
Even the horoscope of the Celts is associated with trees: the signs of the zodiac are named after different names of trees and change every 10 days.
Equality of men and women
According to Celtic mythology, life is led by "Triple Deity": Girl, Mother and Grandmother who are symbols Life, Death and Rebirth. For this reason, probably, the Celts observed the first equality of the sexes in Europe.
Contemporaries of the Celts are surprised to describe the Celtic female commanders, female merchants and property owners, even female druids.
iron objects
Plow. When the Celts were not at war, they were good farmers, so good that they could have up to 8 oxen in the field at the same time. So they invented the metal plow, which, when combined with a team of oxen, was much more efficient.
Sword, chain mail. A sword was found in Karkbum, which is assembled from 70 different parts (the probable reason is the secret transportation of the sword). The sword and scabbard are assembled from 70 separate parts, which speaks of the high skill of the Celtic gunsmiths.
And here is an even more impressive fact - around the III century. BC Celtic craftsmen invented chain mail, which is known to this day. Roman contemporaries write that the Empire copied chain mail from the bodies of the slain Celts and, thus, this attribute spread throughout Europe.
origin of name
The appearance of the word "Celtic" in English language happened in the 17th century. The Oxford-based Welsh linguist Edward Lluyd drew attention to the similarities inherent in the languages spoken in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. He called these languages "Celtic" - and the name stuck. The word "Celtic" is also used to describe the "curl" style of various decorations sold in souvenir shops in Ireland. However, there is no evidence that such a design was created by an ethnically homogeneous group of people.
Story
Internecine wars, weakening the Celts, contributed to the invasion of the Germans from the east and the Romans from the south. The Germans pushed back part of the Celts in the 1st century BC. e. for the Rhine. Julius Caesar in 58 BC e. - 51 BC e. conquered all of Gaul. Under Augustus, the Romans conquered the regions along the upper Danube, northern Spain, Galatia, and under Claudius (mid-1st century AD) - a significant part of Britain. The Celts, who wished to remain in the territory of the Roman Empire, underwent strong Romanization.
Contacts with ancient civilizations
The Celts were one of the most warlike peoples in Europe. To intimidate the enemy before the battle, the Celts uttered deafening cries and blew into battle pipes - carnyxes, the bells of which were made in the form of animal heads.
Roman name galls it was used to a greater extent in relation to the tribes that lived north of Massalia, near the Ocean and at the Herkin Mountains. Gauls(from lat. Gallus - “rooster”) - the name given by the Romans to a group of Celtic tribes, for the most part living in what is now France. This etymology is due to the fact that the battle helmets of the ancient Gauls were decorated with cock feathers, since the first acquaintance of the Romans with the Gauls took place initially, mainly on the battlefields.
The Eastern Celts, settled along the Danube valley, penetrated far to the east in 281 BC. e. to Thrace in northern Greece, the Greeks called them Galatians.
Settling, the Celts mixed with local tribes: Iberians, Illyrians, Thracians, but for a long time some of them managed to maintain the “purity” of the race (Lingons, Boii), which was one of the reasons for their small number. For example, in 58 A.D. e. there were 263,000 Helvetians and only 32,000 fights [here the argument is debatable, because after the death of Julius Caesar, the Dacian king Burebista mercilessly dealt with the fights]. The Celts of southern France developed in conditions of active interaction with the ancient city-states and therefore differed most high level culture. Displaced by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. e. from the north of Italy (from the so-called Cisalpine Gaul), the Celts settled in central and northwestern Bohemia (these were the Boii tribes, from which the territory received the name Boiohaemum - the birthplace of the Boii - Bohemia).
According to DNA genealogist B. Sykes, the Celts of the British Isles are genetically related not to the Celts of mainland Europe, but to more ancient newcomers from Iberia, who brought agriculture to Britain in the early Neolithic.
The most numerous tribes of the Celts were the Helvetians, Belgis, Arverns
It should also be noted that the Celtic origin of the Arverni is still in question, and most tribal union Belgov had Germanic roots. The Biturigs and Volci were also not originally Celtic tribes.
Celtic beliefs
Irish Law
The original national law that had been in force in Ireland since ancient times was abolished by the English government at the beginning of the 17th century and doomed to oblivion, like everything that could remind the Irish of their former national existence. But in 1852, the British government commissioned Irish scientists to find and publish monuments of ancient Irish law.
It is believed that the rules contained in Great Book of Ancient Law, were formed under the influence of the Bregons, approximately in the 1st century AD, and the legal treatises that serve as the basis of the collection and the subject of a later gloss were compiled in the era of the introduction of Christianity in Ireland, that is, in the first half of the 5th century, then for several centuries were preserved by oral tradition , and in the VIII century were recorded. The oldest manuscript that has come down to us dates back to the 14th century. For the study of the original foundations and evolution of primitive Indo-European law, there is no other source - with the possible exception of the laws of Manu - that would surpass in its importance the ancient Irish laws. Senhus-Mor consists of 5 books, of which the first two are about legal proceedings, the last three are about the upbringing of children, about various forms of rent, and about the relationship of different people to each other, as well as to the church.
The material for the book of Aicillus, another source of information about Celtic law, was two works, of which one belongs to King Cormac (about 250 AD), and the other to Cennfelads, who lived four centuries later; its manuscripts are not older than the 15th century, but the book itself was compiled much earlier, and the institutions described in it belong to the remotest antiquity.
In addition to these two main sources, other monuments of ancient Irish literature can serve, especially church texts - the confession of St. Patrick, Collatio canonum hibernica, etc.
All these monuments find the people in a state of tribal life, the highest manifestation of which was the clan. Along with tribal relations, and sometimes in addition to them, a dependence similar to the vassal relations of the feudal system was established by renting land. At the basis of the lease, which, however, could be free, that is, not to establish dependent relationships between the tenant and the owner, there was actually a return for the use of not land, but livestock (the so-called shetel, cheptel, from the Celts. chatal or chetal - livestock).
The proprietor in name was in reality only the steward of the general family estate burdened with duties in favor of the family. Marriage was concluded through the purchase of wives, and before the introduction of Christianity, apparently, could be made for one year. The ransom for the daughter went in favor of the father, but in subsequent marriages, a certain part of it, which gradually increased with each new marriage (the law provides for 21 marriages), turned in favor of the daughter. When a father was replaced by a brother, he received half of what was due to his father. When the spouses were equal both in social status and in the contributions they made to the compilation of the common property fund, the wife enjoyed the same rights with her husband and one without the other could not enter into transactions; in the case of an unequal marriage, priority in domestic affairs belongs to the spouse who made the contribution. Along with these cases, Senhus-Mor provides 7 more forms marital relations, reminiscent of the wrong marital unions, which are spoken of in the laws of Manu. When the spouses are separated, each takes his contribution in full, while the acquired property is distributed between them on the basis of special rules that provide for the smallest details.
