An outline, era by era

Celtic and Germanic peoples of Europe

Classical Antiquity · ~500 BCE – ~500 CE

The Celts and the Germanic peoples were two major groups of Indo-European-speaking peoples in Europe north of the Mediterranean world in the centuries around the start of the common era. They lived alongside many other peoples, such as Illyrians, Dacians, Balts and Slavic-speaking groups. Celtic-speaking communities, linked to the Hallstatt and La Tène material cultures, spread across central and western Europe, Britain and Ireland, and into Anatolia, where the Galatians settled. Germanic-speaking peoples lived further north and east, in Scandinavia, the north European plain and beyond the Rhine and Danube.

Our written knowledge comes mostly from outsiders, such as Greek and Roman authors, so names like Celts, Gauls and Germani were often labels applied by others rather than a shared identity. Rome conquered Gaul and much of Britain. It campaigned east of the Rhine and held the Agri Decumates between the Rhine and Danube for a time, but never made a lasting province of most of Germania. From the third to fifth centuries CE, Germanic groups such as the Goths, Franks and Vandals moved into and carved out kingdoms within the Roman world. Their descendants, with the surviving Celtic-speaking peoples of the Atlantic fringe, shaped medieval Europe.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Gauls sack Rome and invade Greece

    Event

    What happened

    Around 390 BCE (traditionally 387 or 390) a Gallic army defeats the Romans at the river Allia and enters Rome, which is plundered and partly burned. In 279 BCE Celtic forces raid Macedonia and Greece and attack Delphi. In 278 to 277 BCE several groups cross into Anatolia, and later settle there as the Galatians.

    The rest is history

    These movements show Celtic-speaking groups were mobile and militarily formidable. The Roman memory of the sack made Rome fearful of Gauls for centuries and shaped its later campaigns in northern Italy. The Galatians gave their name to a region of central Anatolia, where a Celtic language was reportedly still spoken in late antiquity. Rome conquered Cisalpine Gaul in the following centuries.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPolybius. Histories, Book 2. Greek history, c. 150 BCE.
    2. PrimaryLivy. Ab Urbe Condita, Book 5. Latin history, late 1st century BCE.
    3. BookCunliffe, Barry. The Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

  2. Caesar conquers Gaul

    Event

    What happened

    From 58 to 50 BCE Julius Caesar campaigns across Gaul, defeating the Helvetii, the Belgae and others. In 52 BCE the Arvernian leader Vercingetorix leads a wide revolt and is besieged and forced to surrender at Alesia. Caesar also crosses the Rhine and makes short expeditions to Britain in 55 and 54 BCE.

    The rest is history

    Gaul became a group of Roman provinces, and Latin gradually replaced Gaulish, leading to the later French language. Caesar's Commentaries are the main written source on Gauls and Germani and shaped later ideas of the Rhine as a boundary. Archaeologists identified Alesia at Alise-Sainte-Reine, where Roman siege works have been excavated.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCaesar, Julius. Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Latin commentaries, c. 50 BCE.
    2. BookGoldsworthy, Adrian. Caesar: Life of a Colossus. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

  3. The Cimbri and Teutones invade

    Event

    What happened

    Around 113 BCE the Cimbri and Teutones, with allies, move south from northern Europe and defeat several Roman armies, notably at Arausio in 105 BCE. Gaius Marius defeats the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae in 102 BCE and the Cimbri at Vercellae in 101 BCE.

    The rest is history

    This was the first major clash between Rome and peoples from beyond the Alps who came from northern Europe. Their languages and ethnic makeup are uncertain, and they cannot confidently be called Germanic-speaking. Marius gained great prestige and repeated consulships from the crisis, and older accounts credit it with prompting his army reforms, though that link is debated. Roman writers later called such northerners Germani, a term Caesar used more firmly in the 50s BCE.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryPlutarch. Life of Marius. Greek biography, c. 100 CE.
    2. BookWells, Peter S. The Barbarians Speak: How the Conquered Peoples Shaped Roman Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

  4. Arminius and the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

    Event

    What happened

    In 9 CE the Cheruscan leader Arminius, who had served in the Roman army, ambushes three Roman legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus in northern Germany. The legions are destroyed. Roman campaigns under Germanicus follow in 14 to 16 CE, but Rome does not establish a lasting province east of the Rhine.

    The rest is history

    The defeat ended Rome's attempt to organise a province between the Rhine and the Elbe, though Roman campaigns east of the Rhine continued for decades. Kalkriese, near Osnabrück, is the leading proposed site of the battle, where Roman coins, weapons and rampart remains have been found since the 1987 excavations, but the identification is still debated. Arminius later became a German national symbol in the 19th century.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTacitus. Annals, Book 1. Latin history, early 2nd century CE.
    2. BookWells, Peter S. The Battle That Stopped Rome. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.

