The warlike nature of the Celts is a subject of frequent comment. Aristotle refers to it,[73] and Aelian says Ἀνθρώπων ἐγὼ ἀκούω φιλοκινδυνοτάτους εἶναι τοὺς Κέλτους.[74] Pausanias considered them very barbarous. Their equipment for war, in which they were supposed to excel, was primitive: they had no defensive armour except shields. Of scientific warfare they knew nothing, and when they charged it was without order, like a troop of wild animals.[75] In these accounts a margin must be left for prejudice and lack of understanding on the part of the narrator. For we hear a good deal about education from various sources. Three classes of skilled men were held in particular honour among the Celts:[76] the βάρδοι, who chanted hymns in honour of the valiant; τῶν μὲν ᾀσμάτων ὑποθέσεις ποιοῦνται τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς ἀποθανόντας ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ καλῶς:[77] the Οὐάτεις (Vates), who performed sacrifice and studied natural science; and the Δρυΐδαι, who studied science and ethics and theology. The bards also were the representatives of that eloquent temperament which is associated with Gaul from the earliest times, and which enabled subsequent Gallic writers and orators to assimilate classical rhetoric. They sing public panegyrics (μετ’ ᾠδῆς ἐπαίνους λέγοντες) and are taken with the army to eulogize the heroes of war.[78] They are called ποιηταὶ μελῶν by Diodorus,[79] who is constrained to remark οὕτω καὶπαρὰ τοῖς ἀγριωτάτοις βαρβάροις ὁ θυμὸς εἴκει τῇ σοφίᾳ καὶ ὁ Ἄρης αἰδεῖται τὰς Μούσας, a somewhat unusual admission, for a Greek, of culture among ‘barbarians’. It must be clearly understood, however, that they had not elaborated a system of rhetoric or studied scientifically the art of speaking. All we can say is that they had a kind of imagination and a quick enthusiasm which gave them a rough natural oratory, and made them apt students of the rhetoric which the Greeks and Romans brought. The richness and pomposity of subsequent Gallic orators was due rather to the advent of the rhetorical system and, perhaps, to the influence of Roman character, than to native Celtic qualities. Caesar does not mention the Bardi and the Vates, but only the Druids, who belonged to the upper classes, and were held in high honour as the teachers and priests of the nation. ‘They administer divine rites, attend to public and private sacrifice, and expound theology: to them a large number of youths resort for training, and great is the honour in which they are held.’[80] It is said that there were girls’ schools kept by the wives of the Druids,[81] a statement which seems to be supported by the frequent mention of female Druids, Drysidae, in later times. Their learning was thought to be derived from Britain, whither students went from Gaul.[82] Freedom from military service and public duties was granted them—a curious anticipation of the concessions granted to teachers in imperial times. Hence there were many candidates for the office, and large numbers were sent by their parents to undergo the training which sometimes lasted twenty years.[83] The students learnt by heart a great many verses, which were not written down, for this they did not consider right (fas), though for secular purposes they used Greek letters. Examples of this writing have been preserved.[84] The Druids taught the doctrine of immortality and the transmigration of souls.[85] Astronomy, physical science, and theology also formed part of their training.[86] Science was still studied by the Druids in Cicero’s time. ‘In Gaul too’ (he says), ‘there are Druids (and I had personal acquaintance with one of them, the Aeduan Divitiacus) who professed a knowledge of natural science, which the Greeks call φυσιολογία.’[87]
This education, however, was purely one of class and profession. ‘Docent multa nobilissimos gentis’, says Mela.[88] Lucan apostrophizes the Druids, as those who alone had the privilege of knowing or not knowing the gods, dwelling in the sequestered glades of deep forests.[89]
Knowledge, thus monopolized, must have grown unhealthy, and we hear of the riddling speech and obscure phrases with which the Druids worked on the superstitions of the people.[90] Monnard observes that the darkness of this Celtic philosophy was dispelled by the light of Massilia.[91]
Yet the Celts had made their contribution. For we must remember that in the centuries just preceding the Christian era it was the Celts who gave the lead to the Teutonic peoples in culture. Towards the end of the fifth century B.C. Celtic civilization flourished exceedingly. The ‘La Tène Civilization’—as the archaeologists call it—shows artistic products of fine taste and technical perfection. The centre of this civilization was perhaps in Southern France, whence it spread throughout Europe along the Rhine, the Rhone, the Danube, until it was succeeded by Graeco-Roman culture. And it was only between 100-70 B.C. that the Celts were expelled from lower Germany.[92]
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it took so long for the Druids to disappear from the scene, representing as they did so ancient a culture. We should expect the warders of a national religion and tradition to be conservative, and we find that they even played a political part. In the confusion of the year A.D. 70, when the Capitol was burnt down, they circulated a rumour among the Celts that the event portended the passing of the power from the Romans to the Gauls,[93] seeing that the Capitol had once proved to be the only obstacle to Brennus’s victorious march. It was natural, then, that the Roman imperial policy should aim at the removal of an element which fostered the national sentiment.[94] Augustus later followed this tendency when he forbade the Druid’s worship to Roman citizens in Gaul, and Claudius (we are told by Suetonius) abolished once for all their monstrous practices.[95] So Aurelius Victor[96] attributes the complete suppression of the Druids to Claudius. Accordingly, when we find Pliny[97] saying that it was Tiberius who suppressed the Druids, there is a suspicion that he is guilty of a confusion: Claudius’s first name having been Tiberius.
