Celts and Iberians as Intruders and Traders
Few Invasions in 1000 Years--Broad-heads--The Cremating
People--A New Religion--Celtic People in Britain--The
Continental Celts--Were Celts Dark or Fair?--Fair Types in
Britain and Ireland--Celts as Pork Traders--The Ancient
Tin Trade--Early Explorers--Pytheas and Himilco--The
Cassiterides--Tin Mines and Surface Tin--Cornish Tin--Metals in
Hebrides and Ireland--Lead in Orkney--Dark People in Hebrides
and Orkney--Celtic Art--Homeric Civilization in Britain and
Ireland--Why Romans were Conquerors.
The beginnings of the Bronze and Iron Ages in Britain are, according
to the chronology favoured by archæologists, separated by about a
thousand years. During this long period only two or three invasions
appear to have taken place, but it is uncertain, as has been
indicated, whether these came as sudden outbursts from the Continent
or were simply gradual and peaceful infiltrations of traders and
settlers. We really know nothing about the broad-headed people who
introduced the round-barrow system of burial, or of the people who
cremated their dead. The latter became predominant in south-western
England and part of Wales. In the north of England the cremating
people were less numerous. If they were conquerors they may have,
as has been suggested, represented military aristocracies. It may
be, however, on the other hand, that the cremation custom had in
some areas more a religious than a racial significance. The beliefs
associated with cremation of the dead may have spread farther than
the people who introduced the new religion. It would appear that the
habit of burning the dead was an expression of the beliefs that souls
were transported by means of fire to the Otherworld paradise. As much
is indicated by Greek evidence. Homer's heroes burned their dead,
and when the ghost of Patroklos appeared to his friend Achilles in a
dream, he said: "Thou sleepest, and hast forgotten me, O Achilles.
Not in my life wast thou unmindful of me, but in my death. Bury me
with all speed, that I may pass the gates of Hades. Far off the
spirits banish me, the phantoms of men outworn, nor suffer me to
mingle with them beyond the River, but vainly I wander along the
wide-gated dwelling of Hades. Now give me, I pray pitifully of thee,
thy hand, for never more again shall I come back from Hades, when ye
have given me my due of fire."[81] The Arab traveller Ibn Haukal, who
describes a tenth-century cremation ceremony at Kieff, was addressed
by a Russ, who said: "As for you Arabs you are mad, for those who
are the most dear to you, and whom you honour most, you place in the
ground, where they will become a prey to worms, whereas with us they
are burned in an instant and go straight to Paradise."[82]
[81] _Iliad_, XXIII, 75 (Lang, Leaf, and Myers' translation, p.
452).
[82] _The Mythology of the Eddas_, pp. 538-9 (_Transactions of
the Royal Society of Literature_, second series, Vol. XII).
The cremating people, who swept into Greece and became the over-lords
of the earlier settlers, were represented in the western movement of
tribes towards Gaul and Britain. It is uncertain where the cremation
custom had origin. Apparently it entered Europe from Asia. The Vedic
Aryans who invaded Northern India worshipped the fire-god Agni, who
was believed to carry souls to Paradise; they cremated their dead and
combined with it the practice of _suttee_, that is, of burning the
widows of the dead. In Gaul, however, as we gather from Julius Cæsar,
only those widows suspected of being concerned in the death of their
husbands were burned. The Norsemen, however, were acquainted with
_suttee_. In one of the Volsung lays Brynhild rides towards the pyre
on which Sigurd is being burned, and casts herself into the flames.
The Russians strangled and burned widows when great men were cremated.
The cremating people erected megalithic monuments, some of which
cover their graves in Britain and elsewhere.
In some districts the intruders of the Bronze Age were the earliest
settlers. The evidence of the graves in Buchan, Aberdeenshire, for
instance, shows that the broad-heads colonized that area. It may be
that, like the later Norsemen, bands of people sought for new homes
in countries where the struggle for existence would be less arduous
than in their own, which suffered from over population, and did not
land at points where resistance was offered to them. Agriculturists
would, no doubt, select areas suitable for their mode of life and
favour river valleys, while seafarers and fishermen would cling to
the coasts. The tendency of fishermen and agriculturists to live
apart in separate communities has persisted till our own time. There
are fishing villages along the east coast of Scotland the inhabitants
of which rarely intermarry with those who draw their means of
sustenance from the land.
