You hear all kinds about Caesar and Alexander and all that they took over, and we never hear too little about every king since William the Conqueror. (Well, maybe I exaggerate a bit.)
Why is it that we don’t hear about the empire builders of the Celts? After all, they once dominated most of Western Europe. One would think with all the Eurocentrism in the world we would know plenty about the pre-Christian heroes of the west. Were they just nasty people or did they not hire a very good press agent?
My shaky understanding of European history leads me to believe that there weren’t really a great many pre-christian heroes.
The Romans were the first to establish a sizeable empire in western europe (with the possible exception of the Carthaginians in Spain). Before the Romans, European civilisation was largely tribal, and as far as I am aware there were no empire builders.
Even if there had been I’m not sure that there were a great many keen historians among the celts, so i’m not sure that many records would have survived.
Celts were considered godless savages and barbarians. In fact, most of the names which described them translate to savage or barbarian. They left behind no written documents, so we must depend upon the accounts of other peoples and archeological artifacts to build a history for them.
Thanks for the info so far, but there still seems to be a void somewhere. I understand that most of the written record of the Celts comes from other sources (the Celts being rather unfond of the quill) but for a people recognized by others for their advanced metal working, fine art and lucritive trade networks, they must have been more than just blood-thirsty barbarians. After all, the Romans were not unfamiliar with slaughtering the innocent just to prove a point - and they were among the most civilized people of their age!
Actually I’d say we do, just more in the late, christianized, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh versions. At least in the U.S. there is enormous ethnic pride displayed by those with “Celtic roots”. And there is the enduring popularity of the Arthurian mythos ( though its Celtic nature is often ignored, overlooked, or de-emphasized ).
However in terms of the pre-Christian era, well I think mr_scoph has a good part of the answer - There isn’t a lot of celebration of pre-Christian figures. For one thing they tend to be obscured by the shadows of time. All the more so, as much of the Celtic world was either absorbed by the Romans and/or the Germans - So again we here a lot about the Irish, Scots, and Welsh ( and rather less about the Bretons or Manx )and rather less about the Belgae ( unless you are a student of Roman or British history ). We do get the occasional folk heros like Vercinqtorix bandied about in certain circles - But only in certain circles.
In the loosest of sense, yes. Also central Europe, parts of Eastern Europe, and central Anatolia ( the Galatians ). However earlier you called them ‘empire builders’, but as mr_scoph pointed out, this really isn’t correct in the strict definition of the phrase. The Celts dispersed widely as a people, but they never had any unified political structure whatsoever. That’s part of the problem of their latter-day obscurity - They weren’t empire builders, but rather a tribal folk.
No more or less nasty than anyone else. Though certainly Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Macedonia ( briefly ) wasn’t too happy when they put his head on the end of a spear ;). But no, it is that they were a mostly conquered and assimilated people, except in the outer edges of the British Isles, so their history has largely not been considered of equal note by most of the “civilized” folk that followed after them ( except in the British Isles ).
Which made them truly excellent candidates for incorporation into the Roman Empire :). Where most of them were promptly Latinized ( “promptly” here meaning over several centuries ). Their descendants in Gaul and Iberia were more interested in the heritage of Rome, not La Tene ( yes, very loose analogy there ).
I’m trying to think of ancient famous celts and all I can come up with off the top of my head is Boudicca, unless we start digging into mytholological sources, ie the Mabinogian <sp?>. Sorry memory bad.
Well, not having time to make a fulsome reply, I suspect it might come down to history being written by the winners, (and, as has been remarked already, Celts “not being overly fond of the quill”.
Plus, the lack of written history really hurts. We know lots about the rulers of any number of pissant empires. But that is because the names and exploits of those rulers were written down.
And of course, to emphasize again, the Celts were not politically unified. There never were any kings who ruled the Celts, just kings who ruled individual tribes. We only know the names of the ones who fought against nations with a written history, which mostly means the Romans. Kings that the Romans knew about are written about, ones they didn’t know about aren’t.
Lack of a written record is probably the biggest thing, though being non-Christian certainly isn’t helping matters. We do know about a small number of Celtic historical figures, but being as we tend to learn about them from their enemies, the scholarship is difficult. That is, keep in mind we know the most about the Celts in Gaul from Julius Caesar himself, and he conquered them. So, where does the truth end and the propaganda begin?
Celtic history is, however, on the rise in terms of popularity. There is a lot of new material being written right now. In some areas, sadly, there isn’t a lot of material to work with.
The Celts didn’t have an ‘empire’ per se, though I have heared it termed that way before. They didn’t have a centralized government. However, they did have a far-reaching culture for quite some time before Rome rolled in – think Ireland to Turkey, that’s not just a bunch of unassociated tribes.
Famous Celts: well we have Vercingetorix from the Gallic War. However most histories in the Celtic world were heavily mixed with what we now consider mythology, but who knows? Maybe Queen Madb, Amergin, Talisin, Fionn mac Cumhail, Cu Chulainn, etc. were based on real figures. However they are sort of like King Arthur, I wouldn’t consider them historical figures.
