notactuallythor: Silver Neck Ring (Torque), Celtic, circa 475400 B.C.

Neck rings, worn by both men and women, were often seen as symbols of divinity or high rank, while also offering protective powers. Ancient writers noted that the firstcentury Celtic queen Boudicca, who fought against the Romans in Britain, wore a gold neck ring in battle. Celtic artists often depicted deities wearing or holding such rings.

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages. Celtic Christianity has been conceived of with differing levels of specificity: some writers have thought of it as a distinct Celtic Church uniting the Celtic peoples and distinguishing them from the Roman Catholic Church, while others classify it as simply a set of distinctive practices occurring in those areas. Scholars now reject the former notion, but note that there were certain traditions and practices used in both the Irish and British churches but not in the wider Christian world. These include a distinctive system for determining the dating of Easter, a style of monastic tonsure, a unique system of penance, and the popularity of going into exile for Christ. Additionally, there were other practices that developed in certain parts of the Celtic world, but which are not known to have spread beyond a particular region. Rituals associated with Celtic Christianity are now almost completely lost, though two books, the Bobbio and the Stowe Missals, contain the Irish Ordinary of a daily Mass in late, Romanized form.

The term Celtic Church is deprecated by many historians as it implies a unified and identifiable entity entirely separate from the mainstream of Western Christendom. Others prefer the term Insular Christianity. As Patrick Wormald explained, One of the common misconceptions is that there was a Roman Church to which the Celtic was nationally opposed. Celtic-speaking areas were part of Latin Christendom as a whole at a time in which there was significant regional variation of liturgy and structure with a general collective veneration of the Bishop of Rome that was no less intense in Celtic areas. Nonetheless, it is possible to talk about the development and spread of distinctive traditions, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Some elements may have been introduced to Ireland by the Briton St. Patrick, later others spread from Ireland to Britain with the Irish mission system of Saint Columba. The histories of the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Breton, Cornish, and Manx Churches diverge significantly after the eighth century (resulting in a great difference between even rival Irish traditions). Celtic Christianity has been conceived of in different ways at different times. Some ideas are fairly consistent. Above all, Celtic Christianity is seen as being inherently distinct from and generally opposed to the Catholic Church. Other common claims are that Celtic Christianity denied the authority of the Pope, was less authoritarian than the Catholic Church, more spiritual, friendlier to women, more connected with nature, and more comfortable dealing with the ancient Celtic religion. One view, which gained substantial scholarly traction in the 19th century, was that there was a Celtic Church, a significantly organized Christian body or denomination uniting the Celtic peoples and separating them from the Roman church of continental Europe. Others have been content to speak of Celtic Christianity as consisting of certain traditions and beliefs intrinsic to the Celts. However, modern scholars have identified issues with all of these claims, and find the term Celtic Christianity problematic in and of itself. The idea of a Celtic Church is roundly rejected by modern scholars due to the lack of substantiating evidence. Indeed, there were distinct Irish and British church traditions, each with their own practices, and there was significant local variation even within the individual Irish and British spheres. While there were some traditions known to have been common to both the Irish and British churches, these were relatively few. Even these commonalities did not exist due to the Celticity of the regions, but due to other historical and geographical factors. Additionally, the Christians of Ireland and Britain were not anti-Roman; the authority of Rome and the papacy were venerated as strongly in Celtic areas as they were in any other region of Europe. Caitlin Corning further notes that the Irish and British were no more pro-women, pro-environment, or even more spiritual than the rest of the Church. Corning notes that scholars have identified three major strands of thought that have influenced the popular conceptions of Celtic Christianity. The first arose in the English Reformation, when the Church of England declared itself separate from the Catholic Church. Protestant writers of this time popularized the idea of an indigenous British Christianity that opposed the foreign Roman church and was purer (and protoProtestant) in thought. The English church, they claimed, was not forming a new institution, but casting off the shackles of Rome and returning to its true roots as the indigenous national church of Britain. Ideas of Celtic Christianity were further