During the Bronze Age Celtic peoples were filtering into Britain from
Gaul. They appear to have come originally from the Danube area as
conquerors who imposed their rule on the people they subjected. Like
the Achæans who overran Greece they seem to have originally been a
vigorous pastoral people who had herds of pigs, were "horse-tamers",
used chariots, and were fierce and impetuous in battle. In time
they crossed the Rhine and occupied Gaul. They overcame the
Etruscans. In 390 B.C. they sacked Rome. Their invasion of Greece
occurred in the third century, but their attempt to reach Delphi was
frustrated. Crossing into Asia Minor they secured a footing in the
area subsequently known as Galatia, and their descendants there were
addressed in an epistle by St. Paul.
Like the Achæans, the Celts appear to have absorbed the culture of
the Ægean area and that of the Ægean colony at Hallstatt in Austria.
They were withal the "carriers" of the La Tène Iron Age culture to
Britain and Ireland. The potter's wheel was introduced by them into
Britain during the archæological early Iron Age. It is possible that
the cremating people of the Bronze Age were a Celtic people. But
later "waves" of the fighting charioteers did not cremate their dead.
Sharp difference of opinion exists between scholars regarding
the Celts. Some identify them with the dark-haired, broad-headed
Armenoids, and others with the tall and fair long-headed people
of Northern Europe. It is possible that the Celts were not a pure
race, but rather a confederacy of peoples who were influenced at
different periods by different cultures. That some sections were
confederacies or small nations of blended people is made evident by
classic references to the Celtiberians, the Celto-Scythians, the
Celto-Ligyes, the Celto-Thracians, and the Celtillyrians. On reaching
Britain they mingled with the earlier settlers, forming military
aristocracies, and dominating large areas. The fair Caledonians
of Scotland had a Celtic tribal name, and used chariots in battle
like the Continental Celts. Two Caledonian personal names are
known--Calgacus ("swordsman") and Argentocoxus ("white foot"). In
Ireland the predominant tribes before and during the early Roman
period were of similar type. Queen Meave of Connaught was like
Queen Boadicea[83] of the Iceni, a fair-haired woman who rode to
battle in a chariot.
[83] _Boudicca_ was her real name.
[Illustration: Weapons and Religious Objects (British Museum)
Bronze socketed celts, bronze dagger, sword and spear-heads from
Thames; two bronze boars with "sun-disc" ears, which were worn
on armour; bronze "sun-disc" from Ireland; "chalk drum" from
grave (Yorkshire), with ornamentation showing butterfly and St.
Andrew's Cross symbols; warrior with shield, from rock carving
(Denmark).]
The Continental trade routes up the Danube and Rhone valleys leading
towards Britain were for some centuries under the control of the
Celts. It was no doubt to obtain a control over trade that they
entered Britain and Ireland. On the Continent they engaged in pork
curing, and supplied Rome and indeed the whole of Italy with smoked
and salted bacon. Dr. Sullivan tells that among the ancient Irish
the general name for bacon was _tini_. Smoke-cured hams and flitches
were called _tineiccas_, which "is almost identical in form with
the Gallo-Roman word _taniaccae_ or _tanacae_ used by Varro for
hams imported from Transalpine Gaul into Rome and other parts of
Italy". Puddings prepared from the blood of pigs--now known as "black
puddings"--were, we learn from Varro, likewise exported from Gaul to
Italy. The ancient Irish were partial to "black puddings".[84] It
would appear, therefore, that the so-called dreamy Celt was a greasy
pork merchant.
[84] Introduction to O'Curry's _Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Irish_, Vol. I, pp. ccclxix _et seq._
According to Strabo the exports from Britain in the early part of the
first century consisted of gold, silver, and iron, wheat, cattle,
skins, slaves, and dogs; while the imports included ivory ornaments,
such as bracelets, amber beads, and glass. Tin was exported from
Cornwall to Gaul, and carried overland to Marseilles, but this does
not appear to have been the earliest route. As has been indicated,
tin appears to have been carried, before the Celts obtained control
of British trade, by the sea route to the Carthaginian colonies in
Spain.
