A Brief History of the Celts

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  Henri Hubert believes that two of Livy’s sources were the mainly lost works of the Insubrean Celtic writer, Cornelius Nepos (c. 100–c. 25 BC), and the Vocontii Celt, Trogus Pompeius (27 BC–AD 14). It was from these Celtic historians, writing in Latin, that Livy learned the Celtic tradition of how the Celts started their expansions through Europe. He gives as a reason for this expansion the fact that the Celtic heartland had become so populated that the main ruler, Ambicatus, encouraged his nephews to take pioneers with them and move east and south in search of new lands to settle.

  Perhaps we should not leave this section on Celtic mythology without reference to two comparatively recent developments in the area. To the modern popular mind, the most famous of Celtic mythological figures is Arthur. He was undoubtedly a historical person, living during the late fifth and early sixth centuries AD. Within a few centuries after his death, this British Celtic ‘war chief’, fighting the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain, had become firmly embedded in mythology. The first literary reference to Arthur comes in a poem attributed to Aneirin, written in the late sixth century. In Y Gododdin, Aneirin writes of an attempt by 300 élite warriors, led by Mynyddawn Mwynfawr, chieftain of the tribe whose capital was at Dineiddyn (Edinburgh), to recapture Catraeth (Catterick) from the Anglo-Saxons.

  Historical references to Arthur can also be found in Gildas (AD 500–700), the British Celtic monk who wrote De Excidio et Conquesta Britanniae (Concerning the Ruin and Conquest of Britain); in Nennius (c. AD 800), another Celtic historian, in his Historia Britonum, who credits Arthur with twelve major victories over the invading Anglo-Saxons; and in the Annales Cambriae (c. AD 955), a Latin history of the rise of Cymru (Wales), which records Arthur’s victory at Mount Badon and states that Arthur and Medraut (Mordred) fell at the battle of Camluan in the year AD 537.

  As it seems to be a tendency that Celts make their heroes into gods and their gods into heroes, over the next few centuries, following the death of the historical Arthur, the Celts embellished his story with earlier mythological themes, giving him a special circle of warriors, who later became Knights of the Round Table, but were originally closer to the Fianna of Fionn Mac Cumhail. In fact, many of the Arthurian tales seem to have been embellished with themes from the Fenian Cycle. Christian themes soon began to replace the intrinsically Celtic elements; for example, the search for the magic cauldron of plenty from the Otherworld developed into a search for the Christian Holy Grail. Other elements, however, remain in their pure Celtic form – the magic sword of Arthur, now popularly known through a Latin corruption as Excalibur, was, in fact, the Welsh Caladfwlch (Hard Dinter) which seems to have been taken from the Irish form Caladcholg, the sword of the hero Fergus Mac Roth in the Red Branch Cycle.

  Geoffrey of Monmouth (c. 1100–1155) developed Arthur into something approaching his popular heroic image in his Historia Regnum Britanniae. Since Geoffrey’s developments, a great body of literature has sprung up. Arthur was an accepted character in both Welsh and Irish mythology. There are at least twenty-five identified Arthurian tales in Irish from the medieval period but, as we have pointed out before, they never displaced the popularity of Fionn Mac Cumhail as a hero in Irish imagination.

  A second world-famous myth developed out of the Celtic world: the story of Tristan and Iseult. There was an historic king Marc’h of Cornwall, identified as Marcus Cunomarus. Marc’h comes from the Celtic word for horse, not from the Latin name Marcus, and the second name means ‘Hound of the Sea’. A writer lets slip that Mark, to use the modern accepted form, had ears like a horse. His capital in Cornwall was at the hill-fort of Castle Dore, occupied from the second century BC to the sixth century AD. King Mark had a son, Drustaus or Drustanus, which scholars claim is a philological equivalent of Tristan. A mid-sixth century AD stone inscription at Castle Dore records: ‘Drustanus hic iacit Cunomori Filius’, Here lies Drustanus son of Cunomarus.

  However the myth developed, the basis is that Mark of Cornwall married Iseult, daughter of an Irish king. He sent Tristan, his nephew in the myth, to fetch her and Tristan fell in love with her. They eventually fled from Mark’s court. The core motif is a traditional Celtic elopement tale known in Irish as aithedha, and most of the essential elements are to be found in other Celtic stories, such as the elopement of the king’s wife with the king’s nephew. The tales of Diarmuid and Gráinne and of Noísu and Deirdre are comparable.