There was a very complex system of kinship relations that applied not only to the distribution of hereditary property, but also to the distribution of monetary fines that took the place of blood feuds: relatives were called upon to pay and receive these fines in the same manner as for inheritance. Kill reward free man(the price of blood, eric) was determined in 7 slaves (a slave is a common unit of value among the Celts) or 21 dairy cows. In addition, there was also the price of honor (enechlann), the size of which depended on the state and social position of the victim. It depended on the relatives of the criminal either to pay for him, or to abandon him and doom him to exile. Accidental killing did not exempt from the payment of remuneration; killing secretly or from an ambush entailed a double fine. There was a rate of fines for injuries and beatings. The amount of compensation for damages was in direct relation to the rank of the victim and inversely to the rank of the harmer. The initial stage of the process was the arrest, which was imposed by the plaintiff on the property (livestock) of the defendant and at the same time served as a security for the claim. If the defendant did not have any property, then he was subjected to personal detention and taken to the plaintiff with chains on his legs and a chain around his neck; the plaintiff was obliged to give him only a cup of broth a day. If the plaintiff and defendant belonged to different tribes and the seizure of the property of the latter was inconvenient, the plaintiff could detain any person from the tribe of the defendant. The hostage paid for his compatriot and had the right to claim back from him. If it was impossible to induce the defendant to appear in court by arresting property, then the case ended in a duel, the conditions of which were established by custom, and which, in any case, took place in the presence of witnesses.
The court belonged to the head of the clan or the people's assembly, but generally had the character of an arbitrator. In making his decision, he was guided by the opinion bregons(actually brithem, then brehon - judge), who in the pagan era belonged to the number of fillets (filé - clairvoyant, prophet) - the category of priests who directly followed the druids; in the Middle Ages they became a hereditary corporation. The Bregons are the broadcasters of law, the custodians of the formulas and rather complex rites of the process, which was distinguished by the formalism common in antiquity; in their conclusions, they do not create law, but only reveal and formulate those legal norms that lie in the legal consciousness of the people. The Bregons were also poets and were at the head of schools in which law was studied by oral transmission along with rules. poetic creativity. In the pagan era, the belonging of the Bregons to the number of priests informed the conclusions of their religious authority, especially since supernatural power was attributed to the fillet, the ability to bring down all sorts of troubles on the recalcitrant. Then at the head of the estate of the fillet was the so-called ollaw (ollaw), corresponding in his position to the supreme druid of the Gauls. And after the introduction of Christianity, the conclusions of the Bregons did not lose their mystical connotation: various magical actions of Oregon were performed at the court, which were supposed to cause supernatural revelations. Then the judicial duel, the oath, the ordeals, the support of the jurors served as evidence.
War among the Celts
The ancient Celts were terrible in battle - they did not wear any clothes and painted in Blue colour. The spectacle of a crowd of naked blue warriors in itself horrified the enemy, as even Julius Caesar wrote about. In addition to everything, they covered their hair with white lime and their bodies with tattoos.
Celtic names in modern Europe
- Amiens - on behalf of the Gallic tribe of the Ambians;
- Belgium - on behalf of the Belgian tribe;
- Belfast - in Celtic "bel fersde" - "sandbank ford";
- Bohemia (an obsolete name for the historical region of the Czech Republic) - on behalf of the Boii tribe;
- Brittany (region in France) - named after the tribe of Britons;
- Britain - the same;
- Bourges - on behalf of the Biturigi tribe;
- Galatia (a historical region on the territory of modern Turkey) - from the name of the Celts by the Greeks "Galatians";
- Galicia (province in Spain), Galicia, Gaul - the same;
- Dublin - in Irish "black lake";
- Kemper - in Breton "confluence of rivers";
- The Cambrian Mountains - from the ancient self-name of the Welsh, Cymry;
- Langr - from the name of the Gallic tribe of the Lingons;
- Lyon - "Lug Fortress", from the ancient name "Lugdunum" (Lug - the Gallic god of the Sun, Gall. "dun" - a fortress, a hill);
- Nantes - on behalf of the Namnet tribe;
- Auvergne - on behalf of the Arvern tribe;
- Paris - from the name of the Celtic tribe Parisii;
- Poitiers - from the name of the tribe of Pictons (Pictaves);
- Seine (river in France), from Gaulish Sequana;
- Tur - on behalf of the Turon tribe;
- Trois - on behalf of the Tricas tribe.
Modern Celtic peoples
- Irish (self-name - Irish Muintir na hÉireann or Irish na hÉireannaigh, singular - Éireannach, name of the language - An Ghaeilge, name of the state - Poblacht na hÉireann (Republic of Ireland))
- Welsh (self-name - Wall. Cymry, singular - Cymro, name of the language - Cymraeg, name of the country - Cymru, name of the administrative-territorial entity - Tywysogaeth Cymru (Principality of Wales))
- Scots (self-name - Gaelic Albannaich, language name - Gàidhlig, country name - Alba, name of the administrative-territorial entity - Rìoghachd na h-Alba (Kingdom of Scotland))
- Bretons (self-name - Bret. Brezhoned, language name - Brezhoneg, province name - Breizh)
- Cornish (self-name - Kernowyon, name of the language - Kernowek, name of the county - Kernow (Cornwall))
see also
Literature
- //
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
- Shirokova N. S. Celtic Druids and the book of Francoise Leroux // Leroux Francoise. Druids. SPb., 2003, p. 7-23
- D. Collis. Celts: origins, history, myth. - M .: Veche, 2007. - 288 p. - ISBN 978-5-9533-1855-6
Links
- The Gospel of Kells - a masterpiece of 9th century Celtic miniature
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Celtic culture
Without realizing it, we see their traces daily. For example, it was the Celts who spread the wearing of trousers in the Western world; in addition, they also invented barrels. There are other, conspicuous, evidence of the existence of the Celts in history. In some areas of Europe, hundreds of hillforts and burial mounds are still visible today, all left by the Celts. Many cities or regions today bear names of Celtic origin, such as Lyon and Bohemia. If it is customary in your area to commemorate the dead at the end of October or the beginning of November, then you can be sure that the Celts did the same hundreds of years ago. In addition, if you know the stories about the English King Arthur or well famous fairy tales about Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, then you are familiar with the more or less immediate legacy Celtic culture.Over time, the Celts, like many other peoples, created different opinions depending on who reported them. Plato (a Greek who lived in the 4th century BC) described them as warlike, drinking-loving people. For Aristotle (a Greek who lived in the 4th century BC), they were a people who neglected danger. According to the description of the Greek-Egyptian, the geographer Ptolemy (II century AD), the Celts were afraid of only one thing - that the sky would fall on their heads! Their enemies represented them as generally cruel, uncivilized barbarians. Today, thanks to advances in the study of the Celtic civilization, "we can imagine a completely different picture of the Celts than we could imagine it 20 years ago," says Wenceslas Kruta, one of the leading scientists in this field.