influenced by the Romantic movement of the 18th century, in particular Romantic notions of the noble savage and the intrinsic qualities of the Celtic race. The Romantics idealized the Celts as a primitive, bucolic people who were far more poetic, spiritual, and freer of rationalism than their neighbors. The Celts were seen as having an inner spiritual nature that shone through even after their form of Christianity had been destroyed by the authoritarian and rational Rome. In the 20th and 21st centuries, these ideas were combined with appeals by certain modern churches and neo-pagan and New Age groups seeking to recover something of ancient spirituality that is felt to be missing from the modern world. For these groups Celtic Christianity becomes a cipher for whatever is lost in the modern religious experience. Corning notes that these notions say more about modern desires than about the reality of Christianity in the Early Middle Ages, however. By the early fifth century the religion had spread to Ireland, which had never been part of the Roman Empire. The highly successful 5th-century mission of Saint Patrick established churches in conjunction with civitates like his own in Armagh; small enclosures in which groups of Christians, often of both sexes and including the married, lived together, served in various roles and ministered to the local population. Irish society had no history of literacy until the introduction of Christianity, yet within a few generations of the arrival of the first missionaries the monastic and clerical class of the isle had become fully integrated with the culture of Latin letters. Besides Latin, Irish ecclesiastics developed a written form of Old Irish. During the late 5th and 6th centuries true monasteries became the most important centres: in Patricks own see of Armagh the change seems to have happened before the end of the 5th century, thereafter the bishop was the abbot also. Finnian of Clonard is said to have trained the Twelve Apostles of Ireland at Clonard Abbey. In the sixth and seventh centuries, Irish monks established monastic institutions in parts of modern-day Scotland (especially Columba, also known as Colmcille or, in Old Irish, Colum Cille), and on the continent, particularly in Gaul (especially Columbanus). Monks from Iona under St. Aidan founded the See of Lindisfarne in AngloSaxon Northumbria in 635, whence Celtic practice heavily influenced northern England. The achievements of insular art, in illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells, high crosses, and metalwork like the Ardagh Chalice remain very well known, and in the case of manuscript decoration had a profound influence on Western medieval art. The manuscripts were certainly produced by and for monasteries, and the evidence suggests that metalwork was produced in both monastic and royal workshops, perhaps as well as secular commercial ones. Irish monks also founded monasteries across the continent, exerting influence greater than many more ancient continental centres. The first issuance of a papal privilege granting a monastery freedom from episcopal oversight was that of Pope Honorius I to Bobbio Abbey, one of Columbanuss institutions. At least in Ireland, the monastic system became increasingly secularised from the 8th century, as close ties between ruling families and monasteries became apparent. The major monasteries were now wealthy in land and had political importance. On occasion they made war either upon each other or took part in secular wars - a battle in 764 is supposed to have killed 200 from Durrow Abbey when they were defeated

by Clonmacnoise. From early periods the kin nature of many monasteries had meant that some married men were part of the community, supplying labour and with some rights, including in the election of abbots (but obliged to abstain from sex during fasting periods). Some abbacies passed from father to son, and then even grandsons. A revival of the ascetic tradition came in the second half of the century, with the culdee or clients (vassals) of God movement founding new monasteries detached from family groupings. Others who influenced the development of Christianity in Ireland include Brigid and Moluag. Saxon connections with the greater Latin West led to papal preferment and brought the Celtic-speaking peoples into closer contact with the orthodoxy of the councils. The customs and traditions particular to Insular Christianity became a matter of dispute, especially the matter of the proper calculation of Easter. Synods were held in Ireland, Gaul, and England (e.g. the Synod of Whitby) but a degree of variation continued in Britain after the Ionan church accepted the Roman date. The Easter question was settled at various times in different places. The following dates are derived from Haddan and Stubbs: South Ireland, 626-8; North Ireland, 692; Northumbria (converted by Celtic missions), 664; East Devon and Somerset, the Celts under Wessex, 705; the Picts, 710; Iona, 716-8; Strathclyde, 721; North Wales, 768; South Wales, 777. Cornwall held out the longest of any, perhaps even, in parts, to the time of Bishop Aedwulf of Crediton (909). A uniquely Irish penitential system was eventually adopted as a universal practice of the Church by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215.

