\'The myth of Celtic and Roman Britain\'

[Paul Elliott]

There is a general trend in English academia to dismiss the label of 'Celtic' and to replace it with native Briton. Which is absolutely useless. There were native Britons here in 2200 BC, and as far as I know, in 2010 AD, I am a native Briton. Laudible though the new term is, it lacks historical or cultural reference.

Meanwhile the same academia uses the term Roman. What an earth is that!? What is a Roman road, piece of pottery, farm or temple, found in Briton? Built and used by Romans from Rome? No, we know these things were built and used by local Britons who had adopted the Roman culture, they were Romano-Britons.

Pre-Romans had adopted a similar cultural concept and adopted its art and institutions. Of course I do not subscribe to the idea of Celtic invasions (which the label Briton is wholeheartedly aimed at countering), but the cultural horizon that the British were part of is what we today term Celtic. It is irrelevant what they themselves termed it (if anything). Using the term Celt is not some kind of swear word (which it seems sometimes to be), but simply a simple modern label for a cultural influence predominant during the British iron-age. Some British academics avoid the word like the plague, others use ther term in inverted commas, as if it were a parody or slang word.

It's just a simple label, like Roman, describing cultural influence. Now the word Celts, maybe that's different. 'Did Celts live here?' is a question I get asked when I go into schools with my iron-age kit; well, the movement of people is an age old problem, and one not yet properly resolved.

But can we Brits not get so uptight about the word Celtic please?

[Alanus]

Thank you, Paul

A sane and laudable position. Vogue comes and goes; and today's academic position will be tomorrow's "old hat," perhaps even a cultural embarressment. But in the long run, the term "Celt" conjures a distinct people who cannot be classified as anybody else. :roll:

[LvpvsRomanvs]

I'm more than happy to use the word Celtic. Even though they were divided by some aspects of culture. It's the same in Italy. My mother's family if from Trieste, I have been there and they have different aspects in their culture to that which I have seen in, for example, Napoli or Toscana etc. They may have different dialects and some different traditions, but they are still all collectively Italian.
I'm sure it would have been the same in Italy perhaps even in the times of the Roman empire. Italians, Hispanics, Gauls (I'm talking of the time when they had been quite thoroughly Romanised) etc. they would have had some different aspects in culture, but would all have collectively been Roman.
It's the same wit the Germans whether they were Cherusci, Chatti, Suebi/Suevi - they were Germans. The Aedui, the Arverni, Aquitani, Parisii - they were Celts.

EDIT: However, don't get the impression that I am trying to say that these people were united. It's quite obvious they were not. But the point that they shared cultural and religious values etc. can put them under the term Celtic.

- Lorenzo.

[Phaichtos]

Good points, Lorenzo. The only addendum I'd make is that (even today) there are many different "contact zones" between disparate cultures where it would have been a bit difficult to differentiate between the different groups. For instance, the material culture of the Rhineland around the time of Caesar is kind of a mix of what we would call "Germanic" and "Celtic" influences, and there even appears to be some confusion in the Classical sources on who was who. This points to a situation where there was a meshing of the populations and the individuals from the two different groups may have even had more in common with each other in a given region than with more distant populations of the same "ethnic group".

[LvpvsRomanvs]

I think that's the case with the Helvetii. Some people don't know for sure whether they were Germannic or Celtic. I think I came across a term for that. 'Celto-Germannic' I think it was. But I think being in the area they were they were sure to have influences from both cultures.

Its the same case with the tribes that occupied modern day Trieste and Histria/Istria, the Carni and Catali. They were Celtic-speaking, but the rest of their culture seems to have had Italic, Greek and Illyrian influence. We don't know what to categorise them as, so we just relate them to the Venetic peoples- but the only problem there is that some people confuse Carni to be related to the Veneti tribe, which they were not. The first mention we get of them is from the Greeks, who named them "???????". By Strabo - I'll have to find a reference for that, however. But nevertheless, their origins and culture are obscure, like many ancient peoples that show influence from multiple cultures (save Rome, ofcourse - except we don't really know where they originated either).

- Lorenzo.

[Phaichtos]

Definitely. It is a phenomenon I'd always thought of as being plausible, especially considering what I remembered about the indigenous peoples of North America when the Europeans came; the explorers were obviously largely ignorant of the natives at first, but their later classifications of them showed the groups as relatively amorphous bodies with sometimes difficult to pin down identity. Peter S Wells' The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe really caused me to think about this having happened in the Old World as well.

[Thunder]

Having looked at the hypothesis surrounding the matter at hand, I have summarised my (amateur) opinion in a succinct passage.

"Oh god, the stupid, it burns us!"

The concept that the Britons somehow magically repulsed the Romans, despite said Romans having punched out pretty much every other military power, including several more advanced than they (the Romans) were, using their trademark combination of treachery, military force and more military force, against all the sources and evidence and archaeology (the giant wall stretching across Northern England, for example, the various bits of mail armour, the Roman roads, the Gladii and Spathae type-swords, the numerous primary and secondary sources), is just so incomprehensibly silly that I cannot quantify it.