The Carthaginians had long kept secret the sources of their supplies
of tin from the group of islands known as the Cassiterides. About
322 B.C., however, the Greek merchants at Marseilles fitted out an
expedition which was placed in charge of Pytheas, a mathematician,
for the purpose of exploring the northern area. This scholar wrote an
account of his voyage, but only fragments of it quoted by different
ancient authors have come down to us. He appears to have coasted
round Spain and Brittany, and to have sailed up the English Channel
to Kent, to have reached as far north as Orkney and Shetland, and
perhaps, as some think, Iceland, to have crossed the North Sea
towards the mouth of the Baltic, and explored a part of the coast
of Norway. He returned to Britain, which he appears to have partly
explored before crossing over to Gaul. In an extract from his diary,
quoted by Strabo, he tells that the Britons in certain districts not
detailed grew corn, millet, and vegetables. Such of them as had corn
and honey made a beverage from these materials. They brought the
corn ears into great houses (barns) and threshed them there, for on
account of the rain and lack of sunshine out-door threshing floors
were of little use to them. Pytheas noted that in Britain the days
were longer and the nights brighter than in the Mediterranean area.
In the northern parts he visited the nights were so short that the
interval between sunset and sunrise was scarcely perceptible. The
farthest north headland of Britain was Cape Orcas.[85] Six days sail
north of Britain lay Thule, which was situated near the frozen sea.
There a day lasted six months and a night for the same space of time.
[85] _Orcas_ is a Celtic word signifying "young boar".
Another extract refers to hot springs in Britain, and a presiding
deity identified with Minerva, in whose temple "the fires never go
out, yet never whiten into ashes; when the fire has got dull it
turns into round lumps like stones". Apparently coal was in use at a
temple situated at Bath. Timæus, a contemporary of Pytheas, quoting
from the lost diary of the explorer, states that tin was found on an
island called Mictis, lying inwards (northward) at a distance of six
days' sail from Britain. The natives made voyages to and from the
island in their canoes of wickerwork covered with hides. Mictis could
not have been Cornwall or an island in the English Channel. Strabo
states that Crassus, who succeeded in reaching the Cassiterides,
announced that the distance to them was greater than that from the
Continent to Britain, and he found that the tin ore lay on the
surface. Evidently tin was not mined on the island of Mictis as it
was in Cornwall in later times.
An earlier explorer than Pytheas was Himilco, the Carthaginian. He
reached Britain about 500 B.C. A Latin metrical rendering of his lost
work was made by Rufus Festus Avienus in the fourth century of our
era. Reference is made to the islands called the OEstrymnides that
"raise their heads, lie scattered, and are rich in tin and lead".
These islands were visited by Himilco, and were distant "two days
voyage from the Sacred Island (Ireland) and near the broad Isle of
the Albiones". As Rufus Festus Avienus refers to "the hardy folk of
Britain", his Albiones may have been the people of Scotland. The
name Albion was originally applied to England and Scotland. In the
first century, however, Latin writers never used "Albion" except as
a curiosity, and knew England as Britain. According to Himilco, the
Tartessi of Spain were wont to trade with the natives of the northern
tin islands. Even the Carthaginians "were accustomed to visit these
seas". From other sources we learn that the Phoenicians carried tin
from the Cassiterides direct to the Spanish port of Corbilo, the
exact location of which is uncertain.
[Illustration: ENAMELLED BRONZE SHIELD (from the Thames near
Battersea)
(British Museum)]
It is of special importance to note that the tin-stone was collected
on the surface of the islands before mining operations were
conducted elsewhere. In all probability the laborious work of digging
mines was not commenced before the available surface supplies became
scanty. According to Sir John Rhys[86] the districts in southern
England, where surface tin was first obtained, were "chiefly
Dartmoor, with the country round Tavistock and that around St.
Austell, including several valleys looking towards the southern coast
of Cornwall. In most of the old districts where tin existed, it is
supposed to have lain too deep to have been worked in early times."
When, however, Poseidonius visited Cornwall in the first century of
our era, he found that a beginning had been made in skilful mining
operations. It may be that the trade with the Cassiterides was
already languishing on account of changed political conditions and
the shortage of supplies.
[86] _Celtic Britain_, p. 44.
