Celts and Germans
But, as we have said before, this territory was by no means inhabited by the Celt alone. In particular we have to ask, who and where were the Germans, the Teuto-Gothic tribes, who eventually took the place of the Celts as the great Northern menace to classical civilisation ?
They are mentioned by Pytheas, the eminent Greek traveller and geographer, about 300 B.C., but they play no part in history till,
under the name of Cimbri and Teutones, they descended on Italy to be vanquished by Marius at the close of the second century. The ancient Greek geographers prior to Pytheas know nothing of them, and assign all the territories now known as Germanic to various Celtic tribes.
The explanation given by de Jubainville, and based by him on various philological considerations,
is that the Germans were a subject people, comparable to those "un-free tribes " who existed in Gaul and in ancient Ireland. They lived under the Celtic dominion, and had no independent political existence. De Jubainville
finds that all the words connected with law and government and war which are common both to the Celtic and Teutonic languages were borrowed by the latter from the former. Chief among them are the words represented by the modern German Reich, empire, Amt, office, and the Gothic reiks, a king, all of which are of unquestioned Celtic origin. De Jubainville also numbers among loan words from Celtic
[31]
the words Bann, an order ; Frei, free; Geisel a hostage; Erbe, an inheritance ; Werth, value; Weih, sacred; Magus, a slave (Gothic) ; Wini, a wife (Old High German); Skalks, Schalk. A slave (Gothic); Hathu, battle (Old German); Helith, Held, a hero, from the same root as the word Celt; Heer, an army (Celtic choris) ; Sieg, victory; Beute, booty ; Burg, a castle; and many others.
The etymological history of some of these words is interesting. Amt, for instance, that word of so much significance in modern German administration, goes back to an ancient Celtic ambhactos, which is compounded of the words ambi, about, and actos, a past participle derived from the Celtic root AG, meaning to act. Now ambi descends from the primitive Indo-European mbhi, where the initial m is a kind of vowel, afterwards represented in Sanscrit by a. This m vowel became n in those Germanic words which derive directly from the primitive Indo-European tongue. But the word which is now represented by amt appears in its earliest Germanic form as ambaht, thus making plain its descent from the Celtic ambhactos.
Again, the word frei is found in its earliest Germanic form as frijol-s, which comes from the primitive Indo-European prijo-s. The word here does not, however, mean free; it means beloved (Sanscrit priya-s). In the Celtic language, however, we find prijos dropping its initial p - a difficulty in pronouncing this letter was a marked feature in ancient Celtic; it changed], according to a regular rule, into dd, and appears in modern Welsh as rhydd = free.
The Indo-European meaning persists in the Germanic languages in the name of the love-goddess, Freja, and in the word Freund, friend, Friede, peace. The sense borne by the word in the sphere of civil right is traceable to a Celtic origin,
[32]
and in thar sense appears to nave been a loan from Celtic.
The German Beute, booty, plunder, has had an instructive history. There was a Gaulish word bodi found in compounds such as the place-name Segobodium (Seveux), and various personal and tribal names, including Boudicca, better known to us as the "British warrior queen," Boadicea. This word meant anciently "victory." But the fruits of victory are spoil, and in this material sense the word was adopted in German, in French (butin), in Norse (byte), and the Welsh (budd). On the other hand, the word preserved its elevated significance in Irish. In the Irish translation of Chronicles xxix. II, where the Vulgate original has "Tua est, Domine, magnificentia et potentia et gloria et Victoria," the word victoria is rendered by the Irish buaidh, and, as de Jubainville remarks, "ce n'est pas de butin qu'il s'agit."
He goes on to say "Buaidh has preserved in Irish, thanks to a vigorous and persistent literary culture, the high meaning which it bore in the tongue of the Gaulish aristocracy. The material sense of the word was alone perceived by the lower classes of the population, and it is the tradition of this lower class which has been preserved in the German, the French, and the Cymric languages," ["Premier' Habitantas" ii, 355, 356].