notactuallythor: Sword, mid-1st century B.C.; Late Iron Age This sword offers eloquent testimony to the value that Celts placed on war and weaponry. Celtic artists often ingeniously integrated animal and human forms in the decoration of precious objects; here a warrior serves as the dramatic hilt for a doubleedged sword. With its carefully defined features and finely drawn curls, the figures head contrasts with the abstract form of the limbs and body. The arms and legs are Vshaped, terminating in round knobs, while the body is made up of three turned ring moldings. The scabbard, now amalgamated to the iron blade, still displays much of its original ornamentation in the form of three small hemispheres on the front upper end, a molding element at the tip, and an elaborate loop at the back for attaching the scabbard to a belt. Swords with an anthropoid hilt are characteristic of Celtic Europe in the first century B.C., with some fifty surviving from this period. Their inclusion in richly outfitted graves suggests that they were the valued property of aristocratic warriors. They may have been meant to enhance the power of the owner, or perhaps served as talismans in battle.

beast-of-man: Celtic women were distinct in the ancient world for the liberty and rights they enjoyed and the position they held in society. Compared to their counterparts in Greek, Roman, and other ancient societies, they were allowed much freedom of activity and protection under the law. The Iron Age Celts were nevertheless a patriarchal people and for the most part men had the ultimate power in politics and the home. Despite this, ancient Celtic women remain an inspiring example of womanhood from the past. Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus wrote (which confirmed by some other Roman authors) that the Gaulish women combined an extraordinary beauty with remarkable courage and great physical force; they participated in armed combat. He gave this description of a Gaulish woman: A whole band of foreigners will be unable to cope with one Gaul in a fight, if he calls in his wife, stronger than he by far and with flashing eyes; least of all when she swells her neck and gnashes her teeth, and poising her huge

white arms, begins to rain blows mingled with kicks, like shots discharged by the twisted cords of a catapult.

PreviousNext art-of-swords: Celtic Sword Date: ca. 60 B.C. Culture: Celtic Medium: Iron blade, copper alloy hilt and scabbard Dimensions: Overall: 19 5/8 x 2 5/8 x 7/8 in. (49.8 x 6.7 x 2.2 cm) Classification: Metalwork-Bronze ~~~ This magnificent anthropomorphic Celtic sword is also one of the best preserved. The beautifully modeled head that terminates the hilt is one of the finest surviving images of a Celtic warrior. The human form of the hiltappearing as a geometric reduction of a classical warrior must have been intended to enhance the power of the owner and to bear a talismanic significance. The face is emphatically articulated with large almond eyes, and the head with omega-shaped and finely drawn hair.

Although the scabbard has become amalgamated to the iron blade, affecting parts of the surface, its ornamentation and the exquisitely worked hilt make the whole an evocative statement about the technical ability of the Celts, the powerful conquerors of ancient Europe. The sword is of a type associated with the La Tne culture, named after the important Celtic site on Lake Neuchtel in present-day Switzerland and eastern France. Other related anthropomorphic swords from diverse finds in France, Ireland, and the British Isles demonstrate the expansion of the Celts across Europe. As the first such example in the Museums collection, the sword is a superb and singular example that richly adds to a select group of Celtic works of art.

Ancient Celtic music

Main Article Talk Draft Related Articles
[?]

Bibliography

[?]

External Links

[?]

