A Brief History of the Celts

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  The following year, the Romans decided to concentrate all their forces against the Celtic Senones and entered their territory in Picenum. The Senones were defeated and the Roman commander Curius Dentatus burnt and pillaged his way through the countryside. Now the other Celtic tribes of the Po valley emerged by name into history and we find them as allies of the Etruscans against Rome. The Boii are identified as marching as far south as the Vadimo Lake, now Lago di Bassano, near the Tiber, 65 kilometres north of Rome. But here the Romans, under Publicius Cornelius Dolabella, annihilated the Etruscan half of the army before turning on the Celts as they were marching to the aid of their allies. The Celts were checked and withdrew but the next year they were at war again and this time were able to conclude a peace treaty with Rome.

  Whatever their agreement with the Boii, Rome now took over all the Senones’ territory up to Ariminum (Rimini) and began to clear the countryside of the Celtic inhabitants. To the Celts of northern Italy, the Roman ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Senones and the building of Roman fortresses and colonies in the former independent countries of the Etruscans and Samnites was a warning. Rome might soon be marching across the Apennines and into Celtic territory.

  When the Greek king, Pyrrhus of Epiros, landed in southern Italy, at the request of the Greek city states to protect them against Rome’s imperial adventures, the Celts of the Po valley threw in their lot with him. The Celts knew Pyrrhus and he had employed Celts in his army in Greece. He had a high respect for their fighting qualities. Large contingents of Po valley Celts were in his armies when he defeated the Romans at Heraclea in 280 BC and at Asculum in 279 BC. They were still fighting for him when Rome secured a victory over him at Beneventum, and ended his campaign. Pyrrhus returned to Greece taking a large number of Celtic warriors with him; Celts remained in the armies of Epiros and, indeed, of other Greek city states for many years afterwards.

  Other tribes of the Celtic peoples were not so anxious to form alliances with the Greeks. These were the tribes of the eastward expansion. In 279 BC, a vast Celtic army, grouped into three divisions, had gathered on the northern borders of Macedonia. One division, under Bolgios, defeated the Macedonian army which had shortly before carved out Alexander’s empire, and Ptolemy Ceraunos, the king of Macedonia, was slain. He had been one of Alexander’s foremost generals. A second Celtic army, jointly commanded by Brennus and Acichorios, entered Greece, marched through Macedonia into Thessaly, and met and defeated an Athenian army commanded by Callippus, son of Moerocles, at the major battle of Thermopylae. The Celts swept through the mountain passes to Delphi and sacked the sanctuary. Greece was devastated by these Celtic victories and the Panathenaea (annual games) had to be cancelled for 278 BC.

  Rumour has it that Brennus committed suicide, aghast at his sacrilege in sacking Delphi. It seems unlikely. We find that his army withdrew with the treasures of Delphi without suffering any military defeat from the southern Greeks.

  The third Celtic army, commanded by Cerethrios, had occupied eastern Macedonia and there they were eventually defeated by the new king of Macedonia, Antigonatus Gonatas. While large sections of the Celtic invasion force withdrew back to the northern areas in what is now modern Bulgaria, Albania and Rumania, many others simply stayed in Macedonia posing a threat to the new king. Antigonatus Gonatas arranged that these Celts could be hired as mercenaries by the Greek kings. He himself recruited Celtic divisions into his own army. In 277/276 BC, a further 4000 of them went to Egypt to serve the pharaoh Ptolemy II. More importantly to the development of a Celtic state in Asia Minor, 20,000 Celts with their families, from the tribes of the Tolistoboii, Tectosages and Trocmi, led by their kings Leonnarios and Litarios, crossed into Asia Minor at the invitation of Nicomedes of Bithynia to serve him against Antiochus of Syria.

  As for the Celts who went to Egypt, we find Celtic involvement in the affairs of Ptolemaic Egypt lasted until almost the beginning of the Christian era. In 217 BC 14,000 Celts constituted the major part of the army of the pharaoh Ptolemy IV at the battle of Raphia against Antiochus II of Syria. It was an Egyptian victory, thanks, so the account shows, to the Celtic cavalry. A Celtic cemetery has been found at Hadra, south-east of Alexandria. Not only tombstones but pottery bearing Celtic names have been found there. Famous Celtic graffiti have been found in the chapel of Horus, in the tomb of Seti I, at the great temple of Karnak. Egyptian coins with Celtic motifs on them were struck.