Where then were the Cassiterides? M. Reinach struck at the heart of
the problem when he asked, "In what western European island is tin
found?" Those writers who have favoured the group of islands off the
north-western coast of Spain are confronted by the difficulty that
these have failed to yield traces of tin, while those writers who
favour Cornwall and the Scilly Islands cannot ignore the precise
statements that the "tin islands" were farther distant from the
Continent than Britain, and that in the time of Pytheas tin was
carried from Mictis, which was six days' sail from Britain. The fact
that traces of tin, copper, and lead have been found in the Hebrides
is therefore of special interest. Copper, too, has been found in
Shetland, and lead and zinc in Orkney. Withal there are Gaelic
place-names in which _staoin_ (tin) is referred to, in Islay, Jura
(where there are traces of old mine-workings), in Iona, and on the
mainland of Ross-shire. Traces of tin are said to have been found in
Lewis where the great stone circle of Callernish in a semi-barren
area indicates the presence at one time in its area of a considerable
population. The Hebrides may well have been the OEstrymnides of
Himilco and the Cassiterides of classical writers. Jura or Iona may
have been the Mictis of Pytheas. Tin-stone has been found in Ireland
too, near Dublin, in Wicklow, and in Killarney.
The short dark people in the Hebrides and Orkney may well be, like
the Silurians of Wales, the descendants of the ancient mine workers.
They have been referred to by some as descendants of the crews of
wrecked ships of the Spanish Armada, and by others as remnants of the
Lost Ten Tribes.
In Irish Gaelic literature, however, there is evidence that the
dark people were in ancient times believed to be the descendants
of the Fir-bolgs (men with sacks), the Fir-domnann (the men who
dug the ground), and the Galioin (Gauls). Campbell in his _West
Highland Tales_ has in a note referred to the dark Hebrideans.
"Behind the fire", he wrote, "sat a girl with one of those strange
faces which are occasionally to be seen in the Western Isles, a
face which reminded me of the Nineveh sculptures, and of faces seen
in San Sebastian. Her hair was black as night, and her clear dark
eyes glittered through the peat smoke. Her complexion was dark, and
her features so unlike those who sat about her that I asked if she
were a native of the island (of Barra), and learned that she was a
Highland girl." It may be that the dark Eastern people were those who
introduced the Eastern and non-Celtic, non-Teutonic prejudice against
pork as food into Scotland. In Ireland the Celtic people apparently
obliterated the "taboo" at an early period.
It was during the Archæological Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages that
the Celtic artistic patterns reached England. These betray affinities
with Ægean motifs, and they were afterwards developed in Ireland and
Scotland. In both countries they were fused with symbols of Egyptian
and Anatolian origin.
Like the Celts and the pre-Hellenic people of Greece and Crete, the
Britons and the Irish wore breeches. The Roman poet, Martial,[87]
satirizes a _life_ "as loose as the old breeches of a British
pauper". Claudian, the poet, pictures Britannia with her cheeks
tattoed and wearing a sea-coloured cloak and a cap of bear-skin. The
fact that the Caledonians fought with scanty clothing, as did the
Greeks, and as did the Highlanders in historic times, must not be
taken as proof that they could not manufacture cloth. According to
Rhys, Briton means a "cloth clad"[88] person. The bronze fibulæ found
at Bronze Age sites could not have been used to fasten heavy skins.
[87] _Ep._ X, 22.
[88] _Celtic Britain_ (4th edition), p. 212.
When the Romans reached Britain, the natives, like the heroes of
Homer, used chariots, and had weapons of bronze and iron. The
archæology of the ancient Irish stories is of similar character.
In the Bronze Age the swords were pointed and apparently used chiefly
for thrusting. The conquerors who introduced the unpointed iron
swords were able to shatter the brittle bronze weapons. These iron
swords were in turn superseded by the pointed and well-tempered
swords of the Romans. But it was not only their superior weapons,
their discipline, and their knowledge of military strategy that
brought the Romans success. England was broken up into a number of
petty kingdoms. "Our greatest advantage", Tacitus confessed, "in
dealing with such powerful people is that they cannot act in concert;
it is seldom that even two or three tribes will join in meeting a
common danger; and so while each fights for himself they are all
conquered together."[89]
[89] Tacitus, _Agricola_, Chap. XII.
When the Britons, under Agricola, began to adopt Roman civilization
they "rose superior", Tacitus says, "by the forces of their natural
genius, to the attainments of the Gauls". In time they adopted the
Roman dress,[90] which may have been the prototype of the kilt. The
Roman language supplanted the Celtic dialects in certain parts of
England.
[90] _Agricola_, Chap. XXI.