Systems in collision: the Celtic and Roman World
When you consider the world of 800 BCE, the chances of a tiny group of poor farmers called the Latins is not the group you would bet on as becoming lords of the known world. Lots of other people were wealthier, covered more territory, and had more power.
It goes to show that the past, and the future, are not inevitable.
It goes to show that the past, and the future, are not inevitable.
The people north of the Alps had frequent contact with the wealthy urban Mediterranean, from the salt trade to wandering mercenaries. The Greeks used a blanket term for them, 'keltoi'. If we trust what the later world of the Romans wrote, they had numerous tribal or family names.
Place-name evidence left in the landscape suggests they had an overall sense of being 'Gallic, Gaelic, Goidelic, Gaulish, Galatian'. This ancient word in turn may mean anything from 'forest dweller' to 'wild' to 'warrior'. Maybe the people the Greeks were describing were a mobile elite group, with connections from Ireland to the Black Sea, who brought their language and culture with them as they spread.
Place-name evidence left in the landscape suggests they had an overall sense of being 'Gallic, Gaelic, Goidelic, Gaulish, Galatian'. This ancient word in turn may mean anything from 'forest dweller' to 'wild' to 'warrior'. Maybe the people the Greeks were describing were a mobile elite group, with connections from Ireland to the Black Sea, who brought their language and culture with them as they spread.
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