The term “Celtic” often serves as an umbrella term for the “barbarian” people of Europe living outside the Greco-Roman cultural sphere. The Celts varied ethnically but have historically been grouped together based on similarities in language and customs. Much of what we now know about the Celtics comes from observations made by ancient Roman authors about their neighbors. Consequently, Roman perspectives influence our modern understanding of the Celts. So, what did the Romans think about the Celts, and how trustworthy are their accounts?
Celts and Romans: Not So Neighborly Neighbors
The Roman imperial project involved a steady expansion process over the course of a few centuries. Eventually, the Roman Empire stretched from the Italian peninsula up into Britain, down into North Africa, and extended into the Middle East. These lands were not empty and ready for the taking. People lived there and often fought the Romans for control of their lands.
The term “Celtic,” or in Latin “Celtae” from the Greek word “Keltoi,” was utilized by classical authors to refer to the people living in these lands. Occasionally, they would use “Galli” or “Gallia” as similar catch-all terms. The peoples denoted as “Celtic” included the Gauls in modern-day France, the Celtiberians and Gallaeci on the Iberian Peninsula, peoples living in modern-day Germany, northern Italy, the Balkans, and the Alps, and the various Celtic tribes on the island of Britain. Many of these people would be incorporated into the Roman Empire.
The constant push of Roman imperial expansion created tension not just between the Romans and Celts but also between the different Celtic people as they competed for resources. Celtic tribes launched invasions against Rome at their outposts in Northern Italy, and in 387 BCE, a Celtic warlord named Brennus sacked and pillaged Rome with his warriors, “sealing” the “barbaric reputation” of the Celts in Roman eyes. It could be argued, however, that the Romans were always prepared to characterize anyone outside of their cultural sphere as barbaric.
War Between the Celts and Romans
Various minor scuffles and major battles occurred between Roman forces and the various Celtic people they encountered. The 387 BCE sack of Rome took place after the Battle of Allia, fought at the confluence of the Tiber and Allia rivers. Though the Senonii, the Celts responsible for this attack on Rome, were successful in breaching the city, they were unable to capture the center of the city at Campidoglio. In 225 BCE, an alliance of Celtic tribes comprised of the Boii, Insubres, and Gaesatae mobilized against Rome after the Romans partitioned the formerly Celtic territory of Picenum in the years prior. The battle was fought at Telamon, on the Italian peninsula, and the Celts lost. The loss solidified Roman control of the Italian peninsula.
A series of conflicts broke out on the Iberian Peninsula after the Romans defeated the Carthaginians at the Battle of Ilipa in 206 BCE during the Second Punic War. This led to the Romans taking Carthaginian territories in southern Hispania. These conflicts, known as the Celtiberian Wars, included the First Celtiberian War (181-179 BCE), the Second Celtiberian War (154-151 BCE), and the Numantine War (143-133 BCE). The wars ended after the siege of Numantia, a Celtiberian city and stronghold. The Numantines attempted to hold off the Romans for as long as they could, refusing to surrender. Eventually, some of the population starved to death, and the remaining population surrendered to Rome only after setting the city on fire. This effectively marked the end of the dispute over Roman control of the Iberian Peninsula.
Another significant set of battles between Celts and Romans were the Gallic Wars (58-50 BCE), which were a series of campaigns launched by Julius Caesar to conquer Gaul. Caesar’s written account of these campaigns, De Bello Gallico (“On the Gallic War”), provides a comprehensive view of the Roman perspective on the Celtic world. Caesar’s campaigns came after a series of battles fought between the Romans and the Cisalpine and Transalpine Celts. Caesar’s armies then slowly worked their way across Gaul, earning their biggest triumph in 52 BCE against the Gallic army led by the chieftain Vercingetorix. Vercingetorix was the chieftain of the Averni and mounted a rebellion against Caesar’s presence in Gaul before the Romans defeated him and his troops.
Boudica’s Revolt, 60/61 CE
Another significant conflict between Romans and Celts was marked by the rebellion mounted by Boudica, queen of the Iceni tribe in Britain. The conflict began after Boudica’s husband, King Prasutagus, who had surrendered to Rome after Emperor Claudius launched an invasion of Britain in 43 CE, died. Prasutagus had left his kingdom to both his daughters and the Roman emperor in his will, but the imperial procurator Decanius Catus seized his entire estate. Boudica and her daughters were then lashed and violated, and the upper class and nobility of the Iceni were disenfranchised.
