The Celtic empire, called Celtic by the Romans, was at its greatest extent for some centuries before 300 a.c., and stretched from Ireland to Asia Minor. With their warlike colonies the Celts had ploughed a deep furrow over the ancient world in every direction, in the valleys of the Danube, Rhine, Po, Seine, Rhone, Loire, Thames and Douro; the Danube continued to remain a Celtic river until its basin was absorbed in the Roman empire. They have left imperishable traces of their wander ings on the topography of Europe. Wherever there is a plate the second term of whose name is derived from dunum (a fortified place), e.g., Carrodunum (Krappitz on the Oder) and Noviodunum (Isaktcha in Rumania), ritum (a ford), magus (a field), brigs (a hill), for example, it marks a Celtic settlement and such places are found over a wide belt as far north as Westphalia and as far east as the Dobrudja and southern Russia. The Celts were known to the Germans as Volcae, the name of a Celtic tribe on the upper Danube, and it is by this name, Germanized to Walah, that the Germans afterward knew the successors of the Celts, viz., the Romans and the Romance speaking peoples of the Empire; whence, Wallachia, Walloons, Welsh, Wales, etc. The Celts suc cumbed to the Carthaginians, the Roman legions and Teutonic tribes. For 250 years, but especially during the 1st century B.c., the Romans fought them in northern Italy and it took 350 years to Romanize them. But, as a result of Roman conquest and Germanic in vasion, the continental Celts were absorbed and lost to history. In modern times they have almost succumbed to the inroads of the Danes, the Normans and the Saxons,- They had never formed a political unity under one supreme authority. The nearest they approached to it was under King Ambicatus and their near est approach to a confederation was dur ing the heroic defense, in the year 50 s.c., under Vercingetorix, before the fortress of Alesia. But if they had no strongly centralized power, they possessed a linguistic unity over against Greek, Latin and German speech and to a cer tain extent a moral, cultural and religious unity which was probably greater than the scattered documents would lead us to believe. It is. a misfortune that their civilization was cut off before it had time to mature. Archeol ogy and Celtic literature have shown that the Celts possessed a civilization, intellectually, in dustrially and socially considerably higher than that of their German neighbors across the Rhine, and that their influence spread even over regions into which the arms of the Celts never penetrated. What archeologists call the La
Tine period, or Late Celtic, a comparatively high stage of civilization which extended from about 400 B.C. to 1 A.D., arose in southern Ger many along the Rhine in the centre of what was specifically Celtic territory. In certain respects the insular Celts (in Britain and Ire land), even at the time when Christianity was introduced among them, were at a more primitive stage of civilization than their kins men in Gaul in the time of Julius Caesar. As for the character of the ancient Celts, we must remember that almost all our information on the subject comes from the writings of their enemies. These all agree, however, in empha sizing their love of fighting, daring and ad venture; their contempt of death; their honor, devotion, and fickleness, withal; their vanity, self-consciousness, imagination, loquacity and religiosity; and in this characterization they are corroborated by what we know from the ancient literature of the Celts and from the lives of the Celtic peoples of our own times.
Dottin, G., 'Manuel pour servir a l'etude de l'antiquiti celtique) (Paris 1906) • Brinton, 'Races and Peoples) (New York 1890) ' • Beddoe, 'Races of Britain) (Lon don 188.5), Deniker, 'Races of Man) (London 1900); Dechelette, J., 'Manuel d'Archiologie prehistorique, celtique, et gallo-romaine> (Paris 1910) ; Henderson, 'Survivals in Belief among the Celt) (Glasgow 1911); Logan, 'The Scot tish (London 1855) ; Nicholson, 'Keltic Researches) (London 1904); Rhys and Jones, 'The Welsh People) (London 1902) ; Ft h ys, 'Celtic Britain) (London 1904) ; Grupp, tur der alten Kelten and Germanen) (Munich 1905); Jullian, 'Histoire de Gaule) (3 vols., Paris 1908-09) ; Roemer, 'Origins of the Eng lish People) (New York 1887); D'Arbois de Jubainville, 'Les premiers habitants de l'Europe> (2 vols., Paris 1889-92) • Ripley, 'Races of Europe) (New York 1849); Ber trand and Reinach, 'Les Celtes dans les vallies du P6 et du Danube) (Paris 1894); MacBain, A., 'Celtic Mythology and Religion) (New York 1918).