Two things, however, the Celts either could not or would not impose on the subjugated German tribes - their language and their religion. I
n these two great factors of race-unity and pride lay the seeds of the ultimate German uprising and overthrow of the Celtic supremacy. The names of the German are different from those of the Celtic deities, their funeral customs, with which are associated the deepest religious conceptions of primitive races, are different. The Celts, or
[33]
at least the dominant section of them, buried their dead, regarding the use of fire as a humiliation, to be inflicted on criminals, or upon slaves or prisoners in those terrible human sacrifices which are the greatest stain on their native Culture. The Germans, on the other hand, burned their illustrious dead on pyres, like the early Greeks - if a pyre could not be afforded for the whole body, the noblest parts, such as the head and arms, were burned and the rest buried.
Downfall of the Celtic Empire
What exactly took place at the time of the German revolt we shall never know ; certain it is, however, that from about the year 300 B.C. onward the Celts appear to have lost whatever political cohesion and common purpose they had possessed. Rent asunder, as it were,
by the upthrust of some mighty subterranean force, their tribes rolled down like lava-streams to the south, east, and west of their original home. Some found their way into Northern Greece, where they committed the outrage which so scandalised their former friends and allies in the sack of the shrine of Delphi (273 B.C.). Others renewed, with worse fortune, the old struggle with Rome, and perished in vast numbers at Sentinum (295 B.C.) and Lake Vadimo (283 B.C.). One detachment penetrated into Asia Minor, and founded the Celtic State of Galatia, where, as St. Jerome attests, a Celtic dialect was still spoken in the fourth century A.D. Others enlisted as mercenary troops with Carthage.
A tumultuous war of Celts against scattered German tribes, or against other Celts who represented earlier waves of emigration and Conquest, went on all over Mid-Europe, Gaul, and Britain. When this settled down Gaul and the British Islands remained practically the sole relics of the Celtic
[34]
empire, the only countries still under Celtic law and leadership. By the commencement of the Christian era Gaul and Britain had fallen under the yoke of Rome, and their complete Romanisation was only a question of time.
Unique Historical Position of Ireland
Ireland alone was never even visited, much less subjugated, by the Roman legionaries, and maintained its independence against all comers nominally until the close of the twelfth century, but for all practical purposes a good three hundred years longer.
I
reland has therefore this unique feature of interest, that it carried an indigenous Celtic civilisation, Celtic institutions, art, and literature, and the oldest surviving form of the Celtic language [Irish is probably an older form of Celtic speech than Welsh. This is shown by many philological peculiarities of the Irish language, of which one of the most interesting may here be briefly referred to. The Goidelic or Gaelic Celts, who, according to the usual theory, first colonised the British Islands, and who were forced by successive waves of invasion by their Continental kindred to the extreme west, had a peculiar dislike to the pronunciation of the letter p. Thus the Indo-European particle pare, represented by Greek παρά beside or close to, becomes in early Celtic are, as in the name Are-morici the Armoricans, those who dwell ar muir, by the sea); Are-dunum Ardin, in France); Are-cluta, the place beside the Clota (Clyde),now Dumbarton ; Are-taunon, in Germany (near the Taunus Mountains), &c. When this letter was not simply dropped it was usually changed into c (k, g). But about the sixth century B.C. remarkable change passed over the language of the Continental Celts. They gained in some unexplained way the faculty for pronouncing p, and even substituted it for existing c sounds ; thus the original Cretanus became Pretanis, Britain, the numeral qetuares (four) became petuares, and so forth. Celtic place-names in Spain show that this change must have taken place before the Celtic conquest of that country, 500 B.C. Now a comparison of many Irish and Welsh words shows distinctly this, avoidance of p on the Irish side and lack of any objection to it on the Welsh. The following are a few illustrations:
Irish
Welsh
English
Crann
Mac
Cenn
Clumh (cluv)
cũig
Prenn
Map
Pen
Pluv
pimp
Tree
Son
Head
Feather
five
The conclusion that Irish must represent the older form of the language seems obvious. It is remarkable that even to a comparatively late date the Irish preserved their dislike to p. Thus, they turned the Latin Pascha (Easter) to Casg; purpur, purple, to corcair, pulsatio (through French pouls) to cuisle. It must be noted, however, that Nicholson in his "Keltic Researches" endeavours to show that the so-called Indo-European p - that is, p standing alone and uncombined with another consonant -n was pronounced by the Goidelic Celts at an early period. The subject can hardly be said to be cleared up yet.] ight across the chasm which separates the antique from the modern world,
[35]
the pagan from the Christian world, and on into the fll light of modern history and observation.