  Forty years later we still find records of Celts serving in the pharaoh’s armies and we also find that the famous Cleopatra (Cleopatra VII, 69–30 BC) had an élite bodyguard of 300 Celtic warriors. When Octavius Caesar (later Augustus) emerged victorious, he ordered this bodyguard to serve Herod the Great in Judea as a token of Roman gratitude and friendship to the king. When Herod the Great died in 4 BC his Celtic bodyguard attended the funeral obsequies. As twenty-five years had passed, these could hardly be the same soldiers who had served Cleopatra in the original bodyguard.

  The Celts who had crossed into Asia Minor served Nicomedes well. Within one year of campaigning they had defeated the king of Bithynia’s enemies and, after wandering Asia Minor for a while, they were allowed to settle the central plain of what is now Turkey but came to be called after them – Galatia. The settlement was made in tribal territories. The Tectosages made the town of Ancyra (Ankara) their capital. The Tolistoboii renamed Gordium (where Alexander ‘unravelled’ the famous knot) as Vindia, while the Trocmi settled to the east of the River Halys. The Celts of Galatia established themselves as a state worthy of respect which the Greeks called ‘the Commonwealth of Galatia’. Their independence and prestige were confirmed when the Galatians, in 261 BC, defeated the mighty Syrian army of Antiochus I at Ephesus and slew the king during the battle. The Celts of Galatia extended a sort of overlordship over surrounding Greek states such as Pergamum and it was not until Attalos I of Pergamum defeated the Celts at the headwaters of the Caioc in 241 BC that Pergamum was able to stop paying tribute to Galatia.

  With Rome’s emergence as an imperial power, having secured dominance in Italy from the Apennines to the south of the peninsula, their main trading and military rival appeared to be Carthage. It was inevitable that a conflict should arise between Rome and Carthage. In 263 BC the First Punic War, between the two rivals for dominance in the western Mediterranean, started and it is not surprising to find a force of 3000 Celts fighting for Carthage, commanded by one Antaros. Although the Celts fought as ‘mercenaries’, often the term is mistaken for they had their own agenda in fighting for powers which sought to curtail their arch-enemy – Rome. If the powers they were working for changed their allegiance then they withdrew their support. It mattered not about the financial rewards. They had turned down lucrative offers from Rome. The Celts of Italy knew who their main enemy was. In fact, Antaros withdrew his support from Carthage in 249 BC when an alliance did not suit his purpose.

  The Celtic troops of Ptolemy II in 259 BC even attempted to take over Egypt but Ptolemy was able to put down their coup d’état and they were all driven to an island in the Nile where they were starved to death. Ptolemy struck some celebratory gold coins with Celtic motifs on them. It did not stop Ptolemy, however, from continuing to recruit other Celtic troops.

  With Rome and Carthage at peace, Rome began to clear the remaining Senones of Picenum and turned her attention to the Celts of the Po valley. Meanwhile Carthage, unable to expand on the Italian peninsula, sent her armies to the Iberian peninsula and began to conquer and colonise among the Celtic tribes there. Timaeos, c. 260 BC, had been the first to use the term ‘Celtiberians’ to describe the Celts living in Iberia (Spain and Portugal).

  The Celts of the Po valley, however, watched Roman expansion with alarm and turned to their cousins from north of the Alps to assist them. They appeared to believe that attack was the better part of defence. The Boii and the Insubres of the Po recruited the Gaesatae, professional warriors, who joined them and, together with the Taurini (of the Turin area), they crossed the Apenn
ines before Rome could march her armies north. Aneroestes and Concolitanus commanded a Celtic army of some 50,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry. Rome’s resources totalled 700,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry.

  In 225 BC the Celtic army found itself in the vicinity of Clusium and facing a large Roman army. Better generalship won the day; Polybius tells us that 6000 Romans were slain and the rest put to flight. However, one victory did not win the war. Two consular armies were hastening towards the Celtic army, one from the north, having landed on the coast by ship, and one moving overland from the south. The Celtic army took its stand at Telamon, a town on the western seaboard of the Italian peninsula. The battle was one of the most spectacular in Celtic history and, alas for them, a major defeat for the Celts.