  There are many different versions of the tale written in practically every European language but scholars have traced them back to one extant manuscript written by Béroul in the middle of the twelfth century. It was said that Béroul, writing in French, copied the saga from a Breton source. The source could, however, equally have been Cornish. Our earliest Cornish textual evidence, as distinct from its British Celtic parent, is from the tenth century AD. Mark was also known to have ruled in Carhaix, in Cornouaille, in Brittany, as well as Carhays in Cornwall. We have already seen that many Celtic kings, even back to the time of Caesar, are noted to have ruled both in Britain and on the Continent. We have little factual knowledge of the Cornish Mark. In Brittany he was regarded as an unscrupulous tyrant. Urmonek, a monk of Landévennec, writing his Life of St Pol de Léon, about AD 880, is the person who identifies Mark as Cunomarus and says that he was a powerful king, under whose rule lived peoples who spoke four separate languages.

  One motif that frequently occurs throughout the Celtic world is that of the magic cauldron, including the cauldron of plenty, which feeds everyone, and the cauldron of rebirth whereby the dead are put in and come out alive. Cauldrons can be found from the late Bronze Age period – vast cauldrons with a capacity of 60–70 litres. In May 1891, at Gundestrup, in north Jutland, a cauldron with a capacity of 130 litres was found in a peat bog. This silver dish had twelve rectangular plates, forming the inner and outer sides, and it is clear that it is of Celtic origin, although recently some academics outside the field of Celtic studies have disputed this by pointing out that it seems to have been manufactured in the Thracian area. These scholars did not, apparently, realise that Thrace had been settled by Celts by the fourth and third centuries BC. Kings of Thrace with Celtic names did not cease to rule until 192 BC.

  The Celtic motifs are absolutely clear on the cauldron. We have the antler-headed god Cernunnos, with his neck ring, and a sequence of animal symbolism. One of the fascinating scenes on the cauldron is that in which a god accompanied by warriors holds a dead warrior over a cauldron while previously dead warriors march away. This is clearly the cauldron of rebirth.

  Cauldrons have been found at Llyn Fawr in Mid-Glamorgan, dating from 600 BC, and at Llyn Cerrig in Anglesey, dating from the second century BC and the first century AD. Cauldrons have been found throughout the Celtic world and back up the mythological traditions surviving in Irish and Welsh texts. They are found in both Hallstatt and La Tène graves, from Hochdorf to Duchov. In 1882 in Duchov, a town in Bohemia, which was the site of a spring sanctuary, a bronze cauldron was found containing some 2000 items of jewellery, fibulae, rings and other metal objects of the early La Tène period.

  The Dagda had a magic cauldron that came from the fabulous city of Murias. It was so enormous, we are told, that the Formorii could make a porridge in it with goats, sheep, pigs and eighty measures each of milk, meal and fat. No one left the cauldron hungry. Cúchulainn and Cú Roi stole a magic cauldron that produced gold and silver from a castle. Midir the Proud, another of the gods, also had his magic cauldron.

  In the Welsh tales, we hear that Matholwch of Ireland possessed a magic cauldron into which the dead were cast to appear the next morning whole and well except that they had lost their power of speech. We are told that the cauldron was originally the property of Bran Benedigeidfran (Bran the Blessed) who is perceived as an early god. He gave it to Matholwch but, after hostilities broke out, the cauldron had to be destroyed before Bran and his Britons could overcome Matholwch. The story recounts how the cauldron emerged from the Lake of the Cauldron on the back of a huge ma
n accompanied by a huge woman. Were they deities whose role has been obscured?

  Yet another magic cauldron appears in the tale of Culhwch’s search for Olwen, for one of Culhwch’s tasks is to obtain a magic cauldron which belongs to Diwrnach of Ireland and which is full of all the treasures of Ireland.

