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Society |
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Julius Caesar is our best source of information about Celtic society. Caesar found a society divided into factions. The Celts were generally governed by a council of nobles and by powerful chiefs.
If the leader of a faction failed to protect his followers however, he became completely discredited.
There were two privileged classes: the Druids who seem to have combined the roles of priests and magistrates, and the Knights who led the people in war. The druids officiated at religious ceremonies and were consulted on all aspects of the worship of the gods. They met every year to decide on legal disputes and were held in high regard. Caesar noted that areas furthest from the Roman Province produced the fiercest soldiers and implied that certain parts of the Celtic world had been enervated because they had been exposed to Roman luxuries. Women had few rights but enjoyed a certain degree of security. Funerals were considered a great event, the dead were cremated on a funeral pyre together with their favorite objects. The Celts lived on small farms or in villages but could retreat to hill forts when they were threatened. Timber or dry stone walling was used to contain the rampart material and some of these forts had quite complex works to protect their entrances. The Celts had coins more than a century before their lands became part of the Roman Empire. The earliest found in Britain were of pure gold and imitated the “statue” of Philip of Macedon. Celtic coins often featured pictures of horses, bears and wheat. For low value coins, the Celts used an alloy of copper and tin called “potin”. (Caterina Curi, 3^B internaz.) |