It is clear that definite attempts were made to wipe out Druidism and the Celtic element. But they showed a remarkable tenacity in spite of laws and edicts. The elder Pliny refers to them as surviving in his time,[98] and Flavius Vopiscus (third century) tells of certain ‘wise women’ who called themselves Dryades (mulier dryas, drysada) and were, by a strange irony, consulted (if we may believe the fanciful Scriptores Historiae Augustae), even by persons in high imperial authority. Aurelianus was said to have consulted them about the future of his imperial office,[99] and a Druid prophesied the throne to Diocletian ‘cum aprum occideris’.[100] The prophetic influence seems in these later times to have passed from the men to the women, who become recognized semi-officially, and form, on a small scale, a sort of Delphic oracle.
Nothing is more difficult than to make a people forget its language, as Fauriel[101] has remarked, especially a people that largely lives on the land. This dictum, which history has so often illustrated, is instanced also by the tenacity of Celtic in Gaul. It penetrates right into the fourth and fifth centuries, and, since language and education hang so closely together, it is worth while to look into the evidence. More than 10,000 inscriptions have been found in Gaul, and of these a large number relate to the lower classes. Yet we find that scarcely twenty are in Celtic, and these probably are not later than the first century A.D.[102] This does not mean that Celtic died out then; it was never much of a written language, for the Druids had a distinct prejudice against writing, and recorded only secular matters.[103]
Strabo[104] says that the people in Narbonne began to accept Latin only in the reign of Tiberius, and it is in Narbonne that the most and best Latin inscriptions are found. Irenaeus, writing from Lyons in the second century, begs to be excused from rhetorical polish, seeing that he lives among the Celts—περὶ βάρβαρον διάλεκτον τὸ πλεῖστον ἀσχολουμενων (ἡμῶν).[105] In the following century we find Alexander Severus, in preparing his last expedition, being met by a female Druid who prophesied his death in Celtic (Gallico sermone)[106]—though the reference may have been inserted merely to adorn a tale, and Gallicus sermo may stand for Gallic Latin. At any rate, Celtic was not entirely forgotten in Ausonius’s day (fourth century), who refers to Patera, rhetor at Bordeaux, as ‘stirpe Druidarum satus’, while Phoebicius similarly is ‘stirpe satus Druidum’,[107] and is, moreover, the ‘temple-warder of Belenus’,[108] the Celtic Apollo, just as the race of Patera comes ‘Beleni ... e templo’. In satirizing the pedantic trifling of the grammarian, Ausonius gives ‘al’ and ‘tau’ as Celtic letters.[109] Even Sidonius in the fifth century has to notice it, in spite of his Roman disdain. It was owing to the zeal of Ecdicius, he says,[110] that the nobility of Gaul became cultured—‘sermonis Celtici squamam depositura’, a statement which shows that the old language was still to be reckoned with. It is rather an irony of fate that the style of Sidonius—the one point on which he prided himself—undoubtedly owes its exotic character in order, rhythm, and vocabulary[111] to Celtic and Gothic influence. His elaborate scorn for what is foreign recoils on his own head.
One final instance of the survival of Celtic must be mentioned for the controversy which it has evoked. Jerome says that the Galatians in his day had practically the same native language as the Treveri.[112] Was this language Celtic? Freeman[113] thinks that Jerome’s word may be doubted, as he was not a philologist. This would seem to rule out all the witnesses, for philology is an entirely modern development; and it would hardly have been indispensable for forming so simple a judgement. Jerome, moreover, is a considerable authority, the most learned of the Fathers. Lavisse[114] has recently accepted his statement. He mentions the objection of Perrot,[115] who maintains that Celtic had long vanished from Asia Minor, and of Fustel de Coulanges,[116] who says that the language of the Treveri was German, and answers: (1) that Celtic survived in the speech if not in the documents of Asia Minor, and (2) that Coulanges is wrong; the names of the Treveri are Celtic. This being granted, it would seem that Celtic survived well into the fifth century, and this conclusion appears to be reinforced in extent and significance by Freeman’s statement that there was a survival of the Celtic language and sentiment in Brittany during the fifth century.[117] But this statement is misleading. It is generally admitted that Gallic had entirely gone out of use in Armorica, when the fugitives from Great Britain settled in the country and introduced their insular speech from the fifth century onwards. And Breton is more closely allied to Welsh and Old Cornish than to Gallic. On the whole we must say that the evidence of modern philology points to a less considerable influence of the Celtic element than we should expect. Celtic was overshadowed by German, and especially, of course, Latin. Hitherto modern philology has found traces of Celtic loan-words in the following spheres: agriculture, carriage-building, the names of animals, trees, and plants, the parts of the body, items of clothing, weapons, and geographical terms.[118] The inscriptions in Gaul show words like cantalon,[119] a kind of building, and cantuna (canteen) which the philologists pronounce to be of Celtic origin.[120] We must conclude, therefore, that while sporadic traces of Celtic are undoubtedly found in the fifth century (as in the case of the Treviri, who in their secluded valley would naturally retain the ancient language longer than the people around them), the language had, in the main, disappeared by that time.