  Our knowledge of Celtic mythology overall is greatly obscured by the Greek and Roman interpretations in the classical allusions. It has been argued that the Celtic peoples did not possess a uniform mythology but, instead, a plethora of different myths which are only comparable to a limited degree. As we have no systematic record before the insular Celts began to set down their stories at the start of the Christian era, it has also been argued that we have no means of forming a complete picture of pre-Christian mythology. However, knowledge in this field is still very fragmentary and new information is constantly coming through. The native sources are not yet exhausted and full comparisons with other Indo-European cultures have yet to be carefully made.

  15

  EARLY CELTIC HISTORY

  The Celts first emerged into recorded history in the sixth century BC. We learn of early trading contacts between the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Etruscans. The earliest known point of contact seems to be the landing of Greek explorers and traders at the mouth of the Tartessus in the southern Iberian peninsula and the trading agreement reached between the merchant-traders from Phocis in Greece and the local Celtic king, Arganthonios. Herodotus says that he died in 564 BC, having lived for a long time.

  Certainly during the sixth century BC, if not before, there was a lively trade established between the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Etruscans and the Celts of the western Mediterranean. We know from tradition and from archaeological evidence, as well as from Greek accounts of the areas in which they were in contact with the Celts, that there had been a Celtic expansion from their original homelands for some centuries.

  Massilia (Marseilles) had been established about 600 BC in the land of the Segobrigai – which seems to indicate ‘exalted’ (brigia) for ‘daring of strength’ (sego). Celtic tribes had already crossed into the Po valley and begun to settle but until the fifth century BC they were in conflict with the Etruscan empire for dominance in the area.

  The Celtic tribes defeated the Etruscan armies near the River Ticino, a tributary of the Po, about 475 BC. Pliny, assumed to be quoting the Cisalpine Celt, Cornelius Nepos (c. 100–c. 25 BC), believed that the war against the Etruscan empire was conducted by a confederation of the Boii, Insubres and Senones, although it is arguable that the Senones were late-comers to the Italian peninsula. But certainly by the beginning of the fourth century BC most of the Etruscan territories north of the Apennines were in Celtic hands. Around 396 BC the Celts had inflicted a second major defeat – that is, the second worthy of record in Roman annals – on the Etruscan empire at the city of Melpum, which is thought to be Melzo, west of Milan.

  In 390 BC the tribe called the Senones, led by Brennus, appeared outside the Etruscan city of Clusium, south of the Apennines. The Senones, an entire nation on the march, claimed that they wanted nothing more than to settle on Etruscan lands in peace for there was no other land to settle north of the mountains. The Etruscans, newly conquered by Rome, sent to Rome for ambassadors to help conduct the negotiations. The Roman ambassadors, patricians of the Fabii clan, proved partisan, ignored international law, and joined the Etruscans in doing battle with the Celts.

  Brennus and his Senones were appalled at this breach of international law and sent a delegation to Rome demanding reparation. Rome showed her disdain for the Celts who then, ignoring the Etruscans, marched directly on Rome. On 18 July 390 BC, they fought a battle at the Allia, 20 kilometres north of Rome, against Rome’s best legions and generals. The Romans were routed. By that evening the Celts were outside the city of Rome but did not enter until the next day. A rump of senators and military leaders shut themselves in the Capitol, the only part of the city never taken.

  It was seven months before the Celts decided to withdraw from the city and only then after a payment of ransom by the Senate. Rome paid dearly for the arrogance of the Fabii. The price of the Celtic withdrawal was a fabulous 100 pounds’ weight of gold. When the gold was being weighed, Sulpicius Lagus, the senior surviving Roman officer, objected to the fact that the Celts were using their own weights. Brennus then flung his sword on the scales and uttered the cry that became famous: ‘Vae victis!’ (Woe to the vanquished!) In other words, the conqueror dictates the terms.

  Rome’s defeat at the hands of the Senones always rankled with her historians and they frequently tried to rewrite history so as to extricate themselves from the shame of that defeat. From then on, Roman writers would paint the Celts as drunken, childlike barbarians, only one step removed from animals, and the Celtic peoples would suffer from the Roman prejudice as group by group they fell victim to the Roman empire.