, consisting of many tribes, held together "by a common language and art, and by a common military structure and religious beliefs, which clearly recognized their commonality" (I Celti (And Celti), appendix to La Stampa (Stampa) dated March 23, 1991) . Therefore, it is more correct to speak of Celtic culture than of ethnic group. Gauls, Iberians, Celts, Senones, Cenomanians, Insubres and Boii are the names of some of the tribes that inhabited the areas we know today as France, Spain, Austria and northern Italy. Others, over time, colonized the British Isles.
The original group of Celts spread probably from Central Europe. Until the VI century BC. they were not mentioned in historical records. The Greek historian Herodotus was among the first to mention them, calling them "the most distant inhabitants of Eastern Europe". Ancient historians paid attention mainly to their military exploits. Various Celtic tribes went to war against the Etruscans in northern Italy and at the beginning of the 4th century BC. - against Rome, which, after all, they conquered. Roman historians, such as Livy, reported that the Celts retreated only after they were paid an appropriate ransom, and after the Celtic leader, Brennus, proclaimed the words "vae victis" (woe to the vanquished). The Celts are remembered even today when the adventures of fictional Gallic warriors Asterix and Obelix are read, appearing in comic books in many languages.
The Greeks became acquainted with the Celts around 280 BC, when another Celtic Brennus stood on the threshold of the famous sanctuary at Delphi, but failed to conquer it. In the same period of time, certain Celtic tribes, which the Greeks called "Galatians", crossed the Bosporus and settled in northern Asia Minor, in the region that was later called Galatia.
Celts warriors
In ancient times, the Celts were known as brave warriors with great physical force. In addition to having a stately physique, in order to intimidate their enemies, they moistened their hair with a mixture of chalk and water, which gave them an extremely ferocious appearance when their hair dried. Their ancient statues are exactly like this, with "hair like a plaster cast." Their physique, their fervor in battle, their weapons, the manner in which they wore their hair, and their typically long mustaches, all contributed to the picture of the Gallic fury so feared by their enemies, and which is conveyed in the tales of Asterix. Probably on this basis, many troops recruited Celtic mercenary soldiers, including the troops of the Carthaginian commander Hannibal.But by the end of the 1st century BC. the strength of the Celts began to gradually weaken. The Gallic campaign of the Romans, led by Julius Caesar and other commanders, brought the military apparatus of the Celts to its knees.
Celtic heritage
Celtic heritage that this people left for us, different reasons consists almost exclusively of the works of human hands, these works were mostly found in numerous graves. Ornaments, vessels of various shapes, weapons, coins and similar things - "undoubtedly authentic products of their hands", - as experts say, were items of trade of large size with neighboring peoples. In Norfolk, England, many objects of gold have recently been found; among them were necklaces, typical heavy necklaces. Celtic goldsmiths were unusually skilled. "Metal seems to have been the material of choice for Celtic art," says one scholar. For its better processing, they used ovens, which were very sophisticated for that time.In contrast to modern Greco-Roman art, which tried to imitate reality, Celtic art was primarily decorative. Natural forms were often stylized, and there was an endless variety of symbolic elements that often had magical or religious significance. Archaeologist Sabatino Moscassi says: “We have before us, undoubtedly, the oldest, greatest and most brilliant view decorative arts that ever existed in Europe.
Celtic tribes
Celtic tribes led simple life even in "oppidums", in their typical fortified cities. The tribes were dominated by aristocrats, and non-aristocrats were considered insignificant people. Due to the harsh climate in the region where they lived, life was not easy. They moved south, probably not only because of economic benefits but also in search of a milder climate.Religion has had a great influence on daily life Celts. “The Gauls are a very religious people,” wrote Julius Caesar. "Their faith in afterlife and in immortality the soul was so strong,” said the scientist Carlo Carena, quoting a Roman historian, “that they willingly lent money and were willing to get it back even in hell.” Indeed, in many graves, not only skeletons were found, but also food and drink, which, obviously, were intended for the expected journey to another world.
One of common features of all the Celtic tribes there was a caste of priests, which was divided into three categories: bards, vates and druids. While the first two groups had a less important function, the druids, whose name probably means "very wise", were obliged to impart holy and practical knowledge to others. Scholar Jan de Vries explains that this "priesthood was extremely powerful and was led by a chief druid, whose decisions everyone had to obey." Druids in certain times went to the "holy" groves to perform the ritual of cutting mistletoe there.
Becoming a druid was very difficult. The training time lasted about 20 years, during which it was necessary to memorize almost everything about the religion of the caste and technical knowledge. Druids never set forth anything about religious matters in writing. Their traditions were transmitted orally; therefore today we know so little about the Celts. But why did the Druids forbid writing? Jan de Vries draws attention to the following: “Traditions transmitted orally were updated in every generation; although the original content was preserved, it was changed in accordance with changing circumstances. In this way, the druids could keep pace with advancing knowledge." Journalist Sergio Quinzino explains: "The priesthood, being the sole custodian of sacred knowledge, had unlimited power." Therefore, the druids kept everything under their control.
Celtic Gods
Little is known about the Celtic deities. Although many sculptures and images of them have been found, almost all of them were unnamed, so it is difficult to say which god or goddess each individual artifact represents. Images of some of these gods are found on the famous Gundestrup cauldron in Denmark. Names such as Lug, Esus, Cernunnos, Epona, Rozmerta, Teutates, and Sucellus have no meaning for us; but these gods had a great influence on the daily life of the Celts. It was not unusual for the Celts to honor their gods and goddesses by sacrificing humans (often enemies captured in battle). Sometimes the heads of the victims were worn as macabre ornaments, then people were sacrificed for the sole purpose of extracting an omen from the way the victims died.characteristic sign Celtic religion was a three-headed god. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, “the most important element in the religious symbolism of the Celts is probably the number three; the mystical significance of the trinity is confirmed in many parts of the world, but in the minds of the Celts it seems to have had a particularly great and lasting significance. Some scholars say that to imagine a deity as triune or with three faces meant the same thing as considering him all-seeing and all-knowing. Three-faced statues were displayed at the intersections of important streets, probably to "watch" commercial trade. Some scholars confirm that the trinity sometimes conveys the meaning of "unity in three persons". In the same regions in which sculptures of the Celtic triune gods were discovered, Christian churches today still represent the Trinity in the same way.
Yes, the Celts influence the real daily life and thoughts of many peoples, perhaps to a greater extent than we think.
Tribes close in language and culture, known in history under the name of the Celts (this name comes from the ancient Greeks, the Romans called them Gauls), about three thousand years ago settled almost throughout Europe. Their stay on the continent is marked by many successes in the field material culture used by their neighbors. Early European literature, or rather folklore, learned a lot from the monuments of the creativity of this ancient people. The heroes of many medieval tales - Tristan and Isolde, Prince Eisenhertz (Iron Heart) and the magician Merlin - they were all born of the fantasy of the Celts. In their heroic sagas, written down in the 8th century by Irish monks, the fabulous knights of the Grail, such as Percifal and Lancelot, appear. Today, little is written about the life of the Celts and the role they played in the history of Europe.
