Gaul

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Gaul (Latin: Gallia) is a historical name used in the context of Ancient Rome in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. In English, the word Gaul may also refer to an inhabitant of that region (French: Gaulois), although the expression may be used more generally for all ancient speakers of the Gaulish language (an early variety of Celtic). This language was widespread in Europe, but it shared Gaul with other languages (including at least the Aquitanian language, and also possibly a separate Belgic language[1]). The Latin name for Gaul, still used as the modern Greek word for France, is Gallia.

Gauls under Brennus defeated Roman forces in a battle circa 390 BC. In the Aegean world, a huge migration of Eastern Gauls appeared in Thrace, north of Greece, in 281 BC. Another Gaulish chieftain, also named Brennus, at the head of a large army, was only turned back from desecrating the Temple of Apollo at Delphi in Greece at the last minute — he was alarmed, it was said, by portents of thunder and lightning.[2] At the same time a migrating band of Celts, some 10,000 warriors, with their women and children and slaves, were moving through Thrace. Three tribes of Gauls crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor at the express invitation of Nicomedes I, king of Bithynia (which was a small geographical location just south of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the northern portion of modern-day Turkey, southeast of modern-day Istanbul), who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother. Eventually they settled down in eastern Phrygia and Cappadocia in central Anatolia, a region thenceforth known as Galatia.

Name

Map of Gaul circa 58 BC.

The names Gallia and Galatia sometimes are linked to the ethnic name Gael, which is, however, derived from Old Irish Goidel (derived, in turn, from Old Welsh Guoidel "Irishman", now spelled Gwyddel, from a Brittonic root *Wēdelos meaning literally "forest person, wild man"[3]), and cannot be directly related. It is uncertain whether the Gal- names are from a native name of a tribe, or if they are exonyms. Birkhan (1997) considers a root * g(h)al- "powerful" (PIE * gelh, well-attested in Celtic, and with cognates in Balto-Slavic), but speculates that the name also could be taken from a Gallos River, comparable to the names of the Volcae and the Sequani which are likely derived from hydronyms. There also have been attempts to trace Keltoi and Galatai to a single origin. It is most likely that the terms originated as names of minor tribes * Kel-to and/or Gal(a)-to- which were the earliest to come into contact with the Roman world, but which have disappeared without leaving a historical record.[4]

Josephus claimed that the Gauls were descended from Gomer, the grandson of Noah.

In English usage the words Gaul and Gaulish are used synonymously with Latin Gallia, Gallus and Gallicus. However, the similarity of the names is probably accidental: the English words are borrowed from French Gaule and Gaulois, which appear to have been borrowed themselves from Germanic walha- (likely via a Latinization of Frankish Walholant "Gaul", literally "Land of the Foreigners/Romans", making it partially cognate with the name Wales), the usual word for the non-Germanic-speaking peoples (Celtic-speaking and Latin-speaking indiscriminately)[5]. The Germanic w is regularly rendered as gu / g in French (cf. guerre = war, garder = ward), and the diphthong au is the regular outcome of al before a following consonant (cf. cheval ~ chevaux). Gaule or Gaulle can hardly be derived from Latin Gallia, since g would become j before a (cf. gamba > jambe), and the diphthong au would be incomprehensible; the regular outcome of Latin Gallia is Jaille in French which is found in several western placenames.[6][7]

Hellenistic etiology connects the name with Galatia (first attested by Timaeus of Tauromenion in the 4th c. BC), and it was suggested that the association was inspired by the "milk-white" skin (γάλα, gala, "milk") of the Gauls (Greek: Γαλάται, Galatai, Galatae).

History

Pre-Roman Gaul

A map of Gaul in the 1st century BC, showing the relative positions of the Celtic tribes.

The early history of the Gauls is predominantly a work in archaeology - there being little written information (save perhaps what can be gleaned from coins) concerning the peoples that inhabited these regions - and the relationships between their material culture, genetic relationships (the study of which has been aided, in recent years, through the field of archaeogenetics), and linguistic divisions rarely coincide.

The major source of materials on the Celts of Gaul was Poseidonios of Apamea, whose writings were quoted by Timagenes, Julius Caesar, the Sicilian Greek Diodorus Siculus, and the Greek geographer Strabo.[8]

Many cultural traits of the early Celts seem to have been carried northwest up the Danube Valley, although this issue is contested. It seems as if they derived many of their skills (like metal-working), as well as certain facets of their culture, from Balkan peoples. Some scholars think that the Bronze Age Urnfield culture represents an origin for the Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European-speaking peoples (see Proto-Celtic). The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, from ca. 1200 BC until 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the development of the Hallstatt culture (ca. 700 to 500 BC) directly from the Urnfield. Proto-Celtic, the latest common ancestor of all known Celtic languages, is considered by some scholars to have been spoken at the time of the late Urnfield or early Hallstatt cultures.

Massalia (modern Marseille) silver coin with Greek legend, 5th-1st century B.C.

The Hallstatt culture was succeeded by the La Tène culture, which developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from the Greek, Phoenician, and Etruscan civilizations. The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary. Farther north extended the contemporary Pre-Roman Iron Age culture of northern Germany and Scandinavia.

By the 2nd century BC, France was called Gaul (Gallia Transalpina) by the Romans. In his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar distinguishes among three ethnic groups in Gaul: the Belgae in the north (roughly between Rhine and Seine), the Celts in the center and in Armorica, and the Aquitani in the southwest, the southeast being already colonized by the Romans. While some scholars believe that the Belgae south of the Somme were a mixture of Celtic and Germanic elements, their ethnic affiliations have not been definitively resolved. One of the reasons is political interference upon the French historical interpretation during the 19th century. French historians adopted fully the explanation of Caesar who stated that Gaul stretched from the Pyrenees up to the Rhine in the north. This fitted the French expansionist aspirations of the time under Napoleon III. In the north of (modern) France, the Gaul-German language border was situated somewhere between the Seine and the Somme. Northern Belgic tribes like the Nervians, Atrebates or Morini appear to be Germanic tribes who migrated from the Germanic hinterland and adopted Celtic language and customs^{[citation needed]}, as all of the names of their leaders and towns are Celtic. In addition to the Gauls, there were other peoples living in Gaul, such as the Greeks and Phoenicians who had established outposts such as Massilia (present-day Marseille) along the Mediterranean coast. Also, along the southeastern Mediterranean coast, the Ligures had merged with the Celts to form a Celto-Ligurian culture.