A Brief History of the Celts (9 page)
Read A Brief History of the Celts Online
Authors: Peter Berresford Ellis
It is worth noting that the indigenous Celtic aristocracy of Ireland, whose genealogies mostly date from twelfth-century records, is one of the most ancient in Europe. Today’s surviving
heads of the Irish royal dynasties have a traceable lineage, accepted by genealogists and heralds, going back nearly 2000 years, perhaps longer if we may put some trust in the genealogies of the
earlier periods.
For example, the pedigree of the Uí Néill kings of Ulster starts with a descent from Eremon, the first Milesian monarch, who is said to have ruled the
northern half of Ireland in the year of the world (i.e. 1015
BC
), coming down forty-one generations to Lugaid Riab nDerg who ruled in
AD
65–73.
From there every generation is listed down to Niall of the Nine Hostages, who ruled in
AD
379–405. Today, the two houses of the Uí Néill dynasty, as
represented by Don Hugo O’Neill, Prince of Clanaboy, in Portugal, and Don Marcos O’Neill, 11th Marques del Granja of Seville in Spain, can trace their unbroken lines back to Niall.
Therefore, technically, they have unbroken genealogies of 3000 years. The same may be said for the current MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond, whose line descends from Eber Fionn, brother of
Eremon, who ruled the southern half of Ireland in 1015
BC
. The MacCarthys constituted the Eóghanacht dynasty in Ireland which ruled Munster in the south and later
Desmond (south Munster) until the late sixteenth century.
However, while the genealogists and heralds accept the genealogies back to the first century
AD
, they prefer to leave aside the genealogies stretching
BC
as ‘unproved’, although not going so far as some sceptical scholars who dismiss them as ‘pseudo-genealogies’ and the surrounding texts as
‘pseudo-histories’.
THE DRUIDS
T
here is no class of Celtic society that so intrigued the classical world as the Druids. The writings of the Greeks and Romans concerning Druids,
with all their misinterpretations and misconceptions, have become the basis for a veritable ‘Druid industry’ which was created from the seventeenth century and has lasted into modern
times.
We saw in Chapter 3 that Celtic society was based on a caste system and that the second level was the intellectual class. This class encompassed all the professional occupations – judges,
doctors, historians and genealogists, philosophers, story-tellers, astronomers and astrologers, as well as the priestly orders who mediated with the deities. After them, in rank, came the
warrior-nobles; the producers; the menials; and lastly those who had no position in society, hostages, prisoners and those who had lost their ‘civil rights’ through crime.
As with most things Celtic, it is the Greek writers who first record the name Druidae and then not until the second century
BC
. Diogenes Laertius, a Greek living in the
third century
AD
, quoted the works of more ancient writers, such
as Soton of Alexandria (
fl. c.
200–170
BC
),
which discussed the Druids. The name is clearly one of Celtic origin although linguists still battle over its exact meaning. There is popular support for the claims of Strabo and Pliny the Elder
that the word was cognate with the Greek word
drus
, an oak. The Indo-European root is also found in Irish and Welsh as
dair
and
dar
. Hence it is thought the word might be
dru-uid
, oak knowledge. This last
uid/wid/vid
root is the same as the Sanskrit
vid
, to know or to see, and is seen in the Hindu Vedas, which means
‘knowledge’, the most ancient religious texts surviving in an Indo-European language. Therefore the idea is that Druid means ‘those whose knowledge is great’.
The classical texts referred to Druids only in Gaul and Britain. Druids are not mentioned as existing among the Cisalpine Celts, the Iberian Celts, the eastern Celts or the Galatian Celts.
Neither are the Druids mentioned in connection with Ireland, although, of course, we know that they existed there from subsequent native literature.
Does this mean that the Druids were confined to the Gaulish and British Celts? Some scholars tend to be very literal, and where there is a source, even though written by a hostile witness, it is
often accepted without question on the basis of its antiquity.
