Gauls – the tribes of the Celtic group, who lived in the territory of Gaul (now France, Belgium, parts of Switzerland, Germany and Northern Italy) from the beginning of the V century B.C. before the Roman period.
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Historical sources use two terms – Celts and Gauls. This is due to the difference in the self-name of the barbarian tribes who lived north of the leading ancient civilizations and their Roman name.
The first mention of the Celtic tribes is found in Hecatea and Herodotus, who designated them by the word keltoi. Subsequently, this designation was used by all Greek authors up to the III c. B.C. as the only name of the Celts.
In the III century B.C. Jerome of Cardia first used the word galata, denoting the Celts who invaded Macedonia, Greece and Asia Minor. They are also named in the epitaph at the grave of a young Athenian, Cydus, who died in the struggle against the Galatians at Delphus in 279 B.C. It is applied by him and Polybius in his “Universal History”. From this moment on the Greek sources use of the terms keltoi and galata begins. Diodorus of Sicily called the Celts keltoi, and the tribes that lived beyond the Rhine were called galata. He believed that the Latin names galli and galatae belong to the same people, and that the name keltoi is more correct. Caesar and Pausanias believed that keltoi is the self-name of the Celts.
The Romans of all the continental Celts were designated by the single word galli, and for the island Celts, on the contrary, they never used this term, denoting them by the terms brettanoi, brittani, brittones. To designate the pre-Roman population of the British Isles, the word Celts, as noted by T. Powell, was used only from the middle of the 18th century as a result of the development of romanticism.
A. Hubert believed that keltoi, galatai and galli are different forms of the same word, written with an error and in different transcriptions.
Finally, a number of historians believe that the ethnonym Celts denotes the totality of ethnoses, while other ethnonyms: Gauls, Welsh, Bretons, Galatians, Gaels are the designations of individual peoples.
As for the term Gallo-Romans, it seems that it designates Gauls who have lost their linguistic, ethnic and religious features as a result of progressive assimilation and ancient romanization.
According to the calculations of Karl Julius Belokh in 14 A.D., there were from 5 to 7 million Gauls, and in the era of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus from 10 to 14 million.
Etymology
The etymology of the ethnonym “Gauls” is debatable. According to one of the versions, the name “Gauls” comes from the Greek word “milk” and was caused by the “milky” whiteness of the skin of Celts invading Greece.
According to another version, the French word “Gallia” came into the language not from a Latin, but from a German dialect and goes back to the ancient German word “walha”, that could be translated as “foreigner” and which Germans designated non-Germanic languages.
In the Renaissance, the word “Gauls” was associated with his Latin homonym “rooster”, which later became the symbol of France, taking the place of the “horse”, which from ancient times was symbolic of the Gauls themselves.
History
Gallic culture developed as part of the Celtic culture during the I millennium B.C. According to one of the hypotheses, the Celts, representing one of the branches of the Indo-Europeans, were the bearers of the culture of the burial fields (c. 1300 B.C. E. – 750 B.C.). The appearance of iron processing led to the development of Hallstatt culture and, possibly, the Proto Celt language in the 8th century B.C.. Around the V century B.C. the Hallstatt culture was replaced by the Laten culture. At about the same time, the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan colonies in Europe began to exert a strong influence on the Gauls.
Earlier it was believed that the ancestors of the Celts came to Central Europe from the Black Sea region, but lately historians have been inclined to the hypothesis of the autochthonous origin of the Celts in the region between the Middle Rhine and the Middle Danube around the VII century B.C. In the VI century B.C. Celtic tribes moved to the west, settling in the territory of modern France, Spain, Britain. The Celts, who settled in the territory of modern France, received the Roman name Gauls, and the lands inhabited by them began to be called Gaul. In the IV century B.C. began the expansion of the Gauls to the east. The Gauls, under the leadership of Chief Brenne, plundered the cities of the Etruscans in the valley of the Po River (about 397 B.C.), and then in 390 B.C. made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Rome.
