- Chapter One -
world which, by the last few centuries Be, appears to have stretched from Ireland to
eastern Europe and beyond, to Galatia (see map p. XXIV). The term 'Celts' is one
to which we are introduced by Greek and Roman observers of their 'barbarian'
neighbours north of the Alps. But did these people think of themselves as Celtic?
Did they have an ethnic consciousness of themselves as possessing any kind
of homogeneity within ancient Europe? With what degree of precision did
Mediterranean commentators apply this descriptive label? Some scholars would
argue that 'Celt' was maybe little more than a loose term for people different
from those of the classical world: 'foreign', 'less civilized', 'marginal', 'fringe', 'other'
people. Was there more to Celticness than that? In my opinion, this is an interesting
but rather too extreme viewpoint: the Greek historian Herodotus made a clear
distinction between those non-Greek peoples whom he called Celts and others, such
as Scythians and Ethiopians. But the precision with which the term 'Celt' was used
by writers from the Mediterranean world may well have varied widely: Herodotus,
Livy and Caesar may well all be speaking of different groups even though they used
the same word.
Classical commentators on the Celts reflected a school of thought in the Graeco-
Roman world which appears to have recognized a group of peoples to their north as
possessing sufficient cultural features in common to justify their endowment with a
common name, the 'Celts'. We need to raise the question of how far we can trace this
commonality of tradition in both archaeological evidence for material culture and in
language. But for the moment let us remain with the contemporary documentary
sources. Allusion is first made to Celts by name in the writings of such Greek
historians as Hecataeus of Miletus in about 500 Be and Herodotus in the fifth
century Be. These authors speak of Keltoi. Later Mediterranean writers such as
Livy and Polybius chronicle the expansion of the Celts during the fourth and third
centuries. These writers inform us that by the later third century Be the Celts
were heavily defeated by the Romans and thererlter suffered a series of setbacks and
reversals, until the Celtic heartlands of Gaul were annexed by the Romans in the
mid-first century Be. Britain is never referred to by ancient authors as Celtic but
Caesar recognized the similarities between Britain and Gaul. Tacitus and other
Roman authors record the conquest of Britain, which was more or less complete by
the later first century AD.
Early linguistic evidence for the Celts is extremely sparse before the Roman
period because northern Europe was virtually non-literate during most of the first
millennium Be. When writing was adopted in the Celtic world in the late first
millennium, it appeared almost entirely in Greek or Latin. Early Celtic linguistic
evidence, such as it is, consists of inscriptions, coin legends and the names of people
and places contained within classical documents. These early sources suggest that
by the time of the Roman occupation, at the end of the first millennium Be, Celtic
languages were spoken in Britain, Gaul, north Italy, Spain, central and eastern
Europe.
Material culture perhaps offers the best hope of approaching and identifying the
ancient Celts. In archaeological terms, Celtic Europe is distinguished from previous
prehistoric cultures by the adoption of iron as a commonly utilized metal. The
archaeological record of later European prehistory suggests that the historical Celts
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