The Celtic Character
The moral no less than the physical characteristics attributed by classical writers to the Celtic peoples show a remarkable distinctness and consistency. Much of what is said about them might, as we should expect, be said of any primitive and unlettered people,
but there remains so much to differentiate them among the races of mankind that if these ancient references to the Celts could be read aloud, without mentioning the name of the race to whom they referred, to any person acquainted with it through modern history alone, he would, I think, without hesitation, name the Celtic peoples as the subject of the description which he had heard.
Some of these references have already been quoted, and we need not repeat the evidence derived from Plato, Ephorus, or Arrian. But an observation of
[36]
M. Porcius Cato on the Gauls may be adduced. "There are two things," he says, "to which the Gauls are devoted - the art of war and subtlety of speech" ("rem militarem et argute loqtui").
Caesars Account
Caesar has given us a careful and critical account of them as he knew them in Gaul.
They were, he says, eager for battle, but easily dashed by reverses. They were extremely superstitious, submitting to their Druids in all public and private affairs, and regarding it as the worst of punishments to be excommunicated and forbidden to approach the ceremonies of religion:
"They who are thus interdicted [for refusing to obey a Druidical sentence] are reckoned in the number of the vile and wicked; all persons avoid and fly their company and discourse, lest they should receive any infection by contagion; they are not permitted to commence a suit; neither is any post entrusted to them. . . . The Druids are generally freed from military service, nor do they pay taxes with the rest. . . . Encouraged by such rewards, many of their own accord come to their schools, and are sent by their friends and relations. They are said there to get by heart a great number of verses; some continue twenty years in their education; neither is it held lawful to commit these things [the Druidic doctrines] to writing, though in almost all public transactions and private accounts they use the Greek characters."
The Gauls were eager for news, besieging merchants and travellers for gossip [The Irish, says Edmund Spenser, in his "View of the Present State of Ireland," "use commonyle to send up and down to know newes, and yf any meet with another, his second woorde is, "What newes ?"] easily influenced, sanguine,
[37]
credulous, fond of change, and wavering in their counsels. They were at the same time remarkably acute and intelligent, very quick to seize upon and to imitate any contrivance they found useful. Their ingenuity in baffling the novel siege apparatus of the Roman armies is specially noticed by Caesar. Of their courage he speaks with great respect, attributing their scorn of death, in some degree at least, to their firm faith in the immortality of the soul, [Compare Spenser: "I have heard some greate warriors say, that in all the services which they had seen abroad in forrayne countreys, they never saw a more comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his charge . . . they are very valiante and hardye, for the most part great endurours of cold, labour, hunger and all hardiness, very active and stronge of hand, very swift of foote, very vigilaunte and circumspect in theyr enterprises, very present in perrils, very great scorners of death."] A people who in earlier days had again and again annihilated Roman armies, had sacked Rome, and who had more than once placed Caesar himself in positions of the utmost anxiety and peril, were evidently no weaklings, whatever their religious beliefs or practices. Caesar is not given to sentimental admiration of his foes, but one episode at the siege of Avaricum moves him to immortalise the valour of the defence, A wooden structure or agger had been raised by the Romans to overtop the walls, which had proved impregnable to the assaults of the battering-ram. The Gauls contrived to set this on fire. It was of the utmost moment to prevent the besiegers from extinguishing the flames, and a Gaul mounted a portion of the wall above the agger, throwing down upon it balls of tallow and pitch, which were handed up to him from within. He was soon struck down by a missile from a Roman catapult. Immediately another stepped over him as he lay, and continued his comrade's task. He too fell,
[38]
but a third instantly took his place, and a fourth ; nor was this post ever deserted until the legionaries at last extinguished the flames and forced the defenders back into the town, which was finally captured on the following day.
