Customer Reviews

The Celtic Empire: The First Millennium of Celtic History, 1000BC - AD51

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Peter Beresford Ellis cheerfully admits to a degree of hyperbole in the title of this excellent survey of Celtic history. There was no "Celtic Empire" as such, and no centralized Celtic authority, but this people, the aboriginal tribe of Europe, occupied the continent from its fringes in Iberia and Ireland all the way to central Anatolia. As such, they formed the foundation stock of the modern Irish, Welsh, Scottish, English, Bretons, French, Swiss, Austrians, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as contributing their bloodlines to the Italians, Balkan peoples, Turks, and even Germans and Slavs.

The Celts had an overwhelming cultural impact on the formation of modern Europe, but it is an impact which is shrouded, due to the Roman domination of the Celts around the time of Christ. Most European rivers have Celtic names (the Danube, the Don, the Dnieper, and the Donets are all named for the Celtic river-goddess Danu; and the Rhine and the Rhone both are named from the Celtic word for "valley").

Unfortunately, the Celts abjured writing in favor of human memory, so that, as their cultural nexus dispersed so did their learning and lore. Hence, we know relatively little about these people, the ancestors of many of us of European background. What we do know is often distorted, or plain wrong, written by Greeks and Romans, the latter (particularly Caesar, in his "Gallic Wars"), setting out to deride the barbarians seen as only fit for conquest.

Ellis tries mightily to lift the veil in this book. He has a fine appreciation for his subject, and if he makes the error of sometimes casting his Celts as "noble savages," replete with democratic thoughts and ways, he can be forgiven for doubting the Roman histories.

Given the relative lack of written primary source material, and the enigmatic messages of archaeological ruins, the book is necessarily too short, and reads as the quickest thousand-year history in print. It's still an excellent effort to bring these people, so long in the darkness, back into the light.

This is a history of the Celts and their political and military doings (particularly in relation to Rome), not an analysis of Druid mythology or Celtic mythology. If you want that, you'll need to find another book, which Ellis probably authored. The focus of this book is more narrow, and cultural issues are set aside in favor of Roman-Celtic relations. Attention is given to the Celts and their alliance w/ Hannibal, the militarization of Roman society in response to the Celtic frontier, and of course Julius' quests to sieze Gaul and Britain.

We tend to think of the Celts as limited to Northeast Europe (ie Ireland), yet Ellis dispells this pop cultural myth and documents that the Celts were very prominent--and historically influential--in Iberia-Galacia, even Asia Minor. The Galatians were the first Celts to accept Christianity, and Paul's epistle to them is one that greatly influenced early Christian relationship to Judaism and the Torah. The book only lightly touches upon the Irish Celts, but this is still a good book for the Irish-ophile to learn more about the spread of the Celts across all of Europe.

This is the worst book I've ever read on ancient history. The author minimizes the negatives of the so-called Celtic culture, while portraying the Greeks and Romans as the destroyers of Western Civilization rather than the FOUNDERS of it. Throughout this revisionist tirade he presented no proof of his claims.

In reversing the archaeological and written records he wants the credulous reader to believe that the various tribes that are lumped together under the false Celtic umbrella somehow built the world we now live in. I don't know how this rubbish got published? I recommend any books by Michael Grant, Adrian Goldsworthy, B.H.Liddell Hart, & John Collis' " Celts: Origins And Re-inventions" as a truthful balance to this nonsense.

The author uses the title "Celtic Empire" somewhat facetiously, acknowledging that there was "no known sustained series of Celtic emperors having supreme and extensive dominion over numerous subject peoples". However, the widespread distribution of Celtic tribes in the ancient world will come as a surprise to many readers. A rather catchy translation of a Tacitus quote states: "Fighting retail, they were beaten wholesale. Had they been inseparable, they would have been insuperable."

To their detriment, the Celts left no written record, due to a druidic ban on writing by laymen. Therefore, we are entirely dependent on non-Celtic primary sources: Caesar, Livy, Tacitus, Polybius. There are a few scattered records written by Celts in Greek or Latin; but in general, the Celts were at the mercy of their conquerors.

