A Brief History of the Celts (10 page)

Pliny thereby opened the floodgates for writers to conjure images of Druids and oaks and mistletoe. Lucan in his
Pharsalia
has the Druids parading around eerie enchanted woods in secret
groves. Lactantius Placidus, in his commentary on the
Thebais
of Publius Statius, talks of the Druids as ‘those who delight in oaks’ and speaks of such groves as ‘dense
and ancient, untouched by human hand and impervious to the beams of the sun. There the pale and uncertain light serves only to increase the awe and ominous silence.’

Pliny becomes lyrical on the Druids and oaks.

One cannot help but agree with the Celtic scholar Nora Chadwick when she describes this as a ‘picturesque fantasia’ ranking with stories of King Alfred and the
burning of the cakes or Cnut and the waves or Bruce and the spider. It has become a classic of universal popular knowledge but without substance.

Cornelius Tacitus gives us invaluable information on Druids as historians when, in his
Histories
, he speaks of attempts to stir up insurrection in Gaul in
AD
69.

The fact that in
AD
69 the Druid historians of Gaul retained a knowledge of the defeat and occupation of Rome in
c
. 390
BC
is fascinating
and shows clearly how well the oral traditions were kept by the Celts. This should persuade us to pay more attention to the histories of Ireland dealing with ancient times but not committed to
writing until the Christian period. Oral tradition must have been just as reliable as written tradition.

The early surviving sources about the Druids are written in support of Rome and its conquest of the Celts and suppression of the Druids. In
AD
54 the Roman emperor
Claudius officially prohibited the Druids by law. It was an obvious move for Rome to make: in order to conquer any people and absorb
them, you first have to get rid of their
intellectuals and destroy their cultural knowledge. It is only later that there emerged a group of Greek scholars, mainly in the school of Alexandria, who began to examine older Greek sources and
develop a less bellicose and more appreciative view of the role of the Druids. This group was mainly concerned with gathering sources and traditions and meticulously citing their authorities,
creating encyclopedias rather than producing first-hand empirical observations.

Professor Stuart Piggott tended to be dismissive of ‘all second-hand library work, with no empirical observations’ or ‘field work among the Celts’. As opposed to the
Roman-orientated accounts which sought to denigrate the Celts and Druids, he believed that the Alexandrian texts idealised the Druids. Certainly we could go so far as to say that the Alexandrian
school was not concerned with propaganda in support of the Roman empire.

It is thanks to the Alexandrian school that we have references to earlier writers who had studied the Celts and the Druids but whose work no longer survived in its entirety. Timaeus (
c
.
356–260
BC
) was used extensively as an authority by Diogenes Laertius and Clement of Alexandria. Soton of Alexandria (
fl
. 200–170
BC
) was another major source quoted. Greek writers from Herodotus (
c
. 490–425
BC
) to Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor (b.
c.
105
BC
) are quoted, although they did not use the specific term ‘Druid’ to describe Celtic intellectuals.

Dion Chrysostom (first century
AD
) was the first figure of importance in the new school and he had indeed conducted ‘field work’, having come from Bithynia
next to Galatia and travelled widely there among the Celts. He is highly respectful of the Druids whom he compares, accurately, with the Brahmins of Hindu society. He mentions their intellectual
attainments, crediting them with advances in branches of ancient wisdom, and describes their political influence.

It is from the Alexandrian school that we first hear of the similarities between Druidical teaching and Pythagorean teaching, although opinion differed as to the direction in which this
knowledge had travelled. Hippolytus (
c
.
AD
170–
c
. 236) claimed that the Druids adopted Pythagorean ideas through the agency of Pythagoras’
slave Zalmoxis, a Thracian who, according to Hippolytus, took the teaching to the Celts. Clement of Alexandria (
c
.
AD
150–211/216), on the other hand, argued
that Pythagoras picked up his ideas from the Celts, specifically the Druids.

In fact, the reincarnation philosophy of Pythagoras and his followers is only superficially the same as the teaching of the Celts. We will discuss this matter in more detail in Chapter 13.

It was Diogenes Laertius who wrote that the Druids taught in triads and that the basis of their philosophy was ‘to honour the gods, to do no evil, and to practise bravery’. Laertius
quotes from a writer called Aristotle who wrote a work called
Magicus
. However, this Aristotle is not to be confused with the famous Aristotle (384–322
BC
),
the pupil of Plato. The Aristotle who wrote
Magicus
was writing in the second century
BC
, and his is one of the earliest works to mention the Druids and deal with
Celtic philosophy.

By the time the Celts started to commit their knowledge to writing in their own tongue, not only had their world become very much reduced in size but they had become Christian. This very act of
becoming Christian was the means whereby the Druidic proscription on committing their knowledge to
writing was lifted. Yet, at the same time, the general Christian attitude
was to depict their pagan forefathers, especially the Druids, in as biased a manner as the pro-Roman writers had, but for different reasons.

In the emerging Christian world, the Druids were generally portrayed as opponents to Christianity, upholders of the ancient religion, and thereby were relegated to the role of shamans, magicians
and ‘witch doctors’ although the degree of prejudice varied from writer to writer. There existed a sufficient number of writers, particularly among the early Irish scribes, who were
still respectful of the Druids as an intellectual class and, indeed, held the view that the early Celtic saints were Druids, members of that class.

