BC390-371 Celtic Gaul Conquests

In the twenty years from 390-371 BC the Celtic Gauls crossed the Alps into Italy, defeated the Roman army and burned Rome to the ground in 387 BC.

The Gauls were a Celtic people of Europe, nomadic and war-like, who did not wish to settle in Italy. Instead, they were interested only in amassing wealth. They looted Rome and then demanded a tribute.

The Romans both feared and marvelled at the Gauls. They described them as being tall, with rippling muscles, white skin and blond hair which they accentuated by washing their hair with lime and pulling it back from the forehead. Their men and women wear bracelets, heavy necklaces (torcs), rings, and even corselets, of gold. Their clothing is striking -- shirts which have been dyed and embroidered in varied colors -- and breeches. They wear striped coats in which are set checks, close together and of varied hues -- tartan plaid.

The Gauls had a 'levity of character' that makes them look insufferable when victorious, but scared out of their wits when defeated. Their speech is harsh and they converse with few words and in riddles, hinting darkly at things for the most part and using one word when they mean another. And, they drink to excess.

After the Gauls had collected their tribute, they returned home to central Europe leaving Rome vulnerable to all the tribes it had previously conquered.

Various Italian states tried to take advantage of Rome's demise by attacking the razed city, but the Romans resiliently asserted themselves and began rebuilding the region.

In Greece, Lysander of Sparta had been killed in the early years of the Corinthian War, but the war continued until 387 BC under the Spartan king Agesilaus II.

Thebes had been taken by Sparta and a pro-Spartan puppet government kept the Thebans in check. Exiles from the previous government regrouped at Athens and prepared to retake their city. Epaminondas, who had been overlooked by the Spartans as nothing more than a philosopher, prepared the young men of Thebes for a coup. In 379 BC a small group of exiles, led by Pelopidas, infiltrated the city with Epaminondas's aid and assassinated the leaders of the pro-Spartan government.

When news of the coup reached Sparta, an army under Agesilaus was sent but the Thebans refused to meet them. Instead, they occupied a stronghold outside the city and the Spartans departed after ravaging the countryside.

The Thebans then reconstituted their old Boeotian confederacy in a new, democratic form and the Spartans invaded three times over the next seven years. The Boeotians held them off, and the advantage was furthered when, in 375 BC, an outnumbered force of Boeotians under Pelopidas cut their way through the heart of a Spartan phalanx during the Battle of Tegyra.

Although Sparta remained the supreme land power in Greece, the Boeotians had arrived as a politically cohesive power and Pelopidas had arrived as a major political leader in Thebes.

By 371 BC Epaminondas was a Boeotarch leading the Boeotian delegation to a peace conference held at Sparta. There, Epaminondas caused a drastic break with Sparta when he insisted on signing not for the Thebans alone, but for all the Boeotians.

King Agesilaus II of Sparta refused to allow this and struck the Thebans from the peace document. Epaminondas returned to Thebes, and both sides marshaled for war.

did islam prolong paganism in england?

Rome's grand plans for England in 597 - mass conversion to Christianity under rule of the Roman Pope - did not eventuate due to something entirely unexpected. The unexpected event was, of course, the birth in 622 of the new Moslem religion in the Middle East.

By 638, the Moslem Arabs had conquered Jerusalem and their impending conquest of Spain (achieved by 715) had so threatened Rome that many Roman priests fled to Ireland - an incredibly poor and backward country that had been thoroughly Christianized by St. Patrick 200 years before - and as a result of this Ireland, not England, became the cradle of western civilization and the safe haven for Roman Christianity.

Having been under Roman rule from 54BC to 407AD, England in 638 was a far more civilized country than Ireland. Also, as a result of invasions between 410-442 by fierce north European tribes - the Jutes, Angles and Saxons - England in 638 also had a far more polyglot ethnic mix than Ireland's Celts. England, of course, had its ancient Britons and Celts, but it now included Jutes, Angles and Saxons - most of whom, in 638, were fiercely Pagan - and after 787 it also included the Danes (who arrived on raids from north Europe and eventually settled in England).

Although Christianity eventually filtered through to England - and the knights of England made history in the Crusades against the Moslem Arabs - Christianity was not only never as strong in England as it was in Ireland but it was also never as Roman influenced as it was in Ireland. This is also true of the north European countries from whence a large part of both English ethnicity and the Protestant movement - which took hold in the 1500s, leading to the establishment of the Anglican Church in 1563 - is derived.

England did not reject Christianity, but it most certainly came to reject Roman rule of the new religion, especially the Pope's refusal to allow the English language to supplant Latin in services and literature.

The particular ethnicity of England - and its civilized state by 638 - may have mitigated against Roman Catholicism ever taking 100% control of England as it did in Ireland, but the threat to Rome of the Moslem Arabs that turned its attention away from England towards Ireland most definitely prolonged paganism in England and changed the course of English history.

did ireland save christianity?

The physical location of Ireland, as well as the easy conversion to Christianity of its Celtic Pagan population, most definitely provided Christianity with a safe haven, but it was the expansionist evangelical efforts of Pope Gregory (590-604) that prevented Christianity from dying out in Europe and remaining, if at all, as an essentially middle-eastern religion.

Historians claim that Ireland - an ethnic Celtic island at the westernmost part of Europe - is the cradle of western civilization, and Christianity is the religion upon which it was founded in 675 AD.

In that St. Patrick had Christianized Ireland from 432AD, and Rome was - and still is - the central power of Christianity in the western world, it does seem strange that Ireland, rather than Rome, is considered to be the cradle of western civilization and the savior of Christianity.

It is unclear whether it was the isolated western geographical region of Ireland, its distinctive race of white Celtic people or its devotion to Christianity that made it the historical birthplace of western civilization.

Actually, Ireland's geographic position had to be the definitive factor.

With the fall of the Roman Empire in 378AD, the European city states and the new religion of Christianity were in the throes of turmoil. Ireland was seen as being the last bastion - the last hope - for the continuation of any sort of European civilization, with or without Christianity, in the face of advancing hordes from eastern Europe, the far north and the Middle East. And, as it turned out, it was!

Here is what was happening in Europe at the time:

• 378 - the Visigoths defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople
• 395 - the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western parts
• 407 - the Romans evacuated Britain
• 410 - Rome sacked by the Visigoths
• 410-442 The Jutes, Angles and Saxons invaded Britain

At this point, in 432AD, when all appeared to be lost in Europe, St Patrick returns to Ireland - where he had previously been enslaved - on an evangelical mission to introduce Christianity to the Pagan Celtic race and hopefully convert the population to his faith. In the following years, things got worse in Europe.

• 450 - The Huns invade all Roman cities in the old Empire
• 455 - Rome, itself, was sacked by the Vandals

It took Rome nearly 150 years to recover from the invasion, and while Christianity was stagnating in Rome it was thriving in the eastern lands. The magnificent church of St Sophia - which later became a mosque - was built in Constantinople in 532-537 and stands as evidence that Christianity was seen more as an eastern religion than a European one.

Fearing loss of power, in 597 Pope Gregory sent St Augustine to England. It was expected that with the widespread conversion to Christianity in England that Rome would regain control of that part of the world - if not politically then at least in the hearts and minds of the population - but the new religion of Islam intervened.