Most readers will be at least casually acquainted with the history of the Celts in cisalpine and transalpine Gaul, Britain, and Ireland; but their presence in the Iberian Peninsula, Greece, Asia Minor and North Africa is less familiar. Who among us has stopped to think that the frequently quoted epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians was addressed to Celts? (In this context, I should point out that "kephas" is Aramaic, not Greek, as the author seems to think. Also, the city of the Treveri is "Augusta Treverorum", not "Trevisorum". There are a number of such instances of carelessness that caution against embracing the data presented here too enthusiastically.)

Celtic warriors, known to be fierce fighters, seem to have been part of every army - from the Roman legions to Hannibal's Carthaginians, to Greek, Egyptian, and Syrian troops. Ellis gives a rather too-detailed account of all the battles and insurrections where Celts played a role - often on opposing sides.

A fractious, resourceful, fiercely independent people who gave their oppressors plenty of trouble but never managed to unite against them, the Celts have recently become the target of renewed interest on all levels of scholarship and popular culture. There have even been attempts by serious Dutch historians to reconcile the French comic strip "Asterix and Obelix" wth established Celtic lore.
The sections on Celtic language contain some interesting observations: e.g., Saint Jerome reports that the language spoken by the Galatians in Asia Minor in the 4th century A.D. was similar to that of the Treveri in the Moselle region, whom he had visited earlier.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, the author should have provided some maps to help the reader orient himself.
Overall, this book presents a handy compilation of material for anyone interested in early Celtic history.

The other 1 star reviews were overly polite. I have read hundreds of books on ancient history in my 80 years. But, this author clearly has multiple axes to grind. In order to re-write history one needs "plenty of proof. You will not find any here!" Read Livy, Polybius, Athenaeus, Herodotus, or Florus. If one wants to believe in the Celts try Barry Cunliffe. If a person wants to learn the truth about our western heritage? They would be wise to read "authentic scholars like David Gress and Michael Grant." I have read five of the authors ranting books, they are all the same. The Celts are the Alpha and Omega of everything. The fact is they are not!

Two things i have learned from reading this book: The Celts were further spread (in time as well as distance) than i had ever known ~ and i knew they were in both Galatia and Gaul; and the Romans were consistently the most inhumane and brutal civilised people the world has known ~ outdone perhaps by the Nazis in the total quantity killed, but far outdoing them (by hundreds of years) in length of time and (by thousands of officials) in men prepared to inflict pain as a matter of state policy. To take the second point first, it is depressing to read how many Celts over the centuries were killed, tortured, sold into slavery by the invading Roman army; and if it happened to the Celts, obviously there were other peoples treated in the same way, all in the name of "The Republic". Turning to the first point, i had known that the Celts and the Gauls were the same people, and i was aware that they were found from the interior of Asia Minor to the westernmost fringe of Europe; i did not know where their homeland was ~ Ellis says central Europe, what would now be Switzerland, Austria, Eastern France, Southern Germany ~ nor did i know that they spread into Iberia, settled as thoroughlly as they did in the Po valley, or travelled as far into Scythia as they did. I was fascinated to learn that the Celtic language had such an effect on modern European languages; English, it is obvious, but French, other Romance languages through the Latin, even some Greek was influenced by the Gauls. Overall, this is a very well written history of one of the true founding peoples of Europe. The sole serious complaint i found myself making ~ several times ~ was the lack of maps: There is one, rather ill-defined, which serves as the endpapers; about six more were needed: The spread of the Celts, Italy and the Po Valley, Gaul and North-Central Europe, Illyria, Thrace and Asia Minor, the British Isles, and the Final Distribution of Celtic Influence. Barring this lack, The Celtic Empire tells a poorly known tale wonderfully.

This book was excellent and the author is really an expert in his field. I was recently drawn to Celtic spirituality. I read this book slowly to completely understand it, and it was worth every minute! It is very academic and filled with historical information.

This book is a good review of a very long period in Celtic History. It covers the origins of the Celts up until they were conquered by the Romans, as well as a chapter on ancient Ireland. Many other reviewers have cited the lack of archealogical evidence, but this book mostly uses ancient literary sources such as Livy and Polybius for its evidence. The only downsides to this excellent book are the author's obvious favor toward the Celts, and his shaky grasp on Greek/Hellenistic History.