The references in the Irish texts and in the law texts agree that the Druids were regarded as the intellectual class in Ireland as well as in Gaul and Britain, and that their number included all
the learned professions. The scholar P.W. Joyce listed eight points of similarity between the Irish and the Gaulish Druids, according to textual evidence.

As Christianity began to absorb the Celtic peoples, the Druids, both male and female, as the intellectuals, were the first to encompass the new learning. The fact that many of the early Celtic
saints, male and female, were Druids or the children of Druids is significant. Christianity did not fight a battle with the Druids; the Druids absorbed the new religion and were the first to start
promulgating its beliefs, thus giving rise to the phenomenon we now call the Celtic Church.

The term ‘Celtic Church’ is not strictly an accurate one because the early Christian churches among the Celtic peoples were in most essentials based on the Roman Christian ethos.
Neither was there an identifiable organisation with a central leadership. Nevertheless, the Celtic population had developed their own form of Christianity and its ideas and customs were firmly
based on their own cultural expression. It produced several fascinating early Church philosophers, such as Hilary of
Poitier and the famous Pelagius. It was Pelagius who was
accused of trying to ‘revive Druidic natural philosophy’ and was eventually excommunicated by Rome after a conflict with Augustine of Hippo (
AD
354–430).

For some centuries afterwards, Rome continued to accuse the Celts of following the teachings of Pelagius. In fact, all they were doing was following their own centuries-old philosophical
outlook. This is amplified in Chapter 13.

Unfortunately, during the seventeenth century, in Germany, France and England, romantics began to reinvent the Druids having, in the wake of the Renaissance, discovered references to them in
works such as Caesar’s. Today there are countless ‘Druidic movements’ throughout the world, none of which has anything to do with the Druids of reality; with the Druids who were
the intellectual class of Celtic society in the ancient world.

CELTIC WARRIORS

T
he ancient Celts have been painted by classical writers as savage and making war for no reason at all except the ‘fun’ of it. They
were, according to these writers, merely simple, barbaric children. As Strabo says: ‘The whole race . . . is madly fond of war, and they are high-spirited and quick for battle, but otherwise
simple . . .’ Pausanias says that ‘they rushed on their enemies with the unreasoning fury and passion of wild beasts. They had no kind of reasoning at all. They slashed with axe or
sword and blind fury never left them until they were killed.’ Livy, Florus and many others speak of Celtic warriors ‘fighting like wild beasts’.

This is the image of the Celts that has been passed down even to the present day. Is it a just view? After all, the very people producing these descriptions of the Celts were also the same
people who were conducting a systematic war against them. The conquerors always write the history books and we see the conquered through their prejudiced eyes.

Discerning historians have begun to read the ancient texts more carefully. For example, it is generally accepted that a
Celtic horde, for no reason at all, swept down on
Rome in July 390
BC
and attacked it. In fact, the story of Rome’s conquest was not that simple.

We learn that one tribe, the Senones, had crossed the Apennines in search of new land to settle and had encamped outside the Etruscan city of Clusium. Brennus, their leader, asked the city
fathers to grant them lands on which to settle in peace. The city elders viewed the newcomers as a threat and appealed to Rome, which had just exerted its military authority over the old Etruscan
empire. Rome sent three ambassadors, the Fabii brothers, to negotiate between the Celts and Clusium. The Fabii brothers were young and arrogant.

Due to their arrogance, negotiations quickly broke down. An Etruscan army marched out of Clusium to face the Senones. Even Livy says that the Roman ambassadors then made a fatal step:
‘they broke the law of nations and took up arms’. During the battle, the Fabii joined the ranks of the Etruscans and Quintus Fabius killed a Celtic chieftain. When the Celts realised
that the supposedly ‘neutral’ Roman ambassadors were actually fighting for the Etruscans, they broke off the battle and withdrew to discuss this breach of international law.

The Celts were strict believers in law and the role of ambassador was a sacred trust. Indeed, the Romans later incorporated into Latin the Celtic word
ambactus
, which became
‘ambassador’ in many modern European languages. The Celts were horrified by the Romans’ behaviour. They held a council meeting and decided to send their own ambassadors to Rome to
lodge a complaint with the Roman Senate.

We are told that the Roman Senate, having listened to the Celtic ambassadors, found that the Celtic demand for an apology was reasonable; however, according to Livy and Plutarch, the Fabii were
so powerful as patricians that the Senate felt obliged not to take action. They referred the matter to the people of Rome who not only approved of their actions
but, to add
insult to injury, elected the Fabii as military tribunes with consular powers for the following year. Livy admits: ‘The Celtic envoys were naturally – and rightly –
indignant!’

Plutarch even says that the
fetiales
, the college of Roman priests, selected for life among the patrician class and specialists in international law and negotiations, denounced the
actions of the Fabii. However, Rome had made its decision. The Celtic ambassadors warned Rome of the consequence. The Senones, and we are speaking of one Celtic tribe here, then marched on Rome to
exact retribution. It was a distance of 130 kilometres from Clusium. They did not harm anyone on their march to the city.