They were more fortunate in modern entertainment literature, mainly in French comics. The Celts, like the Vikings, are portrayed as barbarians in horned helmets, lovers of drinking and feasting on wild boar. Let this image of a rude, albeit cheerful, carefree savage remain on the conscience of the creators of today's tabloid literature. A contemporary of the Celts, Aristotle, called them "wise and skillful."
Celts at war with Rome
The skill of the Celts is confirmed today archaeological finds. As early as 1853 a harness was found in Switzerland; the art with which its details were made made scientists doubt: was it really made in ancient times by the Celts or is it a modern fake? However, the skeptical voices have long been silenced. According to modern researchers, the Celtic masters were capable of the finest execution of magnificent artistic ideas.
The German researcher Helmut Birkhan, in his book on Celtic culture, speaks of the genius of the then technicians who invented the carpentry workbench. But they also own a much more important matter - they were the first to lay salt mines and the first to learn how to get iron and steel from iron ore, and this determined the beginning of the end in Europe. bronze age. About 800 B.C. bronze in Central and Western Europe is being replaced by iron.
Birkhan, studying and analyzing the latest trophies of archeology, comes to the conclusion that the Celts, who first settled in the center of Europe, in the Alps generous with fossils, quickly accumulated wealth, created well-armed detachments that influenced politics in ancient world, developed crafts, and their masters owned high technologies for that time.
Here is a list of production peaks that were available only to Celtic craftsmen.
They were the only people among other peoples who made bracelets from molten glass that did not have seams.
The Celts received copper, tin, lead, mercury from deep deposits.
Their horse-drawn carts were the best in Europe.
The Celts-metallurgists were the first to learn how to obtain iron and steel.
Celtic blacksmiths were the first to forge steel swords, helmets and chain mail - the best weapons in Europe at that time.
They mastered the laundering of gold on the Alpine rivers, the extraction of which was measured in tons.
On the territory of modern Bavaria, the Celts erected 250 religious temples and built 8 large cities. For example, the city of Kelheim occupied 650 hectares, another city, Heidengraben, was two and a half times larger - 1600 hectares, Ingolstadt was spread over the same area (here are the modern names of German cities that arose on the sites of the Celtic). known as it was called main city Celts, on the site of which Ingolstadt grew up - Manching (Manching). It was surrounded by a rampart seven kilometers long. This ring was perfect in terms of geometry. For the sake of the accuracy of the circular line, ancient builders changed the course of several streams.
Celts - numerous people. In the first millennium before new era he occupied the territory from the Czech Republic (according to the modern map) to Ireland. Turin, Budapest and Paris (then called Lutetia) were founded by the Celts.
Inside the Celtic cities there was a revival. Professional acrobats and strongmen entertained the townspeople on the streets. Roman authors speak of the Celts as born horsemen, and all emphasize the panache of their women. They shaved off their eyebrows, wore narrow sashes that accentuated their thin waists, adorned their faces with headbands, and nearly all wore amber beads. Massive bracelets and neck rings made of gold rang at the slightest movement. Hairstyles resembled towers - for this, the hair was moistened with lime water. Fashion in clothes - bright and colorful in an oriental way - often changed. Men all wore mustaches and gold rings around their necks, women wore bracelets on their legs, which were shackled as early as a girl's age.
Glastonbury. - this was the name of Glastonbury in Celtic mythology at a time when it was surrounded by water on almost all sides. Remains of neighboring coastal settlements from the Iron Age confirm that this part of Somerset lay under water and reached Glastonbury by boat.
The Celts had a law - you have to be thin, and therefore many went in for sports. Whoever did not fit the “standard” belt was fined.
Morals in everyday life were peculiar. In military campaigns, homosexuality was the norm. The woman enjoyed great freedom, it was easy for her to get a divorce and take back the dowry she brought with her. Each tribal prince kept his squad, which defended his interests. common cause there could even be such a petty reason for fights - which of the elders would get the first, best piece of deer or wild boar. For the Celts, this was a matter of honor. Such strife is reflected in many Irish sagas.
The Celts could not be called one nation, they remained fragmented into separate tribes, despite the common territory (more than one million square kilometers), mutual language, a single religion, trading interests. Tribes numbering about 80,000 people acted separately.
Journey into the past
Imagine that in a helmet equipped with a miner's lamp, you are descending down an inclined working into the depths of a mountain, into a mine where, from time immemorial, the Celts mined salt in the eastern Alps. The journey into the past has begun.
A quarter of an hour later, a transverse working is encountered, it, like the drift along which we walked, is trapezoidal in cross section, but all four sides of it are five times smaller, only a child can crawl into this hole. And once passed here in full height adult. The rock in the salt mines is very plastic and, over time, seems to heal the wounds inflicted on it by people.
Celtic helmet.
Now salt is not mined in the mine, the mine has been turned into a museum where you can see and learn how once people got the much-needed salt here. Archaeologists are working nearby, they are separated from the tourists by an iron grate with the inscription: “Attention! Research is underway." The lamp illuminates the sloping wooden tray that goes down, along which you can sit down to the next drift.
The mine is located a few kilometers from Salzburg (translated as Salt Fortress). The city's history museum is overflowing with finds from the mines scattered around the area called the Salzkammergut. Salt from this region of the Alps was delivered to all corners of Europe thousands of years ago. The peddlers carried it on their backs in the form of 8-10-kilogram cylinders lined with wooden slats and tied with ropes. In exchange for salt, valuables from all over Europe flocked to Salzburg (in the museum you can see a stone knife made in Scandinavia - the mineral composition proves this - or jewelry made from Baltic amber). This is probably why the city in the eastern foothills of the Alps has been famous for its wealth, fairs and holidays since ancient times. They still exist - the whole world knows the annual Salzburg festivals, which every theater, every orchestra dreams of visiting.
Findings in salt mines step by step reveal to us a distant and in many ways mysterious world. Wooden spades, but at the same time iron picks, leg wraps, the remains of woolen sweaters and fur caps - all this was found by archaeologists in long-abandoned adits. An environment containing an excess of salt prevents the decomposition of organic materials. Therefore, scientists were able to see the cut ends of the sausage, boiled beans and fossilized waste products of digestion. Beds say that people did not leave the mine for a long time, they slept next to the face. According to rough estimates, about 200 people worked in the mine at the same time. In the dim light of the torches, people sooty with soot cut down blocks of salt, which were then pulled to the surface on sleds. The sleigh glided along the damp wood tracks.
The drifts cut by people connect the shapeless caves created by nature itself. According to rough estimates, people walked more than 5,500 meters of drifts and other workings in the mountain.
Among the finds made by modern archaeologists in the mines, there are no human remains. Only chronicles dating back to 1573 and 1616 say that two corpses were found in the caves, their tissues, like those of mummies, were almost petrified.