The answer to the question, of course, depends on what your interpretation of the function of a Druid is. If one accepts that the Druids were an intellectual caste or class, as Caesar lets slip
and Dion Chrysostom later spells out, comparing them rightly with the Brahmins of Hindu society, then we may argue that Druids or their class equivalent appeared throughout Celtic society. That the
Druids encompassed several intellectual fields may certainly be accepted from the evidence.
We also find that the Celts did have specific names for their priests, such as
gutuatri
meaning ‘speakers (to the gods)’, a
Gaulish cognate to the
Irish
guth
, voice. The
gutuatri
are known from inscriptions and a reference to a
gutuatros
put to death by Caesar, mentioned in Aulus Hirtius’ addition to the
Gallic War.
Hirtius was one of Caesar’s lieutenants in Gaul.
Other words are also used to describe the priestly functions, such as
antistites
,
sacerdotes
and
semnotheoi.
The term
semnotheoi
is preserved by Laertius from
Soton and is used as a synonym for a Druid, but perhaps only describing a particular Druidic priestly function.
Several Greek and Latin writers speak of Dryades or Druidesses and the existence of such female Druids is certainly confirmed by native Celtic sources, although the classical sources seem to
place more emphasis on male Druids.
The earliest sources on the Druids, written by Greeks, are known only in quotation from the later Alexandrian school; significantly, these sources are respectful of the Druids and, indeed, the
Celts in general. We will deal with these shortly but first we must examine those sources by which the Druids have, sadly, become more popularly known: the anti-Celtic writings of the Romans and
Romanophiles.
It would appear that the work of Poseidonios (
c
. 135–
c
. 50
BC
) of Apamea, Syria, was used as the major source material on the Celts of Gaul by all
our main pro-Roman writers on the Druids. Therefore, our knowledge of the Druids, in this respect, rests with only one writer. Poseidonios’ work is used by the Alexandrian Greek, Timagenes,
c.
mid-first century
BC
; the Roman general, Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44
BC
); the Sicilian Greek, Diodorus Siculus (
c
.
60–
c.
21
BC
); and the Greek geographer from Pontus, Strabo (64
BC
–
AD
24). The scholar Alfred Klotz
believed that Poseidonios’ work had already been lost by the first century
BC
and that Timagenes was the intermediary who passed it on by quoting large sections of it.
Those quotations are substantially the passages used by all other writers.
Strabo, in his
Geographia
, says:
. . . the Druids, in addition to the science of nature, study also moral philosophy. They are believed to be the most just of men, and are therefore entrusted with the
decision of cases affecting either individuals or the public; indeed in former times they arbitrated in war and brought to a standstill the opponents when about to draw up in line of battle;
and murder cases have been mostly entrusted to their decision . . . These men, as well as other authorities, have pronounced that men’s souls and the universe are indestructible, although
at times fire or water may (temporarily) prevail.
Diodorus makes a similar statement and quotes Timagenes as the authority on the Druids. Both Strabo and Diodorus divide the Gaulish intellectual class into Bards, Vates and Druids. ‘The
Bards are singers and poets; the Vates interpreters of sacrifice and natural philosophers . . .’ We find some confirmation of this when the insular Celtic records cite the same classes of
intellectuals in Ireland –
Drui
,
Bard
and
Fili.
We can only quote Timagenes from the quotations of other writers. In disfavour with the emperor, he burnt his works before he left Rome. However, Ammianus Marcellinus (
c
.
AD
330–395), a Greek from Antioch, quotes him extensively and mentions that the Druids had an organisation, a corporate life (
sodalicis adstricti consortis
). Caesar also
says that they were a highly organised fraternity.
All the Druids are under one leader, whom they hold in the highest respect. On his death, if any one of the rest is of outstanding merit, he succeeds to the vacant place; if
several have equal claims, the Druids usually decide the election by voting, though sometimes they actually fight it out. On a fixed date in each year they hold a session in a consecrated
spot in the country of the Carnutes, which is supposed to be the centre of Gaul.
