335 BC Alexander, Celtics Parley at Danube
Alexander the Great meets a delegation of Celtic chieftains on the Danube.
Asking them what they fear, he is surpirised to be told only the sky
falling. This answer has been given many interpretations, ranging
from prescientific native anxiety to the claim that the
Greeks misunderstood or mischaracterized what was intended to be an oath of
friendship of loyalty.
What was the ancient view of Celtic character? Plato and Aristotle criticize the Celts for
drunkenness and bravery arising
from mere ignorance and high spiritedness and Aristotle considered it their
rashness (as in the Celtic custom of a warrior attacking the sea). The Greek historian Polybius,
writing from Rome,
would echo this criticism of the Celts, their athesia, a certain volatility or
instability taken to the degree of being a moral defect. Perhaps this impression arose
from their reported harshness with their children, their failing to dress them warmly enough.
Aristotle considered it in their favor that they openly esteemed homosexuality because the practice
counteracts the tendency toward greed that develops in warlike nations (such
as Sparta) where women are given too much license. Here is what the
Greek philosopher has to say of the Celts:
For, a husband and a wife being each a part of every family, the
state may be considered as about equally divided into men and women; and
therefore, in those states in which the condition of the women is bad, half
the city may be regarded as having no laws. And this is what has actually
happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole state hardy and
temperate, and he has carried our his intention in the case of the men, but
he has neglected the women, who live in every sort of intemperance and
luxury. The consequence is that in such a state wealth is too highly valued,
especially if the citizens fall under the dominion of their wives, after the
manner of most warlike races, except the Celts and a few others who openly
approve of male loves." (Aristotle Politics, II,9,7).
Other Greek historians of the fourth century B.C. favorably
mention Celtic fire
music, their Greek-like hospitality, and the philosophical
interests of the Celts, particularly in
Spain.