Bronze image of a chariot filled with people doomed to sacrifice to the gods. 7th century BC
Well, those finds that now fall to archaeologists often make you rack your brains. For example, the exhibit under the code "B 480" resembles a fingertip made from a pig's bladder. The open end of this little pouch could be tightened with a cord attached. What is it - scientists guess - is it protection for a wounded finger or a small purse for valuables?
Sacred plant - mistletoe
“In the study of the history of the Celts,” says the historian Otto-Hermann Frey of Marburg, “surprises fall like raindrops.” A monkey skull was found in the Irish cult site "Emain Maha". How did he get there and what role did he play? In 1983, a board with text fell into the hands of archaeologists. It was partially deciphered and understood to be a dispute between two groups of rival witches.
Another sensational discovery made in recent months, added reflections on what the spiritual culture of the Celts is. A stylized figure of a man above life size, made of sandstone, was discovered 30 kilometers from Frankfurt. In the left hand is a shield, the right is pressed to the chest, a ring is visible on one of the fingers. His costume is complemented by neck ornaments. On the head is a kind of turban in the form of a mistletoe leaf, a plant sacred to the Celts. The weight of this figure is 230 kilograms. What does she represent? So far, experts have two opinions: either this is a figure of some kind of deity, or it is a prince, also invested with religious duties, perhaps the main priest - a druid, as the Celtic clergy are called.
It must be said that there is no other European people that would deserve such gloomy assessments when it comes to the druids, their magic and commitment to human sacrifice. They killed prisoners and fellow criminals, they were also judges, they were engaged in healing, taught children. They also played an important role as predictors of the future. Together with the tribal nobility, the druids made up the upper stratum of society. After the victory over the Celts, the Roman emperors made them their tributaries, forbade human sacrifices, took away many privileges from the Druids, and they lost that halo of significance that surrounded them. True, for a long time they still existed as wandering soothsayers. And now in Western Europe you can meet people who claim that they have inherited the wisdom of the druids. Books like "The Teachings of Merlin - 21 Lectures on the Practical Magic of the Druids" or "The Celtic Tree Horoscope" are published. Winston Churchill joined the Druid circle in 1908.
Not a single grave of a druid has yet been met by archaeologists, so information about the religion of the Celts is extremely scarce. It is understandable, therefore, with what interest historians study a figure found near Frankfurt in the hope that science will advance in this area.
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The statue with a turban, apparently, stood in the center of the funeral complex, which is an earthen hill, a 350-meter alley led to it, along the edges of which there were deep ditches. In the depths of the hill, the remains of a man about 30 years old were found. The burial took place 2500 years ago. Four restorers carefully freed the skeleton from the soil and moved it to the laboratory, where they gradually remove the remaining soil and the remains of clothing. One can understand the impatience of scientists when they saw the complete coincidence of the equipment of the deceased with the one depicted on the statue: the same neck decoration, the same shield and the same ring on the finger. It can be thought that the ancient sculptor repeated the appearance of the deceased, as he was on the day of the funeral.
Workshop of Europe and dark rituals
Elizabeth Knoll, a historian of European prehistory, praises the level of development of the Celts: "They did not know writing, they did not know an all-encompassing state organization, but nevertheless they already stood on the threshold of high culture."
At least in technical and economic terms, they were far superior to their northern neighbors - the Germanic tribes, who occupied the swampy right bank of the Rhine and partially settled the south of Scandinavia. Only thanks to the neighborhood with the Celts, these tribes, who did not know either the account of time or fortified cities, were mentioned in history shortly before the birth of Christ. And the Celts in these times just reached the zenith of their power. To the south of the Main, trading life was in full swing, large cities for that time were erected, in which forges rang, circles of potters spun, and money flowed from buyers to sellers. This was a level that the then Germans did not know.
The Celts raised their ritual temple in the Carinthian Alps near Magdalensberg by 1000 meters. In the neighborhood of the temple, even now you can find slag heaps two hundred meters long, three meters wide - these are the remains of iron ore processing. There were also blast furnaces in which ore was turned into metal, there were also forges where shapeless castings, the so-called "crits" - a mixture of metal and liquid slag - became steel swords, spearheads, helmets or tools. No one in the Western world did this then. Steel products enriched the Celts.
An experimental reproduction of Celtic metallurgy by the Austrian scientist Harold Straube showed that these early furnaces could be heated up to 1400 degrees. By controlling the temperature and skillfully handling molten ore and coal, the ancient craftsmen obtained either soft iron or hard steel at will. Straube's publication of "Ferrum Noricum" (of the "Northern Iron") prompted further research into Celtic metallurgy. The inscriptions discovered by the archaeologist Gernot Riccochini speak of a brisk steel trade with Rome, which bought steel in bulk in the form of ingots resembling bricks or strips, and through the hands of Roman merchants this metal went to the armory workshops of the eternal city.
All the more monstrous against the backdrop of brilliant achievements in the field of technology seems to be the almost manic passion of the Celts to sacrifice human lives. This theme runs like a red thread in many writings of the time of the Caesars.
Caesar describes the group burnings used by the Druids. The already mentioned researcher Birkhan reports the custom of drinking wine from a goblet made from the skull of an enemy. There are documents that say that the druids guessed the future by the sight of blood flowing from a person's stomach after being stabbed with a dagger. The same priests instilled in the people the fear of ghosts, the transmigration of souls, the resurrection of dead enemies. And in order to prevent the arrival of a defeated enemy, the Celt decapitated his corpse or cut it into pieces.
The Celts treated dead relatives with the same distrust and tried to ensure that the deceased did not return. In the Ardennes, graves were found in which 89 people were buried, but 32 skulls are missing. A Celtic burial was found in Dürrenberg, in which the deceased was completely “dismantled”: the sawn-off pelvis lies on the chest, the head is separated and stands next to the skeleton, the left hand is completely missing.
In 1984, excavations in England brought scientists evidence of how the ritual murder took place. Archaeologists are lucky. The victim lay in the soil saturated with water, and therefore the soft tissues did not decompose. The dead man's cheeks were clean-shaven, his nails well-groomed, his teeth too. The date of this man's death is about 300 BC. After examining the corpse, it was possible to restore the circumstances of this ritual murder. First, the victim was hit in the skull with an axe, then he was strangled with a noose, and finally his throat was cut. Mistletoe pollen was found in the unfortunate stomach - this suggests that the druids were involved in the sacrifice.
The English archaeologist Barry Gunlife notes that all sorts of prohibitions and taboos played an exorbitant role in the life of the Celts. The Irish Celts, for example, did not eat crane meat, the British Celts did not eat hares, chickens and geese, and certain things could only be done with the left hand.
Each curse, and even wish, according to the Celts, had magical power and therefore fearful. They were also afraid of curses, as if uttered by the deceased. This also led to the separation of the head from the body. The skulls of enemies or their embalmed heads adorned temples, displayed as trophies for veterans, or kept in their chests.
Irish sagas, ancient Greek and Roman sources speak of ritual cannibalism. The ancient Greek historian and geographer Strabo writes that the sons ate the meat of the deceased father.