  From 224 BC, for the first time, Rome began to conduct annual military campaigns across the Apennines into the Po valley. During the first campaigning season, both consuls, Quintus Fulvius and Titus Manlius, raided and devastated the territory of the Boii. In 223 BC, the consuls Gaius Flaminius and Publius Furius turned their attention to the south-east side of the country and the territory of the Insubres, whose capital was Milan. Major battles were fought during this campaign and the Roman armies returned victorious.

  The next year, 222 BC, Rome prepared for yet another deadly campaign and this time the Celtic kings sent to the new consuls and asked for peace negotiations. Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio and Marcus Claudius Marcellus refused to discuss peace and made it clear that Rome’s intention was a war of extermination. The Celts of the Po valley, unlike the Senones, or other tribes, were not a warlike people. Archaeological evidence shows they were pastoral and agricultural communities.

  They asked for help from their Transalpine cousins again and this time 30,000 Gaesatae joined them to stop the Romans. It was now that a chieftain or king called Viridomarus (the name meaning ‘Great Man’) emerged as an astute military leader. The Romans had no easy victory. Before the campaign, Viridomarus had led a force of Insubres to Clastidium and laid siege to the Roman garrison in order to draw off the consular armies threatening the peaceful settlements of the Po valley. When Marcus Claudius Marcellus and his legions arrived, Viridomarus challenged him to a single combat to decide the issue. Marcellus, surprisingly, accepted and Viridomarus, hurling javelins from his chariot, approached the Roman consul. Marcellus managed to kill him and the Celtic army, not surprisingly, crumbled.

  The Romans devastated the Po valley and, according to Polybius, 222 BC was seen as the end of the ‘Celtic War’ there. Certainly the Romans now began to set up permanent military garrisons in the Po valley and also to organise colonies to open up the territory for trade.

  However, events among the Celts of the Iberian peninsula would play a further part in prolonging the conquest.

  Carthage had succeeded in reducing much of the Celtic territory in what is now Spain and setting up a colony with New Carthage (Cartagena) as their administrative capital. The territory did not fall easily to the Carthaginians. Hamilcar, the conqueror of these territories, was actually assassinated in 221 BC by a Celt. Then a new commander, Hannibal of Carthage, appeared. From childhood his enemy had been Rome and he began to court the Celts, pointing out that they shared the same enemy, and recruiting them into his army. He sent out embassies to the Celts of Gaul and told them his plan was to make war on Rome. The Celts, not only those of the Iberian peninsula but the Celts of southern Gaul, the Alpine valleys and the Po valley itself, threw their support behind the Carthaginian general.

  Had it not been for the Celtic tribes of the Alpine region, Hannibal and his famous elephants would not have succeeded in passing into Italy at all. Indeed, Hannibal’s army was over fifty per cent Celtic at the time he arrived in the Po valley. As soon as he arrived some 10,000 Celts of the Po valley joined him. They were to play a prominent part in his army during his campaigns in Italy from 218 BC through to 201 BC.

  The Celts were used by Hannibal as the mainstay of his army in battle, occupying the central infantry positions at his famous victory at Cannae in 216 BC. In discussing Hannibal’s campaign, most historians seem inclined to ignore the conflict between Rome and the Po valley Celts even though some of these battles were major disasters for Rome. For example, in 215 BC Lucius Postumius Albinus, the former consul, marched two legions and auxiliaries totalling 25,000 men into the territory of the Boii. At a place called Litana (Wide Hill) the Celts ambushed his army and completely destroyed it. Postumius was killed with his generals.

  However, in spite of the long, arduous campaign, Hannibal never felt able to march on Rome and occupy it as the Celts had done 150 years earlier. Finally, Rome’s victories in Iberia, where an army had been sent, pushed the Carthaginians out and Carthage summoned Hannibal back to help defend their city. Celts and Celtiberians went to defend Carthage. It was the Celtic formations which prevented the Roman victory at Utica in 203 BC from becoming a total rout of the Carthaginians. They also held the central battle lines at the last famous battle of Zama against Scipio. Ironically, at the same time the Po valley Celts had just defeated another Roman army.

  With the destruction of the Carthaginian empire, nothing stood in Rome’s way to distract them from concentrating all their energies on conquering the Celts of the Po valley. As well as that, Rome had taken over Carthage’s role in Iberia as colonial conqueror. The Iberian Celtic tribes were also facing the Roman threat.