Article approved by an editor from at least one of the listed workgroups. The Music, Classics and Archaeology Workgroups are responsible for this article. While we have done conscientious work, we cannot guarantee that this article is wholly free of mistakes.

Help improve this article further on the draft page!

This article is about the music and instruments of the ancient Celts until late Antiquity. For the modern folkloristic genre and its history see Celtic music.

The ancient Celts had a distinct culture, which is shown by their very sophisticated art work. The Hallstatt culture and especially the later La Tne culture are characterized by a high aesthetic level, which must have also left traces in Celtic music and musical practices. Music will surely have been an integral part of this ancient cross-European culture, but with only very few exceptions its characteristics have been lost to us. Deductions rely primarily on Greek and Roman sources as well as on archaeological finds and interpretations including the reconstruction of the Celts' ancient instruments. In 54 BC Cicero wrote that there were no musically educated people on the British isle. [1] Independent of the validity of Cicero's remark[2] the situation was different for the Gallic regions. By the time of Augustus, musical education must have widely gained ground in Gaul, otherwise Iulius Sacrovir couldn't have used the erudite Gauls as a decoy, after Sacrovir and Iulius Florus had occupied the city of Augustodonum during the Gallic insurrection in 21 AD.<ref>Tacitus, Annals 3.43</ref> The Gauls took great pride in their musical culture, which is shown by the remark of Gaius Iulius Vindex, the Gallic rebel and later senator under Claudius, who shortly before the arrival in Rome called emperor Nero a malus citharodeus ("bad cithara player") and reproached him with inscitia [] artis ("ignorance of the arts").[3] However, Celtic music culture was spread inhomogeneously over Europe: Maximinus Thrax, the Thracian-Roman emperor of Gothic descent, annoyed his fellow Romans because he was unable to appreciate a mimic stage song.[4]

Most of the information on ancient Celtic music centers on military conflicts and on maybe the most prominent Celtic instrument of its time, the carnyx.

Contents
[hide]

1 The carnyx o 1.1 Playing techniques and features o 1.2 Use of the carnyx o 1.3 Archaeological finds 2 Other Celtic instruments o 2.1 Brass instruments 2.1.1 The Celtic horn 2.1.2 The Celtic trumpet 2.1.3 Other brass instruments o 2.2 Woodwinds and similar instruments o 2.3 Percussion and dance o 2.4 Crwth the ancient Celtic lyre o 2.5 Celtic use of Roman instruments 3 Chant o 3.1 Germanic chants 3.1.1 Barditus the battle song 3.1.2 Heroic songs 4 The Romans as ethnographers 5 References 6 External links

The carnyx

Two ancient carnyces[5]

1972 Haupt (Bern) (Used by permission)

The carnyx (plural: carnyces; Greek: "karnyx"or rarely: "karnon") was a Celtic-Dacian variant of the Etruscan-Roman lituus and belongs to the family of brass instruments.[6] It was an -shaped valveless horn made of beaten bronze and consisted of a tube between one and two meters in length, whereas the diameter of the tube is unknown.[7] Archaeological finds date back to the Bronze Age, and the instrument itself is attested for in contemporary sources between ca. 300 BC and 200 AD. The carnyx was in widespread use in Britain, France, parts of Germany, eastward to Romania and beyond, even as far as India, where bands of Celtic mercenaries took it on their travels.[8] Gallic coins show the carnyx behind the head of the goddess Gallia or held by a chieftain, a charioteer or a Gallic Victoria. On British coins the instrument is seen swung by mounted Celtic warriors or chiefs. Roman coins, e.g. those heralding Caesar's victory over Gaul, depict the carnyx on Roman tropaea as spoils of war. Other depictions are known from the Augustus statue of Prima Porta.[9] In addition several instruments are illustrated on Trajan's Column, carried by Dacian warriors. The carnyx's most prominent feature is the bell, which was constructed as an animal head, either as one of a serpent, a fish, a bird, a wolf, a horse, an ass or a wild boar. The earliest depiction shows the head of a dragon and was found on Aetolian victory coins from the 3rd century BC, which commemorate the expulsion of the Gallic warriors, who had marauded the Delphi sanctum.[10] Behn (1912) interpreted the many bell types as distinguishing features of the various Celtic clans and chiefdoms.[11] Others have suggested a mythological component,[12] which is the most logical explanation, since the Deskford Carnyx in Scotland was a sacrificial offering, of which the possibly dismantled head could have been the key element.[13] Based on this independent developement of the bell an attempt was made to derive the Etruscan lituus from the carnyx, but without success.[14]