An ominous contrast is archaic religiosity and high technical skill for those times. “Such a diabolical synthesis,” concludes Huffer, a researcher of the morals of ancient people, “we still meet only among the Maya and Aztecs.”
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Who were the Celts? Scientists learn a lot about the life of ancient people by studying them funeral ritual. Approximately 800 years ago BC, the inhabitants of the northern Alps burned their dead and buried them in urns. Most researchers agree that the ritual of burial in urns among the Celts slowly changed to the burial not of ashes, but of bodies, however, as already mentioned, mutilated. Oriental motifs can be seen in the clothes of the buried: pointed shoes, the nobility wore trousers. We must also add round conical hats, which are still worn by Vietnamese peasants. The art is dominated by an ornament of animal figures and grotesque decorations. According to the German historian Otto-Hermann Frey, there is an undoubted Persian influence in the clothing and art of the Celts. There are other signs pointing to the East, as the homeland of the ancestors of the Celts. The teachings of the Druids about the rebirth of the dead are reminiscent of Hinduism.
Whether or not the Celts were born horsemen is an ongoing debate among modern scholars. Proponents of an affirmative answer to the question turn their attention to the inhabitants of the European steppes - the Scythians - these hunters and born riders - did the ancestors of the Celts come from there? One of the authors of this point of view, Gerhard Herm, commented on it with such a playful question: “Are we all Russians?” - meaning by this the hypothesis according to which the settlement of the Indo-European peoples came from the center of Eastern Europe.
The Celts gave the first material signal of their presence in Europe in 550 BC (At that time, Rome was just being formed, the Greeks were busy with their Mediterranean, the Germans had not yet emerged from prehistoric darkness.) hills for the repose of their princes. The hills were up to 60 meters high, which allowed them to survive to our times. The burial chambers were full of rare items: Etruscan castanets, bronze beds, ivory furniture. In one of the graves they found the largest (for ancient times) bronze vessel. It belonged to Prince Fix and held 1100 liters of wine. The prince's body was wrapped in a thin red cloth. Threads with a thickness of 0.2 millimeters are comparable to the thickness of a horsehair. Nearby stood a bronze vessel with 400 liters of honey and a wagon assembled from 1450 parts.
The remains of this prince were transferred to the Stuttgart Museum. The 40-year-old ancient leader was 1.87 meters tall, the bones of his skeleton are striking, they are extremely massive. By order of the museum, the Skoda factory undertook to make a copy of a bronze vessel in which honey was poured. The thickness of its walls is 2.5 mm. However, the secret of the ancient metallurgists was never discovered: the bronze of modern masters was constantly torn when making a vessel.
The shield found in the Thames was never used in battle. Its symmetrical design, internal gemstones and interlacing patterns are hallmarks of 1st century CE Celtic art. e.
The skillful Celts were of interest to the Greeks as trading partners. Ancient Greece by that time had colonized the mouth of the Rhone and named the port of Massilia (now Marseille) founded here. Around the VI century BC. the Greeks began to climb up the Rhone, trading in luxury goods and wine.
What could the Celts offer them in return? Blonde slaves, metal and fine fabrics were the hot commodity. Moreover, in the way of the Greeks, the Celts created, as they would now say, "specialized markets." At Manching, Greek goods could be exchanged for metal products made of iron and steel. In Hochdorf, the Celts textile workers offered their goods. Magdalensberg not only produced steel, but also traded alpine stones - rock crystal and other rare wonders of nature.
Greek merchants paid special attention to Celtic tin, an indispensable element in the smelting of bronze. Tin mines were only in Cornwall (England). The entire Mediterranean world bought this metal here.
In the VI century BC, the brave Phoenicians reached the shores of Britain across the Atlantic, overcoming six thousand kilometers of the sea route. The Greeks got to the "tin islands" in a different way, as England was then called. They moved north along the Rhone, then crossed into the Seine. In Lutetia (in Paris) they paid tribute for passage through the Celtic territory.
Arrows with three points, like a fork or a trident, found on the banks of the Rhone serve as confirmation of such distant trade contacts. This weapon is typical of the Scythians. Maybe they accompanied the merchant ships as a guard? And in ancient Athens Scythians served as hired law enforcement officers.
Industry and trade highly, by the standards of that time, raised the economy of the Celts. The princes of the tribes oriented the population towards the production of products that had a market. Those who could not master the craft, just like the slaves, performed auxiliary and hard work. The mentioned salt mine in Hollein is an example of the conditions in which people were doomed to slave labor.
A joint expedition of four German universities explored finds in salt mines, where the lower strata of Celtic society worked. These are her conclusions. The remains of fires in the workings speak of a "big open fire". Thus, the movement of air in the mine was excited, and people could breathe. The fire was bred in a mine specially dug for this purpose.
Found underground toilets say that the salt miners had a constant indigestion.
It was mostly children who worked in the mines. The shoes found there speak of the age of their owners - even six-year-olds worked here.
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Such conditions could not but give rise to discontent. Researchers are convinced that serious riots shook the Druid empire from time to time. Archaeologist Wolfgang Kittig believes that it all started with the demand of the peasants to give them freedom. And around the 4th century BC. the tradition of magnificent funerals disappears, and the entire Celtic culture undergoes radical changes - the big difference between the standard of living of the poor and the rich has disappeared. The dead were again burned.
At the same time, there was a rapid expansion of the territory occupied by the Celtic tribes, who moved to the south and southeast of Europe. In the IV century BC. they crossed the Alps from the north, and before them appeared the heavenly beauties of South Tyrol and the fertile valley of the Po River. These were the lands of the Etruscans, but the Celts had military superiority, thousands of their two-wheeled carts stormed the Brenner Pass. The cavalry used a special technique: one horse carried two riders. One controlled the horse, the other threw spears. In close combat, both dismounted and fought with lances with helical points, so that the wounds were large and torn, as a rule, leading the enemy out of the fight.
In 387 B.C. the colorfully dressed tribes of the Celts, led by Brennius, began to march on the capital of the Roman Empire. The siege of the city lasted seven months, after which Rome surrendered. 1000 pounds of gold tribute was paid by the inhabitants of the capital. "Woe to the vanquished!" shouted Brennius, throwing his sword at the scales measuring a precious metal. “It was the deepest humiliation that Rome suffered in its entire history,” historian Gerhard Herm assessed the victory of the Celts.
The booty disappeared in the temples of the victors: according to the laws of the Celts, a tenth of all military booty was supposed to be given to the druids. Over the centuries that have passed since the Celts appeared in Europe, tons of precious metal have accumulated in the temples.
In geopolitical and military terms, the Celts had reached the pinnacle of their power by this time. From Spain to Scotland, from Tuscany to the Danube, their tribes dominated. Some of them reached Asia Minor and founded the city of Ankara there, the present capital of Turkey.
