The Celts - a load of Gauls?

[Mark G]

Those things are a lot better organised in advance than any film on the day would suggest.  Not a great example to use

[Justin Swanton]

Those things are a lot better organised in advance than any film on the day would suggest.  Not a great example to use

What things? Even if they had come for a fight by pre-arranged agreement, you can still see that they start out as two blocks that flatten into lines once the thumpery starts. You can see the same thing here. And here.

[DBS]

The weakness of Cunliffe's argument in Celtic from the West is that Celtic culture and artefacts and Celtic language are clearly found in Eastern Europe , probably before they are traceable in the West . I don't doubt the existence of substantial trade in the West and the relative ease of sea based transport compared to land migration. However there is good reason to believe that peoples move West from Gaul into Britain, such as the Parisii to Yorkshire, the Belgae to the South coast. Meanwhile tribes were moving out innan Eastward direction to become the Scordiscii and others in the Balkans and the three Galatian tribes in Anatolia. All these appear to have common language and culture with the Gauls, as do the Celts who moved south to become Celtiberians or those that moved into Italy, the Boii, The Senones, Insubres, etc.

That argument against Cunliffe relies on defining the Celts by their artefacts.  What he is arguing is that the ethnicity may have arisen from linguistic commonalities on the western seaboards as early as the Neolithic, certainly Bronze, Ages, and spread east.  He is in no way arguing against later diffusion from east back to west, with Hallstadt and La Tene artefacts, nor possible population movements in the same direction - some of which have sound historical bases, some of which, eg the Celtiberian legend, unproven. 

It is worth noting, for example, that even if one relies on "artefacts equal ethnicity", there is good evidence of "Celtic" presence in northern Italy long before the supposed migration of the Boii and friends...

The problem is whether one wishes to accept "Celts" as defined by Romano-Greek history, which only starts being written in the 5th Century, and only really starts taking an interest in the Celts/Gauls from the 4th C, and arguably only becomes reasonably reliable in the 3rd C.  (After all, Livy is of questionable value even for the history of Rome itself before, say, the late 4th C, let alone what might have been happening around the Alps...)

[Anton]

From memory wasn't Innis Mon (Anglesey) described as the chief cult centre of Druidism? Druidism was a key component of the cultural package.

[Erpingham]

From memory wasn't Innis Mon (Anglesey) described as the chief cult centre of Druidism? Druidism was a key component of the cultural package.

Good question.  Anglesey/innis Mon/Mona has been considered a Druid centre for the British Isles (quite centrally located with good sea links), I don't know about the whole druidic set up - if there was a single set up.  Were the insular druids separate from the Gallic druids?  Having said that, do we have evidence of druidism across the whole "Celtic" range? 

[Denis Grey]

From memory wasn't Innis Mon (Anglesey) described as the chief cult centre of Druidism? Druidism was a key component of the cultural package.

Good question.  Anglesey/innis Mon/Mona has been considered a Druid centre for the British Isles (quite centrally located with good sea links), I don't know about the whole druidic set up - if there was a single set up.  Were the insular druids separate from the Gallic druids?  Having said that, do we have evidence of druidism across the whole "Celtic" range? 

I have no idea of the answer to this, but was Anglesey actually a significant Druid centre or was it simply where Druidism made its last stand, having withdrawn there in the face of the Roman invasion?  I know that Roman writers describe it as a centre for the religion, but is this a case of history being written by victors who may not be too fussy about getting the details right?

[DBS]

Caesar regarded Britain more generally as the intellectual/spiritual heartland of the druids, but obviously he would have had no knowledge of Anglesey, it suited his narrative to link the druids with Britain, and druidism seems to have been a feature of Britain/Gaul anyway, not necessarily part of the broader Celtic mien. There is no mention of druids, as far as I am aware, amongst the Galatians, the Italian or Balkan Celts, or the Celtiberians. Maybe they were there, but not perceived by the relevant historians or geographers, though one might think the likes of Strabo would have been on the lookout for them given their prominence in Caesar.

Personally I suspect the druids were an English Channel thing, possibly a late development as a distinctive group. Everyone will have had tribal wise men and priestly types, Tacitus makes reference to them amongst the Germans of course, but only Britain and northern Gaul seem to have druids by that name.

So I don't think one can say that druids are part of the "Celtic package", just part of the British/North Gallic package of 1st centuries BC and AD for sure.

[Erpingham]

was it simply where Druidism made its last stand,

Good question.  This is what I recall from my schooldays - the Druids had fled as far away from the Romans as they could, to an island in the far west.  But take a less Anglo-centric view and a centre for Druidism in the Irish sea, serving Ireland, Western and North Britain and the Western Isles makes sense.

[Anton]

From memory wasn't Innis Mon (Anglesey) described as the chief cult centre of Druidism? Druidism was a key component of the cultural package.

Good question.  Anglesey/innis Mon/Mona has been considered a Druid centre for the British Isles (quite centrally located with good sea links), I don't know about the whole druidic set up - if there was a single set up.  Were the insular druids separate from the Gallic druids?  Having said that, do we have evidence of druidism across the whole "Celtic" range? 

It's patchy in the sources Druids in Gaul,Britannia,among the Irish and Picts too.  No specific mention of Galatian Druids but our sources were not focussed on their socio/religious practices. The Galatians were Gauls and the sources seem clear that Druidism was a pan Gallic thing.  No exceptions noted, had they existed it should have been noteworthy.

Nothing comes to mind about the Celtiberians.  Maybe that was a feature of being Celtiberian?  Or maybe we just don't have the evidence.

I'd go for Druids being a key part of the Celtic cultural pacakge.

Caesar had to do with enough Druids to have picked up an idea about how they operated.  He may have been reporting their view of Mona as the cult centre.

If you buy Celtic From the West then Mona as the Druidic cult centre isn't a stretch.

What did Druids do?  They were an intelectual class with a range of powers and functions.  Nothing particularly jars in their various historical mentions from place to place.  I think they all were in the same business. 

[DBS]

The "Celts from the west" theory posits diffusion eastwards during the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages. Yet 2000 years later, Caesar reckons druidism spread from Britain to Gaul, in other words sometime in realistic memory or tradition. Strabo for one would have been interested in druidism amongst the Galatians or indeed other non NW Europe Celts. There is simply no mention of druids in any surviving source before Poseidonius, ie early 1st century BC, and of course even for him we have no extant text, just references in and influence on the likes of Strabo, Diodorus and probably Caesar.

So the evidence is compatible with druidism being a development within insular and northern Gaul Celtic culture, but just conjecture to push it back further in time or more broadly in geography.