The Carnutes were the Celtic tribe in the region between the Seine and the Loire. The chief town of the tribe was Cennabum which is present-day Orléans.
Diodorus gives a much more comprehensive description of the Celts of Gaul than do his contemporaries, and he dwells on their belief in the immortality of the soul. There can be little doubt
however that Strabo and Diodorus are ultimately deriving their information from a common source for they appear to be following a similar text. But Strabo’s work was a pointed attack on the
Celts which was written as a justification for the conquest of Gaul and subsequent attempts to suppress the Celtic intelligentsia and their centres of learning.
Caesar, at least, is quite clear on who the Druids are. He calls them ‘an intellectual class’.
The Druids officiate at the worship of the gods, regulate public and private sacrifices [rituals], and give rulings on all religious questions. Large numbers of young men
flock to them for instruction, and they are held in great honour by the people. They act as judges in practically all disputes, whether between tribes or between individuals; when any crime is
committed or a murder takes place, or a dispute arises about an inheritance or a boundary, it is they who adjudicate the matter and appoint the compensation to be paid and received by the
parties concerned. Any individual or tribe failing to accept their award is banned from taking part in sacrifice [religious service] – the heaviest punishment that can be inflicted upon a
Gaul. Those who are under such a ban are regarded as impious criminals. Everyone shuns them and avoids going near or speaking to them, for fear of taking some harm by contact with what is
unclean; if they
appear as plaintiffs, justice is denied them and they are excluded from a share in any honour.
Because of the special position of the Druids in society, Caesar informs us:
The Druids are exempt from military service and do not pay taxes like other citizens. These important privileges are naturally attractive; many present themselves of their
own accord to become students of Druidism, and others are sent by their parents and relatives. It is said that these people have to memorise a great number of verses – so many that some
spend twenty years at their studies.
What is interesting is that Caesar adds:
The Druidic doctrine is believed to have been found existing in Britain and thence imported into Gaul; even today those who want to make a profound study of it generally go
to Britain for the purpose.
This seems to imply that there were colleges and schools in Britain and, indeed, in Ireland.
Caesar’s description of the Druids dwells mostly on their religious aspect and so, to the undiscerning reader, they appear simply as a priesthood. We have already discussed in Chapter 2
his comments on the fact that the Druids were forbidden to commit their teachings to writing. Another of his observations, echoed by the other writers, is:
A lesson which they take particular pains to inculcate is that the soul does not perish, but after death passes from one body to another; they think that this is the best
incentive to bravery, because it teaches men to disregard the terrors of death.
Caesar points out:
They also hold long discussions about the heavenly bodies and their movements, the size of the universe and of the earth, the physical constitutions of the world, and the
powers and properties of the gods; and they instruct the young men in all these subjects.
We will deal with the cosmological ideas and beliefs of the Celts in Chapter 9.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43
BC
), who was acquainted with the
princeps
of the Aedui, Diviciacus, says he was also a Druid.
The system of divination is not even neglected among barbaric peoples, since in fact there are Druids in Gaul; I myself knew one of them, Diviciacus, of the Aedui, your
guest and eulogist, who declared that he was acquainted with the system of nature which the Greeks call natural philosophy and he used it to predict the future by augury and inference.
Pliny the Elder was of a family of Roman colonists who settled among the Celts of the Po valley after their conquest. His
Naturalis Historia
is his chief and only surviving work, in
which he gives one of the most complete accounts of the Druids as natural scientists, doctors of medicine and magicians. As Pliny was himself fascinated by magic, it is understandable that he
should dwell on this aspect. Pliny was the first writer to bring the oak grove into our popular picture of Druids, as well as mistletoe.
The Druids – for so they [the Celts] call their
magi
– hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows provided that it is an
oak. They choose the oak to form groves, and they do not perform any religious
rites without its foliage, so that it can be seen that the Druids are so called from the
Greek word.
