Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER I: THE CELTS IN ANCIENT HISTORY 19Dr. J. Anderson writes in the “Proceedings of the Society ofAntiquaries of Scotland”:“The Gauls as well as the Britons—of the sameCeltic stock—practised enamel-working before the Romanconquest. The enamel workshops of Bibracte, with theirfurnaces, crucibles, moulds, polishing-stones, and with thecrude enamels in their various stages of preparation, havebeen recently excavated from the ruins of the city destroyedby Caesar and his legions. But the Bibracte enamels are thework of mere dabblers in the art, compared with the Britishexamples. The home of the art was Britain, and the style ofthe pattern, as well as the association in which the objectsdecorated with it were found, demonstrated with certainty thatit had reached its highest stage of indigenous developmentbefore it came in contact with the Roman culture.” 17The National Museum in Dublin contains many superbexamples of Irish decorative art in gold, bronze, and enamels, [31]and the “strong Celtic tinge” of which Mr. Romilly Allen speaksis as clearly observable there as in the relics of Hallstatt or LaTène.Everything, then, speaks of a community of culture, an identityof race-character, existing over the vast territory known to theancient world as “Celtica.”Celts and GermansBut, as we have said before, this territory was by no meansinhabited by the Celt alone. In particular we have to ask, whoand where were the Germans, the Teuto-Gothic tribes, whoeventually took the place of the Celts as the great Northernmenace to classical civilisation?They are mentioned by Pytheas, the eminent Greek travellerand geographer, about 300 B.C., but they play no part in historytill, under the name of Cimbri and Teutones, they descended17 Quoted by Mr. Romilly Allen in “Celtic Art,” p. 136.