When looking back on some of the greatest wars in history, the Gallic Wars will undoubtedly come to mind. The Romans and the Celts were some of the greatest armies of all time, and were certainly the most powerful of the time. However, they were not always known for their great civility and honor throughout their battles. From a Roman perspective, the Celts’ behavior in religion and society is barbaric; however, Roman bias does not take into account the complexity of the culture of the Celts.
The religion of the Celts seems barbaric at first, but when taking a deeper look, one finds how complicated their spirituality was. They had many gods, and each of their gods represented something important to their culture. This was very similar to the Romans at this time. While the Celts did make some human sacrifices to the gods, they usually sacrificed animals or precious objects, such as weapons. They would throw these into lakes or ponds, as water was a very important part of their religion, and was deemed sacred. They also had a divine number in their religion: three. This greatly influenced Christianity’s fixation on the number three. The druids, the Celtic version of priests, were not only spiritual leaders, but also leaders in law and education. The Celts believed in an afterlife, but didn’t believe in a “Hell.” Their religion is obviously as complex as any other, and is not in any sense rudimentary.
The society of the Celts was also much more complex than it first appeared. Their society was made up of different tribes. Within the tribes was a hierarchy that was focused mainly on classes. The tribes had kings that led them, and was divided into the upper class, which were warriors, middle class, which were poets and druids, and the common people. However, women were not necessarily in the lowest class, and could even become priestesses and warriors. In this way, the Celts were far more advanced than the Romans. Tribes were very important to the Celts, and they had great tribal loyalty. If one person of the tribe was wronged, the entire tribe would stand by them. The Celtic society was obviously very strong and advanced, not at all barbaric.
The main reason that people think of Celts as barbarians is because one of the main accounts of them was written by their enemy, Julius Caesar. His Gallic Wars describe the Celts with the bias of an opposing general, which is one of the strongest biases possible. The Celts mostly passed down stories and history orally, which means that much of their culture was lost. As the old adage goes, history is written by the winners, which is why many people believe the misperceptions of the Celts that Caesar started. He says that Vercingetoix punishes people harshly, but Caesar himself invented decimation, the killing of every tenth men for one man’s wrongdoing. He also implies that the Celtic army was “put together quickly through punishments.” By cutting down the Celts, Caesar made himself seem like the good guy, and the modern world lost the history of the Celts.
The Celts, while perceived as barbarians because of the bias of Caesar, were an advanced race. Their religion and society prove that they were well ahead of the curve as far as the way they ran things, and the Romans could have taken some tips from them!