Playing techniques and features

Pitch compass of the reconstructed Deskford carnyx The sound of the carnyx was described as lugubrious and harsh, perhaps due to the loosened tongue of the bell,[15] which shows that the instrument must have been a discrete enhancement of the Etruscan lituus, the sound of which was mostly described as bright and piercing.[16] The carnyx was held vertically so that the sound would travel from more than three meters above the ground. Reconstructions have shown that the instrument's embouchure must have been cut diagonally as an oval opening, so the carnyx could be played in a similar fashion as a modern-day trumpet, i.e. with vibrating lips, however blown from the side.[17] Due to the absence of valves and crooks, melodies were created by producing harmonics with overblowing techniques, as the reconstructional work by John Kenny has convincingly shown (see External links for a recording sample).[18] The fairly wide bell guaranteed a very high playing volume, and the instrument itself must have had a considerable dynamic range. The best surviving bell of a carnyx was found in North East Scotland as part of the so-called Deskford Carnyx and featured a movable tongue. In addition the bronze jaw of the animal head may have been loosened as well in order to produce a jarring sound that would surely have been most dreadful when combined with the sound of a few dozen more carnyces in battle.[19] The demoralizing effect of the Gallic battle music must have been enormous: When the Celts advanced on Delphi under Brennus in 279 BC, the unusual echoing effects of the blaring horns completely overawed the Greeks, before even a single fight could commence.[20]

Use of the carnyx

A Roman tropaeum with a carnyx

VRoma (Used by permission)

Since most ancient Roman sources are based on bellicose encounters with the Celtic chiefdoms, the carnyx is today mostly seen as an instrument used during warfare, as Polybius e.g. reports for the battle of Telemon, Gallia Cisalpina, in 225 BC, where the Gauls used the instrument together with other brass instruments to frighten the Roman enemy.[21] The limitation to acoustic or psychological warfare is however erroneous. Brass instruments were regularly used as a means of communication during battle, relaying orders for troop positioning, movement and tactics, also by the Gauls.[22] Other sources confirm that the Gauls kept their military order even in situations of military

mishaps. The musicians of their army camps played their horns to ensure a cohesive and controlled retreat.[23] After the victory of Marius near Vercellae, his Roman rival Catulus Caesar reserved a Cimbrian signaling horn from the loot for himself.[24] Music, musicians and instruments were strategically important elements for the Roman and Celtic armies alike. Furthermore, the instrument can be seen in action on the famous Gundestrup cauldron in the depiction of a warrior initiation ritual (2nd or 1st century BC), a clear evidence for the use of the instrument outside of the purely military realm.[25] The ritual use of the instrument is further supported by the Deskford Carnyx, which was shown to have been a sacrificial offering to an unknown god.

Archaeological finds
Apart from the Scottish Deskford Carnyx found in 1816 on the shores of Moray Firth in Aberdeenshire, fragments of only four other carnyces had been found (e.g. the Glanum Carnyx in the Bouches-du-Rhne region), until in 2004 archaeologists discovered a foundation deposit of five well preserved carnyces from the first or second century AD under a Gallo-Roman fanum at Tintignac (Corrze, France), four of which feature boar heads, while the fifth exemplar appears to have a serpent bell.[26] The fact that the carnyces were deposited on a holy site underlines the sacrificial importance of the instrument in Gallic culture.[27] The archaeologists responsible for the Tintignac excavation assume that the carnyces were offered to a deity identified with the Roman god Mars. There is still debate on the dating, because parts of other finds discovered in the deposit seem to be older than the first century, possibly dating to the first century BC, which means that some of the musical instruments may have been stored inside the sanctuary long before being buried.