  But if the Romans thought the conquest of the Celtic tribes in the north of Italy would be easy, they were in for a surprise. It took over a decade of fierce fighting to crush the resistance of the Celts along the River Po. The Boii seemed particularly resilient although in one battle alone, in 193 BC, they sustained, according to Livy, 14,000 dead, 1092 captured alive, with 721 horses, three chieftains and some 212 standards and 63 wagons. The Celts were not treated on honourable terms by the Romans when they surrendered. At best, they were sold into slavery. In 192 BC a Boii chieftain came to the consul Titus Quinctius Flaminius and surrendered himself, his wife and family. Flaminius had the chieftain and his family ritually slaughtered to provide entertainment for his boyfriend.

  The end finally came in 191 BC and Cisalpine Gaul, the Po valley, became the first Celtic homeland to be conquered by Rome. Roman policy was now to drive out those Celtic tribes such as the Boii, Insubres, Taurini, Cenomani and others who had been fighting against Rome, while treaties of cooperation were sought from the Veneti and other tribes. A massive plan of colonisation began. The Celts were to be Romanised, new Roman towns would be built and the devastated countryside taken over to provide farm produce for Rome. It was a major step in Rome’s imperial ambitions.

  At the same time the Celts of Iberia were finding the war with Rome equally merciless. It had begun well enough with a Celtic victory over the general Aemilius Paullus. In 179 BC Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus switched policies, tried to agree treaties and encouraged Celtic enlistment into the Roman colonial army, giving chieftains positions of command. The treaties sought to alleviate the burden of taxes on the conquered people.

  Many tribes held out against the pax Romana. In 152 BC a Roman army besieging the hill-fort of Numantia was driven off and almost destroyed by the Celts. Rome agreed terms with Numantia in 151 BC but the treaty was immediately broken when a new Roman commander, Galba, arrived. His activities in massacring the Celts and enslaving them even caused criticism in Rome from his former commander, Marcus Porcius Cato. In 148 BC the Celts took their revenge when the Roman governor and his army were defeated and a few years later a Roman consul and his army were forced to surrender. The leader of the Celtic resistance in both these victories was Viriathos. Rome’s policy was, if you can’t defeat your enemy in battle, employ an assassin. A Celtic traitor was bribed and Viriathos was murdered in his sleep. His loss was a severe blow to Celtic resistance to Rome in Iberia.

  Yet the warfare continued. In 136 BC the Roman commander Mancinus, trying to reduce a Celtic hill-fort at Pallantia, had to retreat and the Celts turned the
retreat into a spectacular rout in which some 20,000 Romans had to surrender.

  In 134 BC Publius Cornelius Scipio, the adopted grandson of Scipio Africanus, was sent to Iberia. His job was to finally crush the Celts, and he chose to concentrate on Numantia, regarding it as the centre of Celtic resistance. Avaros was the leader at Numantia. Scipio brought his army up and laid siege to the great hill fortress city. Numantia slowly began to starve. A Celtic chieftain named Rhetogenes was chosen, with a few comrades, to break out and seek reinforcements.

  Rhetogenes’ attempts to raise the siege failed. Some 400 of his men, taken prisoner, were paraded in front of the town and had their right hands cut off as a deterrent. Finally starvation and disease broke the spirit of the Celts. Altogether 8000 Celtic men, women and children had held out against Rome’s 60,000 troops. They now surrendered and Numantia was put to the torch. Everyone was sold into slavery with the exception of fifty leaders who were sent to Rome to be ritually sacrificed in the ceremonial triumph.

  Rome had scored another victory over the Celts although it could not be truly said that all the Celts of the Iberian peninsula had accepted the pax Romana until the mid-first century BC. From 81 to 73 BC, under the governorship of Sertorius, schools for the children of the Celtic kings and chieftains were established. Soon Latin was the language of the educated classes and the remnants of the old Celtic civilisation quickly disappeared.

  The Celts of Galatia had been able to secure their independence for a time in spite of the antagonism of the surrounding Greek states. Attalos of Pergamum went so far as to recruit some European Celts, the Aegosages, into his army in 218 BC but these were promptly massacred by Prusias of Bithynia the following year. The Galatian rulers seemed to play politics to maintain their independence from the Greek kingdoms and were able, once again, to exert an overlordship over Pergamum and form an alliance with Antiochus III of Syria. This was their undoing for Rome declared war on Antiochus of Syria and, in 191 BC, the Celts formed the centre ranks of his ill-fated army at Magnesia.