Phases of Irish History

by Eoin Mac Neill

The earliest recorded expansion of the Celts from the region north of the Alps was over northern Italy, and no historian supposes or suggests that the first Celtic occupation of northern Italy was earlier than about 600 B.C. This item ought to be borne in mind, for it has an important bearing on the date of the early Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland. It was probably about the same time that they began to move westward across the Rhone, occupying the parts of France between the Garonne on the south and the English Channel on the north, which parts are specifically described by Julius Cæsar as Gallia Celtica, Celtic Gaul. Between 500 and 400 B.C. they spread south-westward into Spain, apparently more as conquerors than as colonists, for the resultant of the Celtic occupation of the Spanish Peninsula was the formation of a mixed people, partly Celts and partly Iberians, whom ancient writers distinguish from the Celts by giving them what we may call a hyphenated name, Celtiberians. We are not to imagine from this that Celtic conquests elsewhere were of an exterminating character, or that they did not result in a fusion of peoples. The notion that the migratory conquests of antiquity resulted in the displacement of one population by another is one of the favourite illusions of popular history. In Spain no doubt the Celtic element was relatively less numerous than in Gallia Celtica, and also perhaps the Celtic civilisation became less dominant, for the Iberians were in touch more or less with another and still more highly developed civilisation, that of the Phœnicians. That there was a somewhat distinctive civilisation south of the Garonne is clearly to be inferred from Cæsar's account, which tells us that the people of Celtic Gaul differed from those of Aquitaine, as well as from those of Belgic Gaul, in language, culture, and institutions.

In the fourth century B.C. a second wave of Celtic migration poured over Italy. The Celts in this movement captured and destroyed the city of Rome. But they also appear to have destroyed the predominance of the Etrurians, and thereby to have facilitated the later imperial expansion of the Roman power. There was also an eastward Celtic movement along the Danube. In the third century B.C. the Celts overran most of what is called the Balkan Peninsula, including Greece, and in 278 B.C. large bodies of them passed over into Asia Minor and settled in the country which after them was named Galatia.

Let it be noted at this point that so far as history casts light on the subject, the known period of Celtic expansion on the Continent lies within the years 650 B.C. and 250 B.C. We shall have to recur to this fact when we come to consider, in the following lecture, the probable date of the Celtic colonisation of Ireland. We shall see also that the evidence from archæology leads to the same conclusion as the evidence from history.

History recognises the expansion of the Celts from inland and central Europe southward, westward and eastward, but is silent about any expansion northward. No one doubts that in these early times the parts of Europe northward of the old Celtic country already described were occupied by the Germans, but Greek and Latin writings have no word of the Germans until the last quarter of the third century B.C. Yet we know from archæology that there was trade intercourse long before that time between the Mediterranean countries and the shores of the Baltic, extending even to Scandinavia. As geographical facts, the Baltic and Scandinavia were known to the Greeks, if only vaguely known to them, in the time of Eratosthenes, i.e., about 200 B.C. How is it, then, that the Germans are not mentioned by that name or by any name? I suggest that the reason was that the Germans of that period were so much under Celtic domination that they were not recognised as a distinct people of importance.

The first mention of Germans in history is found in the Roman Acta Triumphalia for the year 222 B.C., in the record of the battle of Clastidium. Clastidium, now called Casteggio, is in northern Italy, on the south side of the river Po and a few miles from that river. It is a little west of the meridian of Milan, which at the time of the battle was Mediolanum, the chief town of the Insubrian Gauls. In the battle, the Roman consul Marcellus overcame the Insubrians and gained the spolia opima by slaying with his own hand their commander Virdumarus. The Acta Triumphalia state that he triumphed "over the Insubrian Gauls and the Germans." Now so far as is known or thought probable there was no German population at the time settled anywhere within hundreds of miles of Clastidium, whereas the Insubrian Gauls were settled on the spot or in its near neighbourhood. Moreover, unless the Germans were there fighting in considerable force, it is most unlikely that any notice of them would have appeared in the record. The commander was a Gaul, bearing an undoubted Celtic name. Therefore the Germans at Clastidium were not fighting for their own hand, they had not come there as invaders. Thus we are brought to the interesting conclusion that, on this first appearance of the Germans in history, they had been brought from their own country, hundreds of miles away, to assist a Celtic people resident in the valley of the Po. To assist them in what capacity? Undoubtedly either as hired troops or as forces levied on a subject territory. Whichever view we take, the presence of German forces at the battle of Clastidium in 222 B.C. must be regarded as an indication that the German people, or portion of them, were still at that time under Celtic predominance. I say "still at that time," because it will be seen that the Celtic ascendancy over the Germans soon afterwards came to an end.