Other Celtic instruments

Brass instruments
In his accounts of the battle of Telemon, Polybius clearly distinguishes between hornand trumpet-like instruments played by the Gallic warriors.[28] In general the Celtic peoples had a variety of instruments at their disposal. Aside from the carnyx, at least two other brass instrument types are known from Roman and Greek depictions.

Celtic horn
1972 Haupt (Bern) (Used by permission)

The Celtic horn

The Celtic horn was a large, oval-curved horn with a thin tube and a modestly large bell, not unlike the Roman cornu, especially since it also had a crossbar as a means of supporting the instrument's weight on the player's shoulder. Like the carnyx it is therefore and in all probability an instrument of Etruscan origin from the first period of hellenization.[29] On a Pompeian fresco, the horn is carried by a female dancer,[30] and a Gallic warrior carries a broken exemplar, fastened together by a (leather?) band, on a Capitoline sculpture.[31] Like the Roman cornu, the Celtic horn will have been held horizontally to ensure a more comfortable playing position.

Celtic trumpet
1972 Haupt (Bern) (Used by permission)

The Celtic trumpet The Celtic trumpet was similar to the straight Roman tuba and probably came in different lengths. A Celtic musician is depicted playing the instrument on a late Greek vase.[32] A related instrument could be the early mediaeval Loch Erne horn that was found in Ireland. Other brass instruments Many regional variants of the Celtic horns are known and came in different shapes, sizes and diameters, like the Loughnashade Trumpa from Ireland and similar horns from Scandinavia and other regions. Couissin (1927) documented a third Celtic wind instrument type with a bent horn, similar to the Caledonian Caprington Horn[33] or the infamous prehistoric Sussex horn that was however lost and of which only drawings and reproductions survive. It is not known whether the horn mentioned by Couissin was a fragment of another Celtic horn or a simple cow horn of the rural population, a bowed horn-instrument known all across Europe.

Woodwinds and similar instruments

Bone flutes, mostly made from birds, are known since the Stone Age.[34] Wooden flutes were introduced later and corresponded to the Roman fistula (shepherd's flute). But terracotta and bone whistles remained in use throughout antiquity.[35] In addition woodwinds made of tubes and pipes, similar to the Greek syrinx (pan flute), were in use.
[36]

Percussion and dance

Crotales (hand bells) made of bronze or wood as well as terracotta rattles are known since the Bronze Age, some of which came in the shape of birds.[37] Closed bells were

sometimes built with a ring and could be strapped to the player's apparel. Weapons and shieldsapart from their use for rhythmic noises on the battlefieldsmust have been widely adopted as percussion instruments, but the only sources in this respect are on the Gallaecian and Celtiberian culture: In his epic on the second Punic war Silius mentions the exotic songs of the Gallaecian military allies, to which they beat the rhythm on their shields.[38] Celtiberian weapon dances are reported for the funeral of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus.[39] The most famous dances of Hispania however were performed by the Gaditanae, the women of Gades in Hispania Baetica,[40] which were so popular in Rome that special teachers from Spain were hired for Roman music education.[41] The dancers used hand clappers as an accompanying instrument, creating a lascivious dance similar to modern-day castanet performances.[42] If the Celts used drumming instruments like the Roman tympanum is unknown, but very likely, because other forms of hand drums like the ceramic German Honsommern Drum, which was similar to the African djembe, are known since the Neolithic. A later Iron Age drum is the Malemort Drum found in the central French Corrze region.[43]