In response, Boudica began to mobilize a rebellion against the Roman troops in Britain. The Iceni joined forces with the nearby Trinovantes and attacked the provincial capital of Roman Britain at Camulodunum. Boudica’s forces then moved to Londinium, burning the city to the ground. They again defeated the Roman provincial governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, and his forces at Verulamium. Suetonius eventually managed to rally troops to defeat Boudica’s army. Nevertheless, the force of her rebellion forced the new Roman Emperor Nero to contemplate ending the Roman occupation of Britain altogether. Accounts are mixed on how Boudica eventually passed away, but after her rebellion was squashed, Rome went on to secure southern Britain and held it until the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
References to the Celts in Roman Texts
Much of what historians commonly accept to be true about the ancient Celts has come from Greek and Roman travel narratives describing their encounters with Celtic peoples. These authors wrote about a few different aspects of Celtic life and society: their appearance, what kinds of clothing and jewelry they wore, their cultural practices, and their belief systems.
Caesar wrote of Celtic men in his De Bello Gallico:
“The most civilized of all these nations are they who inhabit Kent, which is entirely a maritime district, nor do they differ much from the Gallic customs. Most of the inland inhabitants do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and are clad with skins. All the Britons, indeed, dye themselves with woad, which occasions a bluish color, and thereby have a more terrible appearance in fight. They wear their hair long, and have every part of their body shaved except their head and upper lip. Ten and even twelve have wives common to them, and particularly brothers among brothers, and parents among their children; but if there be any issue with these wives, they are reputed to be the children of those by whom respectively each was first espoused when a virgin.”
In this passage, Caesar addresses several points about Celtic Britons: what they ate, what they wore, body decoration, how they fashioned their hair, and their marital affairs.
Cassius Dio wrote of Boudica in his Roman History:
“In stature, she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace; and she wore a tunic of diverse colors over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. This was her invariable attire.”
Though Dio speaks here of an individual rather than a collective, he uses tactics similar to Caesar’s in “othering” Boudica from her Roman contemporaries. While the Celtic subjects of Caesar’s writings are othered in terms of their customs, Boudica is othered because of her fierceness and attire.
Roman writers were further captivated by the Celtic practice of headhunting. Their writings indicate that Roman soldiers were subject to beheadings by Celts on the battlefield. Polybius, a Greek historian residing in Rome, wrote in his The Histories about the rise of the Roman Republic. Of the Celts at the Battle of Ticinus in 218 BCE, he said:
“They killed or wounded many, and finally, cutting off the heads of the slain, went over to the Carthaginians, being in number about two thousand foot and rather less than two hundred horse.”
Livy, expanding further on what the Celts would do with the heads that they hunted, wrote in his Ab Urbe Condita:
“Spoils taken from his body and the severed head of the general were carried in triumph by the Boians to the temple which is most revered in their land. Then after cleaning the head, they adorned the skull with gold, according to their custom. And it served them as a sacred vessel from which to pour libations at festivals and at the same time as a drinking cup for the priests and the keepers of the temple.”
Though there is sufficient archeological evidence supporting the existence of a Celtic cult of the head, it is unclear how much these accounts exaggerate headhunting practices. They do, however, serve to further categorize the Celts as barbarians and “other” for a Roman readership.
Roman Depictions of Celts
There are several examples of extant works of Roman art depicting the ancient Celts. One of the most famous, The Dying Gaul, is believed to be a Roman marble copy of a bronze Greek original. The Dying Gaul depicts a nude Gallic warrior, wounded and defeated, surrounded by his shield and weaponry. He is depicted in a manner similar to how Roman writers described the Celts, with thick, lime-washed hair, a mustache, and a torc around his neck. Though he is certainly made to look less dignified than a Roman warrior, his athletic form portrays him as a worthy foe. The sculpture effectively depicts him as a “barbarian,” but uplifts the Roman imperial expansion project by suggesting that their wins were hard-earned.
Another well-known example of a larger Roman sculpture depicting a Celt is the Ludovisi Gaul (or The Galatian Suicide), a copy of the bronze original by Epigonus, showing a Gallic man on the brink of driving a sword into his chest as he holds up his dying wife’s body in his other arm. It is suggested that the man intended to kill his wife and himself to avoid capture by the Romans.
Smaller-scale images of Celts appear as decorative elements adorning Roman architecture, such as on a frieze from Civitalba, Marche, Italy, or as figurative elements on Roman funerary art, such as the Amendola Sarcophagus. These images function in a similar way to The Dying Gaul, highlighting the Roman conquest of Celtic peoples and the superiority of Roman soldiers.
Celts as Barbarians: How History Remembers
The adage that “history is written by the victors,” often attributed to Winston Churchill, though with no concrete evidence to support that claim, rings true regarding the ancient Celts. With very few extant written sources from Celtic peoples themselves, aside from some early inscriptions in Lepontic and Celtiberian scripts, the only complete texts that historians can consult on Celts come from outside of their immediate culture.
Roman textual accounts and depictions of Celts articulate a specific narrative of Roman imperial prowess and expansion. In doing so, they justify the conquest of Celtic lands and the subjugation of Celtic peoples by “othering” them and focusing on what was “barbarian and inferior” about them. We now know that the Celts had complex societies, languages, and belief systems, though the popular imagination, informed by Roman perspectives, still holds that the Celts were barbarians.