Returning to long-established areas, the druids renovated their temples or built new, more ornate ones. In the Bavarian-Czech space, more than 300 cult, sacrificial places were erected in the third century BC. All records in this sense were broken by the funerary temple in Ribemont, it was considered the central place of worship and occupied an area of 150 by 180 meters. There was a small area (10 by 6 meters) where archaeologists found more than 10,000 human bones. Archaeologists believe that this is evidence of a one-time sacrifice of about a hundred people. Druids from Ribemont built monstrous towers of bones human body- from legs, arms, etc.
Not far from today's Heidelberg, archaeologists discovered "sacrificial mines". A man tied to a log was thrown down. The found mine had a depth of 78 meters. Archaeologist Rudolf Reiser called the Druid fanaticism "the most terrible monuments in history."
The painting, painted in 1899, depicts the capture of the Celtic leader Fercingetorix by Julius Caesar. Two million Celts were killed and taken into slavery as a result of Caesar's campaign in Gaul.
And yet, despite these inhuman customs, in the second and first centuries BC, the Celtic world flourished again. North of the Alps they built great cities. Each such fortified settlement could accommodate up to ten thousand inhabitants. Money appeared - coins made according to the Greek model. Many families were well off. At the head of the tribes was a man chosen for a year from the local nobility. The English researcher Canleaf thinks that the entry of the oligarchy into government "was one of the important steps on the road to civilization."
In 120 B.C. the first harbinger of misfortune appeared. Hordes of barbarians - Cimbri and Teutons - from the north crossed the border along the Main and invaded the lands of the Celts. The Celts hastily built earthen ramparts and other defensive structures to shelter people and livestock. But the onslaught from the north was different incredible strength. Trade routes passing through the Alpine valleys were cut by advancing from the north, the Germans ruthlessly plundered villages and cities. The Celts retreated to the southern Alps, but this again threatened the strong Rome.
As already mentioned, the Celts did not know writing. Maybe the druids are to blame. They claimed that letters destroy the sanctity of spells. However, when it was necessary to consolidate an agreement between the Celtic tribes or with other states, the Greek alphabet was used.
The Druid caste, despite the fragmentation of the people - in Gaul alone there were more than a hundred tribes - acted in concert. Once a year, the druids gathered together to discuss topical issues that concerned not only the religious sphere. The assembly had high authority in secular affairs as well. For example, the druids could stop the war. Very little is known about the structure of the religion of the Celts, as already noted. But there are suggestions that the supreme deity was a woman, that the people worshiped the forces of nature and believed in the afterlife and even in the return to life, but in a different way.
Roman writers left impressions of contacts with the Druids in their memoirs. These testimonies are mixed respect for the knowledge of the priests and disgust for the bloodthirsty essence of Celtic magic. For 60 years BC, the arch druid Diviciacus peacefully conducted conversations with the Roman philosopher-historian Cicero. And his contemporary Julius Caesar two years later went to war against the Celts, capturing Gaul and the territory of present-day Belgium, Holland and partly Switzerland, later he conquered part of Britain.
Caesar's legions destroyed 800 cities, according to the latest estimates of French scientists, the legionnaires exterminated or enslaved about two million people. The Celtic tribes in the west of Europe have left the historical scene.
Already at the beginning of the war, when attacking the Celtic tribes, the number of victims among them struck even the Romans: out of 360,000 people, only 110,000 survived. In the Senate of Rome, Caesar was even accused of destroying the people. But all this criticism was drowned in the flow of gold that poured from the fronts to Rome. Legions plundered treasures accumulated in places of worship. For his legionnaires, Caesar doubled the salary for life, and the citizens of Rome built an arena for gladiator fights for 100 million sesterces. Archaeologist Haffner writes: “Before the military campaign, Caesar himself was completely in debt, after the campaign he became one of the richest citizens of Rome.”
For six years the Celts resisted Roman aggression, but the last leader of the Gallic Celts fell, and the finale of this shameful war of ancient Rome was the collapse of the Celtic world. The discipline of the Roman legionaries coming from the south, and the pressure of the Germanic barbarians from the north, crushed the culture of metallurgists and miners - salt miners. In the territories of Spain, England and France, the Celts lost their independence. Only in the far corners of Europe - in Brittany, on the English peninsula of Cornwall and in part of Ireland, did the Celtic tribes survive, escaping from assimilation. But then they adopted the language and culture of the coming Anglo-Saxons. Nevertheless, the Celtic dialect and myths about the heroes of this people have survived to this day.
True, even in the 1st century AD, wandering druids, carriers of the Celtic spirit and the idea of \u200b\u200bresistance, were persecuted by the Roman state for "political reasons."
In the writings of the Roman authors Polybius and Diodorus, the Roman Empire is glorified as the initiator of civilization, and the Celts are assigned the role of stupid people, who know nothing but war and arable farming. Later authors echo the Roman chronicles: the Celts are invariably gloomy, clumsy and superstitious. And only modern archeology has refuted these ideas. It was not the miserable inhabitants of the huts that Caesar defeated, but the political and economic competitors, who, several centuries before, were far ahead of Rome in technical terms.
However, the panorama of Celtic life today is far from fully open, it still has many white spots. Many places where the Celtic culture once flourished have not yet been explored by archaeologists.
G. ALEKSANDROVSKY. Based on the materials of the magazine "Der Spiegel".
Some time ago we are with you, I remind you The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
Celts- one of the most famous and mysterious ancient peoples. There was a time when the sphere of their military activity covered most of Europe, but by the beginning of a new era, only a tiny part of this people in the very north-west of the continent retained its independence. During the period of maximum power ancient celts their speech was from Spain and Brittany in the west to Asia Minor in the east, from Britain in the north to Italy in the south. Celtic culture refers to the basic foundations of a number of cultures of modern Western and Central Europe. Some of the Celtic peoples still exist today. The peculiar art of the Celts still amazes both professional art historians and a wide range of connoisseurs, and the religion that embodied their subtle and complex worldview remains a mystery. Even after the unified Celtic civilization left the historical stage, its heritage in various forms experienced a revival more than once.
These people were called Celts, the Romans called them galls(roosters), but how they called themselves, and whether they had a single name is unknown. The ancient Greek and Latin (Roman) authors probably wrote more about the Celts than about other peoples of Europe, which is consistent with the significance of these northern neighbors in the life of ancient civilization.
Map. Celts in Europe in the 1st millennium BC
The entry of the Celts into the historical arena
First news about the ancient Celts found in written sources around 500 BC. e. It says that this people had several cities and were warlike neighbors of the Ligurians - a tribe that lived near Greek colony Massalia (now the French city of Marseille).
In the work of the "father of history" Herodotus, completed no later than 431 or 425 BC. e., it was reported that the Celts inhabited the upper reaches of the Danube (moreover, according to the Greeks, the source of this river is in the Pyrenees), their neighborhood with the Cynetes, the westernmost people of Europe, is mentioned.
