Warriors and Craftsmen
The most notable characteristic of the early Celts was their extraordinary artistic ability. Highly skilled metalworkers, they introduced all of Europe to the art of iron forging, and with it, brought advances in agriculture and warfare. From the forges of the Celtic smiths poured both farm implements and fearsome weapons, from swords and spears to great wheels for wagons and war chariots.
Celtic artisans were also adept at finer work. They produced exquisite adornments and jewelry in bronze and gold, extraordinarily intricate and detailed work that was also profoundly symbolic.
Decoration wasn't restricted to weapons and jewelry, either. The Celts were so fond of pattern that it covered every available surface — clothing, drinking vessels, even human skin were all treated as canvas by Celtic artisans.
La Tène Culture
Around 300
In La Tène art, the distinctive cosmic symbolism of earlier Celtic peoples is transformed through the addition of traditional techniques borrowed from Greek and Etruscan designs. The product of La Tène metalworkers is recognizably Celtic, full of undulating lines, spirals, and the first appearance of what we all instinctively recognize today as the Celtic knot, sinuous patterns of interlaced loops and curves.
Other aspects of La Tène culture are also recognizably Celtic. The La Tènes lived in large settlements, arrayed around large hill forts. They built log houses that might have made Abraham Lincoln proud.
One of the best-known examples of La Tène — period art is the Gundestrup cauldron, a richly detailed silver bowl decorated with images of Celtic deities and religious rituals. The cauldron was cut into pieces and deposited as a sacrificial offering in a peat bog in Denmark. It was left there undisturbed until the late nineteenth century, when it was rediscovered.
There is also much evidence of a rich spiritual life among the La Tènes. The cache of artifacts that define the La Tène culture are sacrificial in nature — the bounty of beautiful, expensive, and ornate weapons shows little or no sign of wear, indicating they were a sacrifice, most likely for success in battle.
The Celts and the Romans
To their neighbors in cultured Rome and Greece, the Celtic tribes were viewed largely as fierce, reckless barbarians — uncivilized, uncouth, boastful, and proud. But as much as their critics found fault, the criticism was tempered with a grudging admiration for the great strength and reckless abandon of the Celtic warriors, and many of the great armies of classical times counted bands of Celts among their elite fighters. Until this point, the Celts, although they continued to expand their territories, preferred not to provoke their powerful southern neighbors and trading partners.
Eventually, though, the boundaries chafed. Ever-growing populations and a restless nature led the Celts into the territories of their Etruscan neighbors. The tribes settled in and made friends with those neighbors that remained.
According to Roman accounts some of these neighbors, the Etruscan settlement of Clusium, underestimated the fierce nature of its neighbors and thought to involve them in a dispute with Roman aristocracy. Thinking the Celts simple barbarians, the Clusians enticed neighboring tribes with gifts of wine and promises of fertile land. They were quite unprepared for the arrival of heavily armed settlers who weren't exactly prepared to go marching back from whence they came when the dispute between Clusium and Rome ended. The Clusians issued panicky messages to Rome, which sent diplomatic envoys to prevent disaster.
The Celtic warriors were so renowned that they served as elite troops in many foreign armies, including those of Hannibal and even the Ptolemy pharaohs. Cleopatra kept a band of 300 Celtic warriors as her personal bodyguards.
Unfortunately, these would-be diplomats made the same mistake in assuming the Celts to be uncultured, and during a scuffle, they murdered an important Celtic chieftain. The Celts were appalled at the poor behavior of the Romans and went before the senate seeking reparations. The senate responded by rewarding the perpetrators with political powers, a move that disgusted the Celts and proved a very bad idea.
The Celtic warlords excelled at psychological warfare and were very effective at ensuring their enemies were thoroughly unnerved before battle even began. One of the most effective methods they used to terrorize the enemy was a form of martial theater — warriors entered battle naked but for tattoos and body paint, hair bleached with lime and arranged in spikes. Combatants reinforced their supernatural appearance with great athletic leaps and screaming cries, augmented by the use of specialized musical instruments such as wailing battle harps and the jarring carnyx, a long, harsh-sounding trumpet.
The Romans, as it turns out, were not prepared for barbarian invaders. After witnessing the spectacle of tall, painted, naked warriors with spiked hair singing, dancing, and blasting horns, they beat a terrified retreat all the way to the fortress on the Capitoline hill, where they remained barricaded until an epidemic of disease convinced the invaders to accept a cash bribe and vacate the city.
The Celts Under Roman Rule
From that point onward, the Celts were in near-constant conflict with the Romans. Despite the Celts' early success, they were no match for the organized war machine that was Rome, which responded to its humiliating defeat with a relentless forward push into Celtic territories. Within 200 years, the Romans were unquestionably in charge, and the era of the Celts gave way to Roman rule. The subsequent Romano-Celtic period was to last for hundreds of years.
The series of military campaigns that brought about the end of Celtic Europe is known collectively as the Gallic wars. It is through Julius Caesar's account of these wars that we know much of what we do about Celtic society and culture.
After the Roman conquest, Celtic society began to conform in many ways to Roman custom and societal norms. Religion began to follow Roman styles — worship moved from sacred groves to temples, and Celtic gods merged with their Roman counterparts and were more frequently depicted in human form, often with Roman-style written inscriptions. The ancient pastoral lifestyle gave way in many places to Roman-style cities, and the Celtic lifestyle gradually gave way until the only truly Celtic communities were those of Ireland and Scotland.