Crwth the ancient Celtic lyre

Not much is known about the ancient Celtic lyre, only that it was used by Celtic bards since the 8th century BC and that it was later well-known in Rome, where it was called lyra.[44] Its resonator was made from wood, while only few components were made from bones. The instrument's strings were made from animal intestine. The Gauls and other Celtic peoples regarded the crwth[45] as a symbol of their independent musical culture,[46] although they had probably received it from the Ancient Greeks. The Goths invoked their tribal gods with prayers and chants, which they accompanied by lyre play.[47] By the time of the Barbarian Invasions in the 5th century AD the lyre had become the most important stringed instrument of the Germanic tribes[48] and was a six-stringed wooden lyre with hollow ledger arms and wooden vortices in the ledger rod. The original Celtic lyre however came with different numbers of strings, as the Lyre of Paule, which is depicted on a statue from Ctes d'Armor in Bretagne, apparently had seven strings.[49]

Celtic use of Roman instruments

Since many Celts like the Gauls and Germans became part of the Roman army, they must have also used Roman instruments, especially during battle. However, only one source seems to have been passed down: At the time of emperor Claudius' inauguration, the troops stationed in Germania and Pannonia mutinied. When an unexpected lunar eclipse commenced, the insurgent Pannonians feared the wrath of the gods and ordered their musicians to play against their perdition aeris sono, tubarum cornuumque concentu, i.e. with their tubae and cornua.[50]

Chant
The Romans have left us a variety of sources on chants from various regions. Sallust mentions the Spanish custom of ancestral songs honoring their military deeds.[51] The recital of "barbaric songs" is reported for a member of the Celtiberian infantry during the battle of Cannae in 216 BC, as he was attacked by the Roman consul.[52] National songs are already attested by Tacitus for the Caledonians.[53] Livius reports Gallic war songs that were heard at the river Allia.[54] After the Gallic victory (ca. 387 BC) the

city's inhabitants had to endure the dissonant battle chants.[55] A sole Gallic warrior is reported to have gone into a fight singing.[56] Livius on the other hand only describes the Roman Titus Manlius, who would defeat him in 361 BC, as remaining in defiant silence to concentrate all his anger on the impending fight.[57] In 218 BC the Gauls resisted the enemy commander Hannibal and his troops during his crossing of the Rhne with furious battle cries and the demonstrative clashing of their swords and armor.[58] Since many of the Gauls and Germans joined Caesar's army after his victory over Gaul, their war chants were added to the Roman oeuvre of army songs: When 2000 soldiers from the Gallic cavalry defected to Octavian before the battle of Actium, they didn't only cheer for Caesar but presented genuine Gallic war songs.[59] Probably the most popular vocal performers were the Celtic bards, whose national heroic songs were known in Rome throughout antiquity.[60]

Germanic chants
The Roman sources on Germanic chants are not based on ethnographical topica, but originate from actual experiences. The primary attributes of Germanic singing can be derived from the accounts on the Germanic tribes by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. As scant and recapitulary Tacitus' observations might be, it is possible to deduce two discrete music genres, the war chant (barditus) and the heroic songs. Barditus the battle song Among other heroes and gods the Germans especially worshipped Heracles as their god of war with their battle songs,[61] which must have inspired Hecataeus of Miletus to use the name (Kelto) for the Celtic Hallstatt tribes of Western and South-Western Germany,[62] since Celtus was the son of Heracles and Keltine in Greek mythology.[63] The warriors inferred the outcome of the battle from the character of the so-called barditus[64] and also accompanied their cries with the beating and rattling of their weapons and armour, which directly parallels the custom that the Gauls exhibited at the Rhne (see above). The fact that the name barditus also describes the trumpeting of an elephant might be a hint that also wind instruments were used, but this must remain pure speculation. It is more feasible that Tacitus used the term for purely objective reasons, since Germanic war songs would not be expected to come as a particularly aesthetic experience. The most important aspect was namely the intonation before the battle,[65] and the abrupt start of the barditi doesn't speek for music with words. The characterization as an acoustic crescendo rather points at noisy battle clamor than a normal song with lyrics. The Germans fighting for Aulus Vitellius Germanicus went into battle singing, after they had been surround by Othonian enemy forces.[66] In his account of the Batavian rebellion lead by Gaius Iulius Civilis the author Tacitus contrasts the hesitant attitude of the Roman soldiers with the sullen Batavian chants.[67] The writings of Ammianus specify that the descriptions of the raw, dull and thundering battle songs, which were also given by Tacitus, allude to the music of the Germans fighting on the Roman side.[68] The fact that he actually mentions "Romans" intoning Germanic songs clearly shows how extensively the Roman army had been enforced with Germanic troops.[69] Heroic songs

