THE POLISH LAND 39In the Roman period, a massive influx of Celts was provoked by disturbances
over the mountains in Bohemia. The Celts filtered eastwards as far as the River
San and beyond, building an impressive series of hill-forts. At Rudki in the Holy
Cross Mountains they developed the most extensive iron-mining complex in
prehistoric Europe. They would presumably have provided the dominant cul-
tural element of southern Poland until the arrival of the Slavs. Their presence
may conceivably help to explain the distinctive characteristics and separate con-
nections of the Vistulanians in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. Celtic
place-names, such as Tyniec and Sola, have survived to this day in the environs
of Cracow. (See Map 3b, p. 36.)
Great caution, however, is imperative, not least in the use of modern labels.
If it is unwise to put the Slavonic tag on any archaeological finds prior to AD
500, it is certainly improper to call anything at all at this juncture 'Polish'. The
cultures of the various branches of the Slavonic family were as yet largely undif-
ferentiated. The variations within the group of Western Slavs could not possi-
bly have assumed their later form. For one thing, the name of Poland derives
from that of just one tribe, the Polanie or 'Polanians', who may, or may not,
have been closely related to their immediate neighbours. For another, the
Vistulanians to the south, with their fortress of Cracow, seem to have fostered
connections more with the Danube Basin than with life on the northern plain. It
is an established fact, for example, that in the eighth century they were subjects
of the Great Moravian Empire, and that they first received Christian baptism
from the Methodian mission. At this time, their links with the Polanians, if any,
are completely unknown. It is also known from the writings of the Byzantine
Emperor, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that the area round Cracow was once
known as 'White Croatia', and that it served as the spring-board for the Croats
on their long journey to the Adriatic Coast. Etymological clues suggest that the
Croats may have been slavicized Sarmatians (as the Bulgarians are a slavicized
Turkic people). Their lengthy sojourn in southern Poland in the company of, or
in succession to the Celts, may well have inspired the persistent legends of the
Poles' own Sarmatian origins. The plethora of Polish place-names connected
with the root of Sorb-, Sarb-, and Serb-, emphasizes the common Slavonic as
opposed to any particularly western Slavonic context of primeval settlement in
the migratory period.
Literary records throw little light on the over-all scene. In this part of the
world, the gap that yawns between the last writings of the ancients and the ear-
liest chronicles of the medieval world is all but unbridgeable. Discoveries of
Roman coins and Roman bronzeware as far afield as Prussia and Mazovia bear
witness to the penetration of Roman trade far beyond the imperial frontiers.^4
Yet the Romans knew little about the Baltic and the Vistula Basin. Their near-
est approach occurred in AD 178-9 when a company of some 850 men, having
completed a punitive campaign against the local Teutons, bivouacked through
the winter in the vicinity of Trencin in Moravia. Earlier in the same century
Tacitus, having described the shore of what he called the Suabian Sea, admitted