Strabo on the Celts
The geographer and traveller Strabo, who died 24 A.D., and was therefore a little later than Caesar, has much to tell us about the Celts. He notices that their country (in this case Gaul) is thickly inhabited and well tilled - there is no waste of natural resources. The
women are prolific, and notably good mothers. He describes the men as warlike, passionate, disputatious, easily provoked, but generous and unsuspicious, and easily vanquished by stratagem. They showed themselves eager for culture, and Greek letters and science had spread rapidly among them from Massilia; public education was established in their towns. They fought better on horseback than on foot, and in Strabo's time formed the flower of the Roman cavalry. They dwelt in great houses made of arched timbers with walls of wickerwork - no doubt plastered with clay and lime, as in Ireland - and thickly thatched. Towns of much importance were found in Gaul, and Caesar notes the strength of their walls, built of stone and timber. Both Caesar and Strabo agree that there was a very sharp division between the nobles and priestly or educated class on the one hand and the common people on the other, the latter being kept in strict subjection. The social division corresponds roughly, no doubt, to the race distinction between the true Celts and the aboriginal populations subdued by them. While Caesar tells us that the Druids taught the immortality of the soul, Strabo adds that they believed in
[39]
the indestructibility, which implies in some sense the divinity, of the material universe.
The Celtic warrior loved display. Everything that gave brilliance and the sense of drama to life appealed to him. His weapons were richly ornamented, his horse-trappings were wrought in bronze and enamel, of design as exquisite as any relic of Mycenaean or Cretan art, his raiment was embroidered with gold. The
scene of the surrender of Vercingetorix, when his heroic struggle with Rome had come to an end on the fall of Alesia, is worth recording as a typically Celtic blend of chivalry and of what appeared to the sober-minded Romans childish ostentation. [The scene of the surrender of Vercingetorix is not recounted by Caesar, and rests mainly on the authority of Plutarch and of the hIstorian Florus, but it is accepted by scholars (Mommsen. Long, &c.) as historic] When he saw that the cause was lost he summoned a tribal council, and told the assembled chiefs, whom he had led through a glorious though unsuccessful war, that he was ready to sacrifice himself for his still faithful followers - they might send his head to Caesar if they liked, or he would voluntarily surrender himself for the sake of getting easier terms for his countrymen. The latter alternative was chosen. Vercingetorix then armed himself with his most splendid weapons, decked his horse with its richest trappings, and, after riding thrice round the Roman camp, went before Caesar and laid at his feet the sword which was the sole remaining defence of Gallic independence. Caesar sent him to Rome, where he lay in prison for six years, and was finally put to death when Caesar celebrated his triumph.
But the Celtic love of splendour and of art were mixed with much barbarism. Strabo tells us how the warriors rode home from victory with the heads of fallen
[40]
foemen dangling from their horses' necks, just as in the Irish saga the Ulster hero, Cuchulain, is represented as driving back to Emania from a foray into Connacht with the heads of his enemies hanging from tiis chariot-rim. Their domestic arrangements were rude; they lay on the ground to sleep, sat on couches of straw, and their women worked in the fields.
PoIybius
A characteristic scene from the battle of Clastidium (222 B.C.) is recorded by Polybius.
The Gaesati, [These were a tribe who took their name from the gaesum, a kind of Celtic javelin, which was their principal weapon. The torque, or twisted collar of gold, is introduced as a typical ornament in the well-known statue of the dying Gaul, commonly called "The Dying Gladiator." Many examples are preserved in the National Museum of Dublin.] he tells us, who were in the forefront of the
Celtic army, stripped naked for the fight, and the sight of these warriors, with their great stature and their fair skins, on which glittered the collars and bracelets of gold so loved as an adornment by all the Celts, filled the Roman legionaries with awe. Yet when the day was over those golden ornaments went in cartloads to deck the Capitol of Rome; and the final comment of Polybius on the character of the Celts is that they, "I say not usually, but always, in everything they attempt, are driven headlong by their passions, and never submit to the laws of reason." As might be expected, the chastity for which the Germans were noted was never, until recent times, a Celtic characteristic.
Diodorus
Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Augustus, who had travelled in Gaul, confirms in the main the accounts of Caesar and Strabo, but adds some
[41]
interesting details.