  5. The Goths cross the Danube

    Event

    What happened

    In 376 CE Gothic groups, pressed by the Huns, ask to enter the Roman Empire across the Danube. They are admitted, but harsh treatment leads to revolt. In 378 CE they defeat and kill the emperor Valens at Adrianople. In 410 CE the Goths under Alaric sack Rome.

    The rest is history

    Over the fifth century Germanic groups settled within imperial territory, forming kingdoms of Visigoths, Franks, Vandals and Burgundians. The last western emperor was deposed in 476 CE. Historians debate how far this was invasion and how far gradual transformation.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAmmianus Marcellinus. Res Gestae, Book 31. Latin history, late 4th century CE.
    2. BookHeather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire. London: Macmillan, 2005.

  6. The Druids and the burning wicker man

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Druids are said to have been Celtic priests who worshipped in oak groves and burned victims alive in giant wicker figures. They are often pictured building Stonehenge.

    The rest is history

    Caesar describes Gaulish druids and says some sacrifices used large wickerwork figures filled with people. Strabo also describes such wicker figures, probably following earlier Greek sources, and Diodorus and Pliny report druidic sacrifice too. All were outsiders who may have repeated hearsay or hostile claims. Tacitus describes druids on Anglesey, attacked by Rome in 60 or 61 CE. Stonehenge was built thousands of years before druids are recorded, mostly between about 3000 and 1500 BCE.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryCaesar, Julius. Commentarii de Bello Gallico, Book 6. Latin commentaries, c. 50 BCE.
    2. BookHutton, Ronald. The Druids. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007.

  7. Boudica's revolt

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    After the death of her husband Prasutagus, Boudica, queen of the Iceni, is flogged and her daughters are abused by Roman officials. She rallies the tribes of eastern Britain, burns Roman towns, and speaks to her army from a chariot before the final battle.

    The rest is history

    The revolt of about 60 or 61 CE is real. Tacitus and Cassius Dio describe it, though Dio's speeches are his own composition. Archaeology shows a burnt layer at Colchester, London and St Albans. The Romans under Suetonius Paulinus won, and Boudica died, by poison or illness according to the sources.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTacitus. Annals, Book 14. Latin history, early 2nd century CE.
    2. BookWebster, Graham. Boudica: The British Revolt Against Rome AD 60. London: Batsford, 1978.

  8. Origin of the Germans from the god Tuisto

    Origin story

    The legend

    The Germans are said to sing of a god, Tuisto, born of the earth, and his son Mannus, as the founders of their people. Mannus's three sons gave their names to the groups Ingaevones, Herminones and Istaevones.

    The rest is history

    This comes from Tacitus's Germania, written about 98 CE. He reports it as old songs but is a Roman outsider, and his account is shaped by his moral aims. Nothing else survives to confirm the tradition. The Germania was rediscovered in the 15th century and strongly influenced later ideas of German origins.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTacitus. Germania. Latin ethnographic work, c. 98 CE.
    2. BookRives, J. B. Tacitus: Germania. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.

  9. The Cattle Raid of Cooley

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    In the Irish tale Táin Bó Cúailnge, Queen Medb of Connacht invades Ulster to seize a prized brown bull. The young hero Cú Chulainn holds back her army alone at the border fords, fighting one champion after another.

    The rest is history

    The tale's language and oral layers may be earlier, but its surviving manuscripts are medieval, chiefly from the 12th century. It is therefore not a contemporary record of ancient Celts. It reflects early medieval Ireland's memory of an older heroic age. Its world of chariots, cattle raiding and warrior feasts has parallels in other descriptions of Iron Age Celtic society, but is not direct evidence for it.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTáin Bó Cúailnge. Old and Middle Irish prose epic, surviving recensions in manuscripts of the 12th century CE and later.
    2. BookKinsella, Thomas. The Táin. Dublin: Dolmen Press, 1969.

  10. The Celts as a single people

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A widely repeated belief holds that the Celts were one unified people who spread out of one homeland across Europe, and that modern Celtic nations descend directly from them.

    The rest is history

    Greek writers used Keltoi for peoples in western and central Europe, but there was no common political unity or name for themselves. Shared art styles such as La Tène and related languages do appear across a wide area. The idea of Celts in Britain and Ireland as a single ancient people was largely a modern one, strongly criticised by some archaeologists since the 1990s. Celtic is firmly a language family, shown by inscriptions in Gaulish, Celtiberian and others.

    Sources

    1. BookCollis, John. The Celts: Origins, Myths and Inventions. Stroud: Tempus, 2004.
    2. BookJames, Simon. The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? London: British Museum Press, 1999.

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