Gold Torcs from Tara and elsewhere.
p. [78].
Plate VIII.
Gold Torcs.
p. [78].
Among the other types of gold torcs are two splendid examples, one of which appears to have been prepared for twisting and left unfinished, while the other is in a complete state ([Plate VIII]).
Small torcs made by twisting a plain ribbon are fairly common, and some of these are so small that they must have been used as bracelets.
In later times the torc was the distinguishing ornament of the Celt, and there are many allusions to torcs in classical writers. In 223 b.c., when Flaminius Nepos gained his victory over the Gauls on the Addua, it is related that instead of the Gauls dedicating, as they had intended, a torc made from the Roman spoils to their god of war, the Romans erected a Roman trophy to Jupiter made from Gaulish torcs.
The name of the Torquati, a family of the Manlia Gens, was derived from their ancestor, T. Manlius, who, having slain a gigantic Gaul in b.c. 361, took the torc from the dead body, and placed it round his neck.
The famous statue of the Dying Gaul preserved in the Capitol at Rome shows a torc on the warrior’s neck. This is one of a series of statues set up by the Greeks of Pergamos to celebrate their struggle with, and first victory over, the Gauls of Asia Minor, with whom they came in contact from about 240 to 160 b.c. The twisted torc appears to have been replaced in Ireland about the second century b.c. by the plain torc, which was probably introduced from Gaul. The fine gold torc from Clonmacnois ([Plate IX]), with La Tène decoration, is a good example of these torcs, and is almost identical with one from the Marne district now preserved in the St. Germain Museum. Probably the finest La Tène torc in existence is that found in the celebrated Broighter find, which is richly decorated with La Tène ornament ([Plate IX], the inner torc).