He notes in particular the Gallic love of gold. Even cuirasses were made of it. This is also a
very notable trait in Celtic Ireland, where an astonishing number of prehistoric gold relics have been found, while many more, now lost, are known to have existed. The temples and sacred places, say Posidonius and Diodorus, were full of unguarded offerings of gold, which no one ever touched. He mentions the great reverence paid to the bards, and,
like Cato, notices something peculiar about the kind of speech which the educated Gauls cultivated: "they are not a talkative people, and are fond of expressing themselves in enigmas, so that the hearer has to divine the most part of what they would say." This exactly answers to the literary language of ancient Ireland, which is curt and allusive to a degree. The Druid was regarded as the prescribed intermediary between God and man-no one could perform a religious act without his assistance.
Ammianus Marcellinus
A
mmianus Marcellinus, who wrote much later, in the latter half of the fourth century A.D., had also visited Gaul, which was then, of course, much Romanised. He tells us, however, like former writers, of the great stature, fairness, and arrogant bearing of the Gallic warrior. He adds that the people, especially in Aquitaine, were singularly clean and proper in their persons - no one was to be seen in rags.
The Gallic woman he describes as very tall, blue-eyed, and singularly beautiful; but a certain amount of awe is mingled with his evident admiration, for he tells us that while it was dangerous enough to get into a fight with a Gallic man, your case was indeed desperate if his wife with her "huge snowy arms," which could strike like catapults, came to his assistance. One is irresistibly
[42]
reminded of the gallery of vigorous, independent, fiery-hearted women, like Maeve, Grania, Findabair, Deirdre, and the historic Boadicea, who figure in the myths and in the history of the British Islands.
Rice Holmes on the Gauls
The following passage from Dr. Rice Holmes' "Caesar's Conquest of Gaul" may be taken as an admirable summary of the social physiognomy of that part of Celtica a little before the time of the Christian era, and it corresponds closely to all that is known of the native Irish civilisation
"The Gallic peoples had risen far above the condition of savages ; and the Celticans of the interior, many of whom had already fallen under Roman influence, had attained a certain degree of civilisation, and even of luxury. Their trousers, from which the province took its name of Gallia Bracata, and their many-coloured tartan skirts and cloaks excited the astonishment of their conquerors. The chiefs wore rings and bracelets and necklaces of gold ; and when these tall, fair-haired warriors rode forth to battle, with their helmets wrought in the shape of some fierce beast's head, and surmounted by nodding plumes, their chain armour, their long bucklers and their huge clanking swords, they made a splendid show. Walled towns or large villages, the strongholds of the various tribes, were conspicuous on numerous hills. The plains were dotted by scores of open hamlets. The houses, built of timber and wickerwork, were large and well thatched. The fields in summer were yellow with corn. Roads ran from town to town. Rude bridges spanned the rivers; and barges laden with merchandise floated along them. Ships clumsy indeed
[43]
but larger than any that were seen on the Mediterranean, braved the storms of the Bay of Biscay and carried cargoes between the ports of Brittany and the coast of Britain. Tolls were exacted on the goods which were transported on the great waterways; and it was from the farming of these dues that the nobles derived a large part of their wealth. Every tribe had its coinage; and the knowledge of writing in Greek and Roman characters was not confined to the priests. The Aeduans were familiar with the plating of copper and of tin. The miners of Aquitaine, of Auvergne, and of the Berri were celebrated for their skill.
Indeed, in all that belonged to outward prosperity the peoples of Gaul had made great strides since their kinsmen first came into contact with Rome." [' "Caesar's Conquest of Gaul," pp. I0, II.
Let it he added that the aristocratic Celts were, like the Teutons, dolichocephalic - that is to say, they had heads long in proportion to their breadth. This is proved by remains found in the basin of the Marne, which was thickly populated by them. In one case the skeleton of the tall Gallic warrior was found with his war-car, iron helmet, and sword, now in the Musée de St.-Germain. The inhabitants of the British Islands arc uniformly long-headed, the round-headed "Alpine" type occurring very rarely. Those of modern France are round-headed. The shape of the head, however, is now known to he by no means a constant racial character. It alters rapidly in a new environment, as is shown by measurements of the descendants of immigrants in America. See an article on this subject by Professor Haddon in in "Nature," Nov. 3, 1910. ]
Bookmarks