The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the
Scordisci, had established their capital at
Singidunum in 3rd century BC, which is present-day Belgrade, Serbia. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a density of population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.
Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the
Galatians. Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least seven hundred years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the
Treveri of northern Gaul.
The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia and Bologna, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint is displayed on today's Slovak 5 crown coin.
As there is no archaeological evidence for large scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.
There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283-246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II
From the fourth century BCE, Celtic groups pushed into the Carpathian region and the Danube basin, coinciding with their movement into Italy. The
Boii and
Volcae were two large Celtic confederacies who generally cooperated in their campaigns. Splinter groups moved south via two major routes: one following the Danube river, another eastward from Italy. According to legend, 300 000 Celts moved into Italy and Illyria.
By the third century, the native inhabitants of Pannonia were almost completely Celticized. La Tene finds are found widely in Pannonia, but finds westward beyond the Tisza river and south beyond the Sava are rather sparse. These finds are deemed to have been locally produced
Norican-Pannonian variation of Celtic culture. Nevertheless, features are encountered which suggest ongoing contacts with disant provinces such as Iberia. The fertile lands around the Pannonian rivers enabled the Celts to establish themselves easily, developing their agriculture and pottery, and at the same time exploting the rich mines of modern Slovenia. Thus it appears that the Celts had created a new homeland for themselves in Southeastern Europe- centred in a region stretching from Vienna to the river Tizsa.
Scordisci
The
Scordisci were an ancient tribe centred in what would beceome the Roman Province of lower
Pannonia, at the confluence of the Savus (Sava), Dravus (Drava) and Danube rivers . They were historically notable from the beginning of the third century B.C. until the turn of the common era. At their zenith, their influence stretched over regions comprising parts of the present-day Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their tribal name may be connected to the name of the Scordus mountain (Šar mountain) which was located between the regions of Illyria and Paionia.
Origins
The ethnic affiliation of the Scordisci has been debated by historians. Some refer to them as a
Celtic tribe, others list them amongst Illyrian or Thracian tribes.
Andras Mocsy clarifies their ethnic character, suggesting that they were not a Celtic tribe
per se, but a "Celtic political creation". They were formed after 278 BC, as some of the survivors of the Celtic invasions of Greece settled the abovementioned region imposing themselves as a thin, yet powerful, ruling class. Rather quickly, they were subsumed by the numerically superior natives, although the Celtic tribal name was retained, albeit the Illyricized version
Scordistae was often used after the 2nd century BC According to onosmatic evidence, Scordiscan settlements to the east of the Morava river were Thracianized.
Extensive La Tene type finds, of local production, are noted in Pannonia as well as northern Moesia Superior, attesting to the concentration of Celtic settlements and cultural contacts. However, such finds south of the Sava river are scarce
Celtic Galatia
The Galatians were in their origin a part of the great Celtic migration which invaded Macedon, led by the 'second' Brennus, a word for chief. The original Celts who settled in Galatia came through Thrace under the leadership of Leotarios and Leonnorios circa 270 BC. Three tribes comprised these Celts, the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii.
Brennus invaded Greece in 281 BC with a huge war band and was turned back in the nick of time from plundering the temple of Apollo at Delphi. At the same time, another Gaulish group of men, women, and children were migrating through Thrace. They had split off from Brennus' people in 279 BC, and had migrated into Thrace under their leaders Leonnorius and Lutarius. These invaders appeared in Asia Minor in 278–277 BC; others invaded Macedonia, killed the Ptolemaic ruler Ptolemy Ceraunus but were eventually ousted by Antigonus Gonatas, the grandson of the defeated Diadoch Antigonus the One-Eyed.
The invaders came at the invitation of Nicomedes I of Bithynia, who required help in a dynastic struggle against his brother. Three tribes crossed over from Thrace to Asia Minor. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the same number of women and children, divided into three tribes, Trocmi, Tolistobogii and Tectosages. They were eventually defeated by the Seleucid king Antiochus I, in a battle where the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Celts. While breaking the momentum of the invasion, the Galatians were by no means exterminated.
Instead, the migration led to the establishment of a long-lived Celtic territory in central Anatolia, which included the eastern part of ancient Phrygia, a territory that became known as Galatia. There they ultimately settled, and being strengthened by fresh accessions of the same clan from Europe, they overran Bithynia and supported themselves by plundering neighbouring countries.
The Gauls invaded the eastern part of Phrygia on at least one occasion.
The constitution of the Galatian state is described by Strabo: conformably to custom, each tribe was divided into cantons, each governed by a chief ('tetrarch') of its own with a judge under him, whose powers were unlimited except in cases of murder, which were tried before a council of 300 drawn from the twelve cantons and meeting at a holy place, twenty miles southwest of Ancyra, which was likely to have been a sacred oak grove, for it was called 'Drynemeton' the "fane of the oaks"
drys +
nemeton "sacred ground". The local population of Cappadocians were left in control of the towns and most of the land, paying tithes to their new overlords, who formed a military aristocracy and kept aloof in fortified farmsteads, surrounded by their bands.
These Celts were warriors, respected by Greeks and Romans (
illustration, right). They hired themselves out as mercenary soldiers, sometimes fighting on both sides in the great battles of the times. For years the chieftains and their war bands ravaged the western half of Asia Minor, as allies of one or other of the warring princes, without any serious check, until they sided with the renegade Seleucid prince Antiochus Hierax, who reigned in Asia Minor. Hierax tried to defeat king Attalus I of Pergamum (241–197 BC), but instead, the hellenised cities united under his banner, and his armies inflicted several severe defeats upon them, about 232 forcing them to settle permanently and to confine themselves to the region to which they had already given their name. The theme of the
Dying Gaul (a famous statue displayed in Pergamon) remained a favorite in Hellenistic art for a generation.
Their right to the district was formally recognized. The three Celtic Galatian tribes remained as described above:
- the Tectosages in the centre, round with their capital Ancyra,
- the Tolistobogii on the west, round Pessinus as their chief town, sacred to Cybele, and
- the Trocmi on the east, round their chief town Tavium. Each tribal territory was divided into four cantons or tetrarchies. Each of the twelve tetrarchs had under him a judge and a general. A council of the nation consisting of the tetrarchs and three hundred senators was periodically held at a place called Drynemeton, twenty miles southwest of Ancyra.
The Attalid Pergamene king employed their services in the increasingly devastating wars of Asia Minor; another band deserted from their Egyptian overlord Ptolemy IV after a solar eclipse had broken their spirits.
In the early 2nd century BC they proved terrible allies of Antiochus the Great, the last Seleucid king trying to regain suzerainty over Asia Minor, but after the defeat of the Seleucid king by the Romans, Rome at last proved a worthy protection against them.
In 189 BC Rome sent Gnaeus Manlius Vulso on an expedition against the Galatians. He defeated them. Galatia was henceforth dominated by Rome through regional rulers from 189 BC onward. Galatia declined and fell at times under Pontic ascendancy. They were finally freed by the Mithridatic Wars, during which they supported Rome.