Around 400 BC e. the tribes of this people invaded Northern Italy and occupied it, subjugating the Etruscans, Ligurians, and Umbrians who lived here. Around 396 BC. e. The Celts-Insubras founded the city of Mediolan (now Italian Milan). In 387 BC. e. the Celtic people, led by Brennus, defeated the Roman army at Alia, and then. True, the city Kremlin (Capitol) could not be captured. This campaign is associated with the origin of the Roman proverb " Geese saved Rome". According to legend, the Celts moved at night to storm the Capitol. The Roman guard was asleep. But the invaders were noticed by geese from the temple of the goddess Vesta. They made a noise and woke the guards. The attack was repulsed, and Rome was saved from capture.
In those years, the Celtic raids reached the south of Italy, until Rome put a limit to them, striving for hegemony in Italy and relying on a reformed army. Faced with such a rebuff, some groups in 358 BC. e. moved to Illyria (north-west of the Balkan Peninsula), where their movement ran into a counter onslaught of the Macedonians. And already in 335 BC. e. Celtic ambassadors entered into negotiations with Alexander the Great. Probably, the concluded agreement on the division of spheres of influence allowed the Macedonians and Greeks to go to 334 BC. e. to the conquest of Persia, without fear for their rear, and gave the Celts the opportunity to establish themselves on the Middle Danube.
From 299 BC e. the military activity of the Celts in Italy resumed, they managed to defeat the Romans at Clusium, to attach a number of tribes dissatisfied with Rome. However, four years later, in 295 BC. e., the Romans took revenge, uniting and subjugating a significant part of Italy. In 283 BC. e. they occupied the lands of the Senon Celts, cutting off their other tribesmen access to the Adriatic Sea. In 280 BC. e. inflicted a crushing defeat on the northern Italian Celts with the allies on Lake Vadimon.
Then it intensified military expansion of the Celts in southeastern Europe. Perhaps it was the outflow of forces in this direction that weakened their onslaught in Italy. By 298 BC. e. include information about their penetration into the territory of modern Bulgaria, though unsuccessful. In 281 BC. e. numerous Celtic detachments flooded a number of regions of the Balkan Peninsula, and the 20th thousandth army of the Galatian Celts was hired by Nicomedes I, king of Bithynia (on the territory of modern Turkey), for the war in Asia Minor. A huge army of Celts led by Brennus in 279 BC. e. , plundering, among other things, the sanctuary in Delphi, especially revered by the Greeks. And although the barbarians managed to be ousted from Greece and Macedonia, they remained the dominant force in the more northern regions of the Balkans, establishing several kingdoms there. In 278 BC. e. Nicomedes I again invited the Galatians to Asia Minor, where they strengthened themselves by establishing in 270 BC. e. in the area of \u200b\u200bmodern Ankara, a federation under the control of 12 leaders. The federation did not last long: after the defeats of 240-230. BC e. she lost her independence. The same or some other Galatians in the second half of the 3rd or at the beginning of the 2nd c. BC e. appear among the tribes that threatened Olbia on the northern coast of the Black Sea.
In 232 BC. e. again conflict broke out and the Celts in Italy, and in 225 BC. e. the local Gauls and the relatives called by them from behind the Alps were brutally defeated. At the site of the battle, the Romans built a memorial temple, where many years later they thanked the gods for the victory. This defeat was the beginning of the decline of the military power of the Celts. The Carthaginian commander Hannibal, who moved in 218 BC. e. from Africa through Spain, southern France and the Alps to Rome, counted on an alliance with the Celts in Italy, but the latter, weakened by previous defeats, could not help him to the extent that he expected. In 212 BC. e. uprisings of the local population put an end to Celtic domination in the Balkans.
Having finished the wars with Carthage, the Celtic people. In 196 BC. e. defeated the Insubres, in 192 BC. e. - Boii, and their center Bononia (modern Bologna) was destroyed. The remnants of the Boii went north and settled on the territory of the present Czech Republic (the name of one of the regions of the Czech Republic - Bohemia - came from them). By 190 BC. e. all the lands south of the Alps were captured by the Romans, later (82 BC) establishing the province of Cisalpine Gaul here. In 181 BC. e. close to modern Venice Roman colonists founded Aquileia, which became strong point to expand Roman influence in the Danube region. During another war, by 146 BC. e. the Romans took possession of Iberia (present-day Spain) from the Carthaginians, and by 133 BC. e. finally subjugated the Celtic-Iberian tribes living there, taking their last stronghold - Numatia. In 121 BC. e. under the pretext of protecting Massalia from the raids of its neighbors, Rome occupied the south of modern France, subduing the local Celts and Ligures, and in 118. BC e. the province of Gallia Narbonne was created there.
At the end of the II century. BC e. Roman historians wrote about the onslaught on the Celts from their northeastern neighbors - the Germans. Shortly before 113. BC e. the Boii repulsed the attack of the Germanic tribe of the Cimbri. But they moved south, united with the Teutons (who were probably Celts), defeated a number of Celtic tribes and Roman armies, but in 101 BC. e. The Cimbri were almost completely destroyed by the Roman general Marius. Later, other Germanic tribes nevertheless ousted the Boii from the Czech Republic to the Danube regions.
By 85 BC. e. The Romans broke the resistance of the Scordisci, who lived at the mouth of the Sava, the last stronghold of the Celts in the north of the Balkans. About 60 BC e. The Dacians under the leadership of Burebista almost destroyed the Tevrisci and Boii, which is probably part of the events associated with the expansion of the Thracian tribes, which crushed the Celtic domination in the territory to the east and north of the Middle Danube.
Shortly before 59 BC. e., taking advantage of civil strife in Gaul, the Suebi and some other Germanic tribes, led by Ariovistus, captured part of the territory of the Sequans, one of the strongest Celtic tribes. This was the reason for the intervention of the Romans. In 58 BC. e. Julius Caesar, then proconsul of Illyria, Cisalpine and Narbonne Gaul, defeated the union of Ariovista, and soon basically took control of the rest, "shaggy" Gaul. In response, the ancient Celts rebelled (54 BC), but in 52 BC. e. fell Alesia, the base of the most active leader of the rebels - Vercingetorix, and by 51 BC. e. Caesar crushed the resistance of the Celts completely.
During a series of campaigns from 35 to 9 BC. e. the Romans established themselves on the right bank of the Middle Danube, conquering the Celtic and other local tribes. Later, the province of Pannonia arose here. In 25 BC. e. Galatia in Asia Minor submitted to Rome, having lost the remnants of independence, but the descendants of the Celts continued to live in these lands, preserving their language for several more centuries. In 16 BC. e. part of the Roman state became the "kingdom of Norik", uniting their possessions in the Upper Danube, in 16 AD. e. Here the Roman provinces of Noricus and Raetia were formed.
Following waves of Celtic settlers, the Romans also came to Britain. Julius Caesar visited there in 55 and 54. BC e. By 43 AD e., under the emperor Caligula, the Romans, having crushed the stubborn resistance of the Celts, captured South Britain, and by 80, during the reign of Agricola, the border of Roman possessions on these islands took shape.
Thus, in the I century. the Celts remained free only in Ireland.