Another branch of the Gauls, having settled in the Hercinski Mountains, captured Bohemia and, taking advantage of the departure of the army of Alexander the Great to the east, subjugated the Middle Danube basin. Subsequently, taking advantage of the weakening of Macedonia after the war of the Diadochi, the Gauls in 279 B.C. defeated the army of Ptolemy Keraunos and plundered the lands. Having received an invitation from the king of Bithynia Nycomed I, the Gauls crossed over to Asia Minor, where they, having received the name Galatians, formed their own state – Galatia. Around the same time, the Celts settled Ireland.
During the Second Punic War, the famous Carthaginian commander Hannibal Barca used the Gallic mercenaries during his famous invasion of Italy. They played an important role in some of his most brilliant victories, including the Battle of Cannes. The peak of the power of the Gauls falls on the III century B.C. In 225 B.C. The Gauls, together with the tribe of the Gezats, named after them, were defeated by the Romans at Cape Telamon.
In the II century B.C. the Gauls began to suffer defeat from their neighbors. It all began with the attack of oxybians and deceates against the ally of the Romans – the Greek colony Messalia. After the attack on the Messalia of the Salii tribe by the Romans in 125-123 B.C. The Romans established allied relations with the Eddies, with whom they fought wars against Arvernes and Allobrogi. In 121 B.C. Roman troops occupied southern France, creating the province of Narbonne Gaul on these lands. Around the same time, the German tribes of the Cimbri and Teutons ravaged Gaul, and some Gallic tribes took part in the defeat of the consul Tsepiona. In the 60-50 years B.C. The king of the Dacians of Burebista expelled the Celts from Central Europe, and the German leader Ariovist drove them out of Germany.
And finally, in 59 – 51 years B.C. as a result of the Gallic War, Guy Julius Caesar conquered all of Gaul.
Gaul was not immediately all turned to the Roman province. Some tribes, constituting about a third of Gaul, were granted the rights of Roman allies or simply free people, and only the rest became subject to the Roman governor. The financial and military duties for Gaul were relatively mild: the country had to pay annually, by order of Caesar, 40 million sesterces of various taxes. Military service, which was not precisely determined, often caused complaints from the Gauls, but it also opened them access to the ranks of Roman citizens. The transition of Gauls to Roman citizenship began from the time of Julius Caesar, but was especially strong from the time of Vespasian. The entire population of Gaul, like other provinces, received civil full rights only in 212 by an edict of Emperor Caracalla. The Gauls were called Gallo-Romans, that is, Gauls living under Roman law.
At the same time, during the period of Roman rule in Gaul, rebellions broke out periodically. Thus, in 21, Edui and Treviri rose. The pretext for the uprising was the burden of taxes and the cruelty of the Roman governor. In 68, there was a rebellion of Vindex against Nero, immediately after which there was a rebellion of Marikka – a fanatic who called himself a god. In the reign of Vespasian, there was a major uprising of the Arevirians and Lingons, led by the Batavas of Tsivilis and the Gauls of the Classic, Sabin and Tutor. The Gallic tribe inflicted the first blow to the rebels, the sequans. When at a meeting of representatives from all of Gaul, in the land of rems, the question was raised as to what to prefer: independence or submission to Rome – the majority spoke in favor of the latter.
In the year 258, under the conditions of the difficult external and internal position of the Roman Empire, Gaul, Britain and Spain separated from Rome and created their own separate state with capitals in Cologne and Trier, which existed for 15 years. Their last ruler, who was unable to cope with the soldiers’ insurrections and the beginning of the rebellion of luggage, surrendered to Emperor Aurelian, and Gaul was again reunited with the Roman Empire.
Language
The Gallic language was called the Celtic language, which they spoke on the territory of Gaul, before the spread of popular Latin there at the end of the Roman Empire. According to Julius Caesar’s Notes on the Gallic War, the Gallic language, along with Aquitanian and Belgian, was one of the three languages spoken in Gaul. In Narbonne Gaul, which at the time of Caesar’s conquest was already a Roman province, Latin was common for at least a century.
Sources:
Eydoux: Hommes et Dieux de la Gaule (1961)
J.-L. Bruno. The Gauls. Per. with fr. A. Rodionov. M
Caius Iulius Caesar: Commentarii de bello Gallico