  But it took a while. In fact, it took two centuries for the Romans to conquer the Celts on the Italian peninsula. The Celtic victory over Rome caused the Celts to be welcome among the Latin city states, who still had not given up their freedom to Rome, and the Greek city states of southern Italy. Dionysius I of Syracuse recruited many Celtic warriors as mercenaries in his army. We learn that Celtic armies remained in the vicinity of Rome during the next fifty years.

  Plutarch says a battle was fought at the River Anio in 377 or 374 BC, adding that the Romans ‘mightily feared these barbarians who had conquered them in the first instance’. So great was the terror that there was a law stating that priests were exempt from military service ‘except in the case of a Celtic war’. In 367 BC we hear of the Romans battling once more against a besieging Celtic army at the very gates of Rome.

  It is at this time that we see the evidence of a Celtic alliance with the Greek city states of southern Italy. Dionysius of Syracuse had not only employed Celtic mercenaries in his army but had arranged for a contingent of 2000 Celtic mercenaries to serve his allies Sparta in their war against Thebes. The Celtic cavalry played a decisive role in the battle of Maninea in this war. This is the first time we find the Celts in Greece itself but, by this time, the Celtic tribes in their eastward movement along the Danube had begun to reach the Carpathians. At the same time, Pytheas of Massilia, the Greek explorer, had made contact with the insular Celts in Britain and Ireland. It was not until c. 300 BC that Eratosthenes of Cyrene correctly placed Ireland on the map of the world.

  The Senones, who appear to be the only Celts who were enemies of Rome at this time, had settled in Picenum on the eastern seaboard of the Italian peninsula, from an area south of Ancona up to Rimini. Their main city seems to have been Senigallia, the place of the Senones Gauls. Again this may be seen as confirmation of their alliance with the Greeks for Ancona was a major trading colony of Syracuse.

  During 361–360 BC a Celtic army was again in the vicinity of Rome and the Romans were still not able to defend themselves adequately. It would seem that the Celtic predilection for settling matters by means of single combat between champions or leaders was taking a toll on the Romans for in 340 BC the consul, Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus, is said to have forbidden Roman commanders to engage in single-handed combat with the Celts. It was not until 349 BC that the first Roman victory over the Celts was achieved. In 344 BC the Romans finally concluded a treaty with the Celtic Senones. The Roman fear of Celtic invasion, however, remained intense for many years and rumours of Celtic attacks often caused armies to be formed and sent out. The real fear was replaced by a neurotic fear which was doubtless the basis of the Romans’ subsequent racial antipathy to the Celts.

  At this time the accounts show that whenever a Celtic army approached Rome, they would eventually withdraw to the south into Apulia, and not to the north. This supports the theory that they were in league with the Greek city states of southern Italy against the territorial ambitions of Rome. Even in 307 BC Agathocles of Syracuse was using Celtic mercenaries in his army against the imperial expansion of
Carthage.

  The Celtic eastward expansion along the Danube valley was now reaching towards the Black Sea. Celtic settlements were even found beyond the eastern shore around the Sea of Asov near the Crimea. Other settlements have been found in southern Poland, Russia and the Ukraine. In 335–334 BC Alexander of Macedonia met a number of Celtic chiefs on the banks of the Danube and apparently made an agreement with them so that they would not attack the northern frontiers of his empire while he set off to conquer the east.

  It was not until after his death that the Celtic expansion began again and we hear that a Celtic leader named Molistomos caused a massive displacement of the Antariate, the largest group of the Illyrian (Bulgarian/Albanian) peoples, who were forced to flee before his advance. By 300 BC the Celts had settled in what is now Moravia and a few years later had conquered Thrace where they established a dynasty of Celtic kings, with Celtic names. The first of these was Cambaules.

  In Italy, Rome’s expansions now caused the Celts and Etruscans to form an alliance against Rome. A major war began and the Samnites also joined the alliance. There was a Celtic-Samnite victory over Rome at Camerium (Cameria), 140 kilometres north-east of Rome, in 298 BC. Lucius Scipio’s defeat by the Senones was as shocking to the Romans as Allia. An entire legion was destroyed and the rest of the army fled. However, three years later the Romans turned the tables and won a victory over the Celts and Samnites at Sentium. The war continued and in 284 BC the Celts won another major victory when they defeated the praetor Lucius Caecilius at Arretium (Arezzo); the Roman commander was among the dead.