Although Tacitus doesn't distinguish between the barditus and the heroic songs, his choice of words implies a second genre. Tacitus' cumulation of alliterations[70] is probably the first mention of rhyme in Europe, an early form of the German Stabreim, which became widely popular in the Mediaeval Ages.[71] The Romans were acquainted with Germanic heroic songs, e.g. from the poetic and musical Nachleben of Arminius.[72] The Tacitus source can be seen as the first testimony of early Germanic heroic songs.[73] Festive singing is also attested for the night of the Roman advance in the Ems region in 15 AD.[74] In 26 AD the insurgent Thracians were surprised by the attack of the Roman consul and general Poppaeus Sabinus during a feast with dance and singing. The Sicambri, who fought for the Roman side, countered the situation with defiant songs of their own,[75] which could be evidence that the Celts knew improvisation as well as the ancient tradition of singing contests, which are e.g. reported by Virgil.[76] The Goths sang heroic songs to worship their ancestors,[77] and their tradition of tribal songs is well attested.[78] After the battle of Campus Mauriacus the Goths were heard singing dirges for their fallen king.[79]

The Romans as ethnographers

Elephant treading a carnyx

Harlan J. Berk (Used by permission)

The Roman historians and poets were often interested in foreign music, especially the music of the Gallic and Germanic Celts, but sometimes their literary aims had priority over a detailed ethnographical observation. Many modern scholars had long presumed this to have been a common characteristic of Roman historiography.[80] One of the most prominent victims of this generalizing misconception was C. Iulius Caesar, whose excurses in his Commentaries on the Gallic War often show an exceptionally autonomous ethnography, especially in the later books.[81] Only in a minor number of other cases, ethnographical detail is presented by Caesar to benefit purely as a foil for Roman behavior. An example is his detailed description of the Gallic women's opportunistic behavior,[82] where their inconstantia is used to contrast the magnitudo animi of the Roman military. Furthermore the colorful account helped to play down Caesar's military setback in Gergovia. Caesar can therefore not be seen as completely free from the preferral of political goals, especially in his reports on the enemy's military campaigns, which can furthermore be exemplified by his mention of the Gallic signaling horns in his Commentaries. The instrument was used in Alesia by orders of Vercingetorix to alarm his troops, and the Belgian tribe of the Bellovacians used it to summon a council of war, after they had

been defeated by the Romans in 51 BC.[83] Caesar calls the instrument a tuba, although the correct term must have been known to him, so it's unclear if it was a carnyx or one of the other Gallic brass instruments (see above), although Caesar's rendition might well suggest the Celtic trumpet. Here the interpretatio Romana obscures the ethnographical detail, although it can be derived from the many illustrations on victory reliefs that the distinctiveness of the Gallic horns had not been passed unnoticed by the Romans. A good example of how many Romans viewed the Germanic Celts is given by the soldiers after the triumph of Lepidus and Plancus 43 BC in Spain. For their songs the soldiers improvised lyrics that used the term germani ("brothers", "Germans") for their fellow Romans to ambiguously allude to the barbaric proscriptions of the second triumvirate.[84]