Untitled 1

                                                                                                                                             RAINBOW FARMS AUSTRALIA                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                      5th Century BC 

                                                                                                                                            This was to be the Golden Age for Athens.

500 BC The Middle Bronze Age populations who had adopted Late Bronze Age metals were only basically effected by those migrating from the Hallstatt Culture and Iron Age A, and they were later on to move into the Lowlands of Scotland / Alba, at the beginning of the Christian era, as a result of Belgic and Roman troubles farther south, and possibly also due to the Celtic Scythian Pretani Pictish Gaels  further to the north in the Scottish Highlands. The Celts / Celtoi / Keltoi were to gain Spain (part of Gaul) from Carthage, after an alliance with the Greeks, who had been saved from obliteration, as none of the Celts would enlist as mercenaries with Carthage. Nyrax at this time was described as a Celtic City and Massalia / Marseilles in Liguria as being in the Land of the Celts, with the actual dwelling places of the aristocratic warrior Celts beyond the Pillars of Hercules where they practised justice and righteousness with dominion over Mid Europe, Gaul, Spain and Briton.

500 BC - 500 AD Was to be the actual Iron Age and the beginning of the Celtic La Tene Culture, which was to commense around the River Rhine in Germany and spread east into Hungary and Switzerland, then west into France, Spain, Albion / Briton until it would eventually also reach Ireland. The production of high quality Iron products enabled the Celts to have greater expectations against their neighbours during conflict and this fed into an aristocratic warrior culture. Near the end they were also to be using light thrusting Iron swords as well as a dagger for their close in - fighting, with casting spears, and the Celtic aristocratic warriors were to be conveyed by a charioteer in a two - wheeled war chariot drawn by 2 small horses.

     The Celts from this time on until 250 BC were to have the most powerful mobile armed forces north of the Alps, and were situated throughout Europe, in the west of Spain, to Russia in the east, to the Baltic Sea in the north, and to the Adriatic Sea in the south, where they were to settle down in Asia Minor before actually migrating across Europe. 

    The Greeks described them as the Celtoi / Celts and said that they were tall, fair, well built in appearance, boastful, noisy and fond of quarrelling, especially during their feasts, which was an important part of their Culture.

    The Celtic warriors soaked their hair in water, mixed with a crushed chalk to make it thicken and pale in