What is thus inferred from the historical record is corroborated by philology. A number of words of Celtic origin are found spread through the whole group of Germanic languages, including the Scandinavian languages and English, which was originally a mixture of Low German dialects. Some of these words are especially connected with the political side of civilisation and are therefore especially indicative of Celtic political predominance at the time of their adoption into Germanic speech. Thus the German word reich, meaning realm or royal dominion, is traced to the Celtic rigion, represented in early Irish by rige, meaning kingship. From the Celtic word ambactus, used by Cæsar in the sense of "client" or "dependent," indicating one of the retainers of a Gallic nobleman, but originally signifying "one who is sent about," a minister or envoy—from ambactus is derived the German word amt, meaning "office, charge, employment." From ambactus are also derived the words embassy and ambassador, with their kindred terms in the Romance languages. From the Celtic word dunon, a fortified place, represented in Irish by dun, is derived the word town in English and the cognate words in the other Germanic languages. Professor Marstrander holds that several of the names of the numerals in all the Germanic languages, and therefore in the original German speech from which they have diverged, are formed from or influenced by Celtic names of the same numerals. If this is so, it indicates a thoroughly penetrating Celtic influence among the ancient Germans, for the names of the numerals may be regarded as among the most native elements of speech, so much so that it is said that facility in the speaking of two languages rarely exists to the degree of being able to reckon numbers with equal readiness in both, and that the language a person uses in ordinary reckoning must be regarded as his native and natural speech.

This matter of the early intermingling of Celts and Germans in northern Mid-Europe will be afterwards seen to have a special interest in reference to the Celtic colonisation of Britain and Ireland. Before concluding the evidence I have to bring forward on the subject, it will make the drift of the matter clearer if I state the later outcome of the Celtic migrations northward among the Germanic population. We have already seen that, as archaeologists are agreed, the Celts north of the Alps were in possession of iron long before the use and manufacture of iron was established in the more northern parts of Europe. It is mainly to this advantage that we may ascribe the predominance acquired by the Celts among the Germans. In the German regions, however, the Celts were for the most part an ascendant minority. Their domination must have lasted for several centuries. A time came when, in those parts which in the Celts were numerically and otherwise in greatest strength, a fusion of peoples took place, resulting in a Celto-Germanic population, Celtic in language but mainly Germanic in race. Meanwhile, the less blended section of the Germans, retaining their native language, had acquired the craft of ironwork, and were advancing in civilisation and no doubt increasing at the same time in numbers. Eventually the German-speaking Germans became more powerful than the once dominant Celtic minority and more powerful also than the Celto-Germanic folk who had become Celtic in language. A sense of distinct nationality grew up between the two populations. The Celticised Germans were located in western Germany, towards the Rhine, the un-Celticised Germans farther east. Under hostile pressure from the German-speaking element, the Celtic-speaking element were forced westwards across the Rhine into Gaul. Here they in turn pressed back the Celts who had settled in north-eastern Gaul, and modern events will help to fix in the mind the fact that this overflow of Celto-Germans into Gaul extended as far west as the river Marne, where it was brought to a stand by the resistance of the earlier Celtic inhabitants. The date of this migration was probably later than that of the battle of Clastidium, 222 B.C., when, as we have seen, the Celts appear to have still held sway over the Germans. The Celto-Germanic settlers between the Rhine and the Marne were the Belgae of Cæsar's time.

At first sight, this account may seem to be too precise an effort to fill up a blank in history, but the testimony of Cæsar and Tacitus, witnesses of prime authority, seems to leave no room for any alternative view.

Cæsar is the first writer in whom any mention of the Belgae is found. Holding the Gallic command for about nine years, he reduced the whole of Gaul to obedience to the Roman power. For him, Gaul, Gallia, signified the whole country between the Rhine and the Pyrenees. All its inhabitants in general were named Galli by him, but we also find that he uses the name Galli in a more precise sense as proper to the people of those parts which were not occupied by the Belgae. He also calls this people Celtae, Celts. Therefore in Cæsar's mind the Belgae were less Gallic and less Celtic than their neighbours to the west. His evidence on this subject however is much more precise.

The Rhine was for Cæsar the main boundary line between Gaul and Germany, between the Belgae and the Germans. The Belgae, he states, differ from the Celtae, as these from the Aquitani, in language, culture, and institutions. The difference between the Celtae proper and the Aquitani has already been accounted for. The Aquitani, bordering on Spain, were the same Celtiberian mixture as the people of Spain; they were Celtic, or mainly so, in language, but otherwise mainly Iberian. I am proceeding to show that the difference between the Celtae and the Belgae is to be explained in a similar way. The Belgae were likewise Celtic in language, at all events mainly so, but otherwise they were mainly Germanic. When Cæsar says that the three divisions of Gaul differed from each other in language, we must understand that he refers to broad distinctions of dialect, for the names of persons and places in Belgic Gaul at that time appear to the reader to be quite as Celtic as those in Gallia Celtica or western Gaul. Cæsar tells us that the Belgae are ruder, less civilised and more warlike than the Celtae or Galli more properly so called, and his explanation for this is that they have less commerce and less intercourse with outsiders, and so are less softened by refinement and luxury. This is interesting, because it implies that Gallia Celtica had a sufficient degree of commerce, intercourse, refinement and luxury to considerably soften down the character of its inhabitants.