Oman and many other authorities think the movement occurred some time before 325 B. C.
174 : 21 seq. Cymry and Belgæ. The Cymry or Belgæ were “P Celtic” in speech. They first appeared in history about 300 B. C., equipped with a culture of the second iron period called La Tène. The classic authors were apparently uncertain as to whether or not they were Germans (or Teutons), but they appear to have been largely composed of this element, and to have arrived previously from Scandinavia and to have adopted the Celtic tongue. These Belgæ drove out the earlier “Q Celts” or Goidels, and the pressure they exerted caused many of the later migrations of the Goidels or Gauls.
The groups of tribes which in Cæsar’s time occupied the part of France to the north and east of the Seine were known as Belgæ, while the same people who had crossed to the north of the channel were called Brythons. To avoid designating these groups separately the author has called all these tribes Cymry, although the term can properly be applied only to the “P Celts” of Wales, who adopted this designation for themselves about the sixth century A. D., according to Rhys and Jones, p. 26, where we read: “The singular is Cymro, the plural Cymry. The word Cymro, is derived from the earlier Cumbrox or Combrox, which is parallel to the Gaulish Allobrox (plural Allobroges) a name applied by the Gauls to certain Ligurians whose country they conquered.... As the word is to be traced to Cumbra-land (Cumberland), its use must have extended to the Brythons” (see Rice Holmes, 2, p. 15, where he says the Brythons spread the La Tène culture). “But as the name Cymry seems to have been unknown, not only in Brittany, but also in Cornwall, it may be conjectured that it cannot have acquired anything like national significance for any length of time before the battle of Deorham in the year 577, when the West Saxons permanently severed the Celts west of the Severn from their kinsmen (of Gloucester, Somerset, etc., as now known).
“Thus it is probable that the national significance of the term Cymro may date from the sixth century and is to be regarded as the exponent of the amalgamation of the Goidelic and Brythonic populations under high pressure from without by the Saxons and Angles.” Therefore it is a purely Welsh term, properly speaking. Broca, in the Mémoires d’anthropologie, I, 871, p. 395, is responsible for the word as applied to the invaders of Gaul who spoke Celtic. He called them Kimris. See also his remarks in the Bulletin de la société d’Anthropologie, XI, 1861, pp. 308–309, and the article by L. Wilser in L’Anthropologie, XIV, 1903, pp. 496–497.
175 : 12 seq. See the notes to p. 32 : 8; also Rice Holmes, 2, p. 337; Fleure and James, pp. 118 seq. Taylor, 1, p. 109, says that there is a superficial resemblance between the Teutons and Celts, but a radical difference in skulls, the Teutonic being more dolichocephalic. Both are tall, large-limbed and fair. The Teuton is distinguished by a pink and white skin, the Celt is more florid and inclined to freckle. The Teuton eye is blue, that of the Celt gray, green, or grayish blue.
175 : 21 seq. Rice Holmes, 2, p. 326 seq., gives a summary of the descriptions of various classic authors. Salomon Reinach, 2, pp. 80 seq., discusses Pausanias’ detailed recital of the event. For the original see Pausanias, X, 22. Cf. also the note to p. 158 : 1.
176 : 15–177 : 27. The series of notes which were collected by the author on the wanderings of these Germanic tribes proved so lengthy, and the relationships of the peoples under discussion so intricate, that they grew beyond all reasonable proportions as notes, and carried the subject far afield. Hence it has seemed best to omit them in this connection and to embody them in another work.
Perhaps it will therefore be sufficient to say here that the results of the research have made it clear that all of these tribes were related by blood and by language, and came originally from Scandinavia and the neighborhood of the Baltic Sea. For some unknown reason, such as pressure of population, they began, one after another, a southward movement in the centuries immediately before the Christian Era, which brought them within the knowledge of the Mediterranean world. Their wanderings were very extensive and covered Europe from southern Russia and the Crimea to Spain, and even to Africa. Many of these tribes broke up into smaller groups under distinct names, or united with others to form large confederacies. Not only did some of them clash with each other almost to the point of extermination in their efforts to obtain lands, but in attempting to avoid the Huns came into contact with the Romans, and broke through the frontier of the Empire at various points. From the Romans they gained many of the ideas which were later incorporated by them in the various European nations which they founded. The result of their conquests was to establish a Nordic nobility and upper class in practically every country of Europe,—a condition which has remained to the present day.
177 : 12. Varangians. See the note on the Varangians, to p. 189 : 24.
177 : 18. See Jordanes, History of the Goths.