Celtae
（
Κελταί). The ancients had no comprehensive name to denote
generically the collective Keltic peoples. The Continental Kelts were called
Galli or
Celtae by the Romans, and
Γαλάται or
Κελταί by the Greeks, all these
names being applied only to the Kelts of the Continent, with whom, in the popular view, the
people of Britain had no ethnic relation. Caesar understood the racial identity of the
Britanni with the Galli, Celtae, and Belgae, but the general usage of the words as stated
above embodied the prevailing belief.
According to Prof. Rhys, it would appear probable that the west of Europe had in early times
experienced two Keltic invasions, since the two distinct names in Greek and Latin are not used
as synonymous, but as denoting two different ethnic divisions. Thus in the ecclesiastical
writer Sulpicius Severus (fourth century A.D.),
Celticé is
differentiated from
Gallicé (Migne,
Patrolog. Lat.
vol. xx. col. 201,
Dial. i. 26); and Caesar, three centuries before, wrote that
one of the three peoples of Gaul was called
Celtae in its own
tongue.
The two waves of migration may roughly be represented geographically as follows:
1.
the Kelts of Gaul, Spain, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and Scotland; and
2.
the Kelts dwelling near the Rhine, the Alps, and in England and Wales. Schleicher, in the
Rheinisches Museum for 1859, expounded his theory of a Kelto-Italic period,
according to which the people who afterwards separated into Greeks, Italians, and Kelts are
regarded as having left the early home of the race together, the Greeks branching off first
into Hellas. Then followed the Italo-Keltic period, during which the Italo-Kelts developed
those linguistic forms which the Keltic and the Latin alone possess in common—e. g.
the future in -
bo, the passive formation in -
r,
the dative ending -
bus, and the formative suffixes
in -
tio and -
tric. See Peile,
Introduction to Greek and Latin Etymology, pp. 21-27
(2d ed.
1872); and H. Ebel,
Keltische Studien.
Historically, the Keltic and Latin races come into contact not earlier than the fifth
century B.C., when the Gauls crossed the Alps and began first to press against the Etruscan
communities in the north of Italy. Their leader, Bellovesus the Biturigan, directed the
Insubrian migration into the valley of the Padus (Po), where the oldest Keltic settlement was
established, to develop later into the important city of Mediolanum (Milan). A second
invasion followed, and founded the towns of Brixia (Brescia) and Verona. Thenceforward, tribe
after tribe poured into Italy, dislodging the Etruscans, and at last (B.C. 396) coming in
contact with the Umbrians, and in 388 facing the Romans in successful battle. This was the
year in which Brennus with 70,000 Gauls crossed the Tiber, won the bloody victory of the
Allia (q.v.) on July 18, and three days later marched
through the open gates of Rome. (On the date, see Mommsen,
Hist. of Rome, i.
428, Amer. ed. 1888.) They often returned to Latium, but were less successful in following
years. The Romans, who had at first despised them, now strained every nerve to avenge the
defeat of the Allia.
Camillus (q.v.) routed them
at Alba (B.C. 367); Servilius Ahala repulsed them in front of the Porta Collina (B.C. 360);
and the dictator Gaius Sulpicius Peticus won a decisive victory over them in 358. Yet in the
year 350 they had again returned, and encamped for an entire winter on the Alban Mount,
joining with the Greek pirates for plunder, till Lucius Furius Camillus, son of the great
general, dislodged them. The increasing power of the Romans, and perhaps, as Mommsen
suggests, changes beyond the Alps, put an end to the migrations from Gaul; and the Kelts
began to settle down into a less predatory condition between the Alps and the Apennines as
far south as the Abruzzi, the chief tribes being the Insubres, Boii, Lingones, and Senones,
the territory of the last-named being on the coast of the Adriatic, from Ariminum to Ancona,
the so-called Ager Gallicus. Here the Kelts, uniting with the Ligurians and Etrurians,
gradually took on the character of a settled community, until at last they, with the rest of
Italy, became subject to the all-embracing power of Rome.
Of the Kelts who first swept over Italy and destroyed Rome, the historians give a
picturesque account. Brave, open, impetuous, they were swayed by every passing impression;
“they devoted themselves chiefly to two things—fighting and
esprit” (
rem militarem et argute loqui,
Cato ,
Orig. ii. frag. 2, ed. Jordan). Despising agriculture as disgraceful
and unfit for freemen, they followed the profession of arms like soldiers of fortune. The
Romans before the battle of the Allia had despised them as barbarians, and on the occasion of
that memorable conflict had sent against them only an ill-organized and over-confident army.
The legionaries were appalled when the onset of these fierce warriors smote the Roman
phalanx. Stripped naked for battle, sword in hand, utterly heedless of death, the Keltic
hosts of Brennus fell upon their enemies with an ardour and impetuosity that swept away an
army in an instant. Yet, with all their bravery and brilliancy, the Kelts never made
any lasting political impression upon the countries that they overran. They lacked the
political, constructive instinct which the Latins and the Germans, too, possessed. They
destroyed, but did not create, and in a few centuries had everywhere succumbed to the
steadier valour and more enduring power of the Romans.
See Mommsen,
Hist. of Rome, bk. ii. ch. iv.; Thierry,
Histoire
des Gaulois (Paris, 1828); Ebel,
Keltische Studien
(Eng. trans. London, 1863); Diefenbach,
Die Alten
Völker (Frankfurt, 1861); Belloguet,
Ethnogénie Gauloise (Paris, 1858-61); Stark,
Keltische Forschungen (Vienna, 1869); Reynand,
De
l'Esprit de la Gaule (Paris, 1866); Scarth,
Roman
Britain (London, 1883);
Rhys, Celtic Heathendom
(1888); Wright,
The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon (4th ed.
London, 1885); and also the article by Windisch, “Keltische
Sprachen,” in the
Allgemeine Encyklopädie der Wissenschaften und
Künste; Von
Becker, Versuch einer Lösung der
Celtenfrage (1883); Müllenhof,
Deutsche
Alterthumskunde (Berlin, 1887); Hübner,
Inscriptiones
Britanniae Christianae; Brambach,
Corpus Inscriptionum Rhenanarum;
vols. ii., iii., v., vii., and xii. of the
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum of
the Berlin Academy; and the articles
Britannia;
Druidae;
Gallia;
Hibernia;
Hispania;
Indo-European Languages.
