didnt Celtic tribes defeat the Romans a few times too?
( i dont know too much about history, even though im majoring in it haha)
The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying the
> cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern Italy
> around 400 BC, when a previously unkown group of barbarians came down
> from the Alps and displaced the Etruscans from the fertile Po valley, a
> displacment that helped to push the Etruscans from history's limelight.
>
> The next encounter with the Celts came with the still young Roman Empire,
> directly to the south of the Po. The Romans in fact had sent three envoys
> to the beseiged Etruscans to study this new force. We know from Livy's
> "The Early History of Rome" that this first encounter with Rome was quite
> civilized:
>
> [The Celts told the Roman envoys that] this was indeed the first time
> they had heard of them, but they assumed the Romans must be a courageous
> people because it was to them that the [Etruscans] had turned to in their
> hour of need. And since the Romans had tried to help with an embassy and
> not with arms, they themselves would not reject the offer of peace,
> provided the [Etruscans] ceded part of their seperfluous agricultural
> land; that was what they, the Celts, wanted ... If it were not given,
> they would launch an attack before the Romans' eyes, so that the Romans
> could report back how superior the Gauls were in battle to all others ...
> The Romans then asked whether it was right to demand land from its owners
> on pain of war,
> indeed what were the Celts doing in Etruria in the first place? The
> latter defiantly retorted that their right lay in their arms: To the
> brave belong all things.
>
> The Roman envoys then preceded to break their good faith and helped the
> Etruscans in their fight; in fact, one of the envoys, Quintas Fabius
> killed one of the Celtic tribal leaders. The Celts then sent their own
> envoys to Rome in protest and demand the Romans hand over all members of
> the Fabian family (to which all three of the original Roman envoys
> belonged) a move completely in line with current Roman protocol. This of
> course presented problems for the Roman senate, since the Fabian family
> was quite powerful in Rome. Indeed, Livy says:
>
> The party structure would allow no resolution to be made against such
> nobleman as justice would have required. The Senate... therefore passed
> examination of the Celts' request to the popular assembly, in which power
> and influence naturally counted for more. So it happened that those who
> ought to have been punished were instead appointed for the coming year
> military tribunes with consular powers (the highest that could be
> granted).
>
> The Celts saw this as a mortal insult and a host marched south to Rome.
> The Celts tore through the countryside and several battalions of Roman
> soilders to lay seige to the Capitol of the Roman Empire. Seven months of
> seige led to negotiations wherby the Celts promised to leave their seige
> for a tribute of one thousand pounds of gold, which the historian Pliny
> tells was very difficult for the entire city to muster. When the gold was
> being weighed, the Romans claimed the Celts were cheating with faulty
> weights. It was then that the Celts' leader, Brennus, threw his sword
> onto the balance and uttered the words "vae victis" "Woe to the
> Defeated". Rome never endured a more humiliating defeat and the Celts
> made an initial step of magnificent proportions into history.
>
> Other Roman historians tell us more of the Celts. Diodorus notes:
>
> Their aspect is terrifying ... They are very tall in stature, with
> ripling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but not
> naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it in
> lime and combing it back from their foreheaads. They look like
> wood-demons, their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. Some of
> them are cleanshaven, but others - especially those of high rank, shave
> their cheeks but leave a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when
> they eat and drink, acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food ... The
> way they dress is astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and
> embroidered shirts, with trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at
> the shoulder with a brooch, heavy in winter, light in summer. These
> cloaks are striped or checkered in design, with the seperate checks close
> together and in various colours.
>
> [The Celts] wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even
> horns, which made them look even taller than they already are...while
> others cover themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most
> content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into
> battle ... Weird, discordant horns are sounded, [they shout in chorus
> with their deep and harsh voices], and they beat their swords rythmically
> against their shields.
>
> Diodorus also describes how the Celts cut off their enemies' heads and
> nailed them over the doors of their huts:
>
> In exactly the same way as hunters do with their skulls of the animals
> they have slain ... they preserved the heads of their most high-ranking
> victims in cedar oil, keeping them carefully in wooden boxes.
Edited by: dwid
