Histoire des Celtes

EXTRACT from the Observations on Modern Writings, Volume XXIV, pages 217-238, 289-312, 337-350.

LETTER CCCLV. Would you believe, Sir, that the work I am about to discuss with you would be a curious and interesting subject? It is, however, as such that the author (Mr. Simon Pelloutier) announces in his Preface: "the History of the Celts, and particularly of the Gauls and the Germans, from fabulous times until the taking of Rome by the Gauls." It is a matter, he says, of knowing our ancestors. There is the interest. "Works that treat antiquity," he adds, "pique curiosity, even when the medals and inscriptions they explain only revolve around particular facts that no one would inquire about if they had happened in our time." Thus there are men more curious about what happened in distant countries two or three thousand years ago than about what is happening today in England, Germany, or even France. This is because one is only an ordinary man when one knows the history of his country and his time, and one is learned when one knows what it is permitted to be ignorant of.

From what records was the author of this history able to form this learned work? The Celts had no historian. They did not even have the use of letters and writing. By the author's own admission, Greek and Latin writers only spoke of them in passing and knew them only very imperfectly. Thus what they wrote about them appears to be a tissue of errors and absurdities. Despite this, Mr. Pelloutier has dared to undertake to untangle this chaos and to give us a history of the Celts which, according to him, "could be of some utility to those who wish to read the history of France and Germany with profit." It is true that the island Britons were well known to the Romans since Julius Caesar, who had lived in the Gauls for nearly ten years. The wars that the Germans waged against the Empire also had to make them known to Rome. Pliny the Elder and Tacitus, who had made a long stay in Germany, were well informed on the customs of these peoples. But our author delves into much more remote times, since his history extends "from fabulous times until the taking of Rome by the Gauls." He dares to flatter himself that he has "discovered the truth in the worst and most disparaged authors of antiquity, and he hopes that accuracy will be found in his remarks and plausibility in his conjectures." In several respects, his hope is not in vain.

The system of Mr. Pelloutier is that almost all of Europe was formerly inhabited only by one and the same people, that is to say, by the Celts. It is to the proof of this proposition that he devotes the first half of his book, which is divided into two parts. If he is to be believed, the Celts were anciently included under the general name of Scythians, which the Greeks gave to all the peoples who lived along the Danube and beyond that river into the depths of the North. He adds, and endeavors to prove, that the Celts, or Scythians, and the Sarmatians occupied all of Europe, such that there were only these two peoples. The Celts are what the Ancients meant by the name Hyperboreans those beyond the North Wind, which they gave to the peoples established beyond the Riphean Mountains, that is

to say, beyond the Alps and along the Danube. The common opinion in those times of ignorance was that the North wind original: "Boreas" came out of the Riphean Mountains and that it did not blow beyond them. When the Romans later crossed the Danube and penetrated into Scythia, they felt the North wind even better than at home, and they recognized that this vast country was inhabited by entirely different peoples, some of whom they called Celts, Celto-Scythians, Iberians, Celtiberians, Gauls, Germans, etc., and others Sarmatians or Sauromates. These Sarmatians are those who speak the Slavonic language today, such as the Bohemians, the Poles, the Moscovites, etc. The Sarmatians all went to war. Their troops consisted only of cavalry, or rather they were always on horseback. It was on their horses that they ate, slept, sold, bought, held their assemblies, made their visits, and so on. Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimus say that the Huns, who were a Sarmatian people, so accustomed themselves to passing day and night on horseback that they lost the use of their legs. This is perhaps the origin of the fable of the Centaurs. They married several women, who followed them to war and fought like them. Their daughters were only married when they had killed an enemy. This is what gave rise to the fable of the Amazons. The Celts also had cavalry, but their main strength was in the infantry. The author describes their clothing, almost like that of the Hussars with the small curved cloak called a sagum military cloak, or like that of the Scottish Highlanders. The language of the Celts and that of the Sarmatians were very different. However, these two peoples were confused by some ancient authors under the general name of Scythians. Mr. Pelloutier claims that in Asia the Medes drew their origin from the Sarmatians, and the Persians from the Celts. The language of the Persians, he says, their customs, and their religion did not differ anciently from those of the Celts. What he says on this subject is quite plausible.

He then claims that the ancient inhabitants of Spain and Portugal were Celts, as were the Gauls. However, Julius Caesar teaches us that in his time the Celts only occupied the third part of the Gauls and that in this country there were three different languages. But our author replies that these were only three dialects of the same language. The Celtic language, according to him, had long since divided into an infinity of dialects, so that the Celts no longer understood each other when they were a little distant from one another. Thus the Germans did not understand the language of the Gauls, although Teutonic was only a dialect of Celtic. According to Pausanias, all the Gauls formerly bore the name of Celts, and they gave this name to themselves. Thus the name of Celts is a generic name. But in the time of Julius Caesar, a large people of Gaul had no other particular name.

The author thus shows that the ancient Germans were Celts. Everything he teaches on this article is supported by a great number of authorities and by quite good reasoning. The Germans, says Strabo, differ "a little from the Gauls; they are more ferocious, of a larger stature, and fairer. They have, moreover, the same features, the same customs, and the same food." He also claims that the inhabitants of Scandinavia, that is to say, of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, were Celts, and that there were even Celts in Poland and in Moscovy.