[Ron Andrea]

The concept that the Britons somehow magically repulsed the Romans, despite said Romans having punched out pretty much every other military power, including several more advanced than they (the Romans) were, using their trademark combination of treachery, military force and more military force, against all the sources and evidence and archaeology (the giant wall stretching across Northern England, for example, the various bits of mail armour, the Roman roads, the Gladii and Spathae type-swords, the numerous primary and secondary sources), is just so incomprehensibly silly that I cannot quantify it.

History is replete with lessor powers humbling great ones. The Hawai'ians killed Captain Cook, whom they initially treated with awe.

In the case of Britannia, the Britons tried and failed to both resist and expel the Romans. The legions departure seemed caused as much indifference--and higher priorities elsewhere--as any active Briton resistance.

[Robert Vermaat]

In the case of Britannia, the Britons tried and failed to both resist and expel the Romans. The legions departure seemed caused as much indifference--and higher priorities elsewhere--as any active Briton resistance.

What departure are you referring to Ron?
Caesar's short visits or the legendary evacuation of Britain in 410 AD?

[Alanus]

In the case of Britannia, the Britons tried and failed to both resist and expel the Romans. The legions departure seemed caused as much indifference--and higher priorities elsewhere--as any active Briton resistance.

What departure are you referring to Ron?
Caesar's short visits or the legendary evacuation of Britain in 410 AD?

Thank you for that, Robert

The "legendary evacuation" in 410 has long plagued us, but historical documentation shows otherwise:
420s-- King Eothar of the Alans is sent into Brittany on a punitive expedition by the Praefect of Gaul.
440s-- Bishop Germanus goes to Rome to plead for the Britons.
c. 469-- Emperor Anthemius appeals for aid from British leader (king?) Riothamus.

Obviously, Britain was part of the Western Empire until its end. This gives us two more generations of Roman Britain; a legacy continued in official Latin by the British and even taught to the later Saxon scribes.

[Conal]

I have been musing of late that I should look a liitle further in to Druids & such. So far I have mused on links with British Druids & Gaulish ones ...

Ceasar (Julius) has it that they were very important types who were consulted widely by society (though with some very unsavoury habits ...praise from Ceasar is praise indeed :wink: ) and that they met annually in the trerritory of the Carnutes, supposedly the centre of Gaul and that the religion originated in Britian, where young men woulds go to study. Some time later the Isle of Anglesea was raided and Druidic sacred groves were cut down along with as many Druids as could be laid low with a gladius. There was a Pope type Druid who headed them all so there appear not to be separate "chuches".

If indeed the Druids originated in Britain and that Anglesea was the Druidic Mecca and that Druids from both Britain and Gaul met within Carnutian territory annually, then maybe there was an overarching cohesion amongst the Iron Age folk of Gaul and Britain, a central identity based on religion?

Couple this with a common language or dialects of the same language root and varaitions on the LaTene culture and you could well have a sense of loose identity.

As you know this does not negate internecine strife!

[Ron Andrea]

In the case of Britannia, the Britons tried and failed to both resist and expel the Romans. The legions departure seemed caused as much indifference--and higher priorities elsewhere--as any active Briton resistance.

What departure are you referring to Ron?
Caesar's short visits or the legendary evacuation of Britain in 410 AD?

I was referring to the final withdrawal. I didn't include a date because there were definite signs of Roman interest after 410. But after Germanus first (and probably only historical) visit, Britain was pretty much on its own, even if the "see to your own defenses" letter was apocryphal. Clearly, long-term Roman military presence had ended. The wheat exports had ended, or shortly did. In a cultural version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, without the constant application of energy (money, soldiers, administrators, etc.) from Rome, Roman Britain atrophied and died. :?

On the other hand, apparently an element in Britain tried to maintain Roman culture and institutions for much of the fourth century. Opposing them seems to have been a resurgent Briton side. It might be too strong to label them Celtic or tribal--much less druidic--but I suspect they appealed to those cultural, tribal, religious sensitivities in their arguments with the sub-Roman elements.

Eventually night fell on Roman Britain and when dawn rose several hundred years later, everything had changed. Except for the roads and church most everything Roman was gone, the Britons--Celtic or otherwise--had been pushed back into Cornwall and Wales and the pagan, illiterate, barbarian Anglo-Saxons were now the Christian, literature, and sort-of-cultured Saxons kingdoms (especially Wessex) as reported in The Anglo-Saxons Chronicles.

So, as far as Rome was concerned, Britannia had ceased to exist. And, I suspect, vice versa. :wink:

[Thunder]

The concept that the Britons somehow magically repulsed the Romans, despite said Romans having punched out pretty much every other military power, including several more advanced than they (the Romans) were, using their trademark combination of treachery, military force and more military force, against all the sources and evidence and archaeology (the giant wall stretching across Northern England, for example, the various bits of mail armour, the Roman roads, the Gladii and Spathae type-swords, the numerous primary and secondary sources), is just so incomprehensibly silly that I cannot quantify it.

History is replete with lesser powers humbling great ones.

Not really. 'Stinging', yes. 'Defeating', no. The Hawians may have killed Cook, but they were soon conquered and subdued after that. History is replete with lesser powers surviving greater ones, usually by means of being hard to reach, savage resistance, having little of value to conquerers and unified, coherent resistance. Britain offered and could offer none of these things.

[Ron Andrea]

I was agreeing with you. If you'd rather, I'll disagree. :wink:

[M. Demetrius]

"To thine own self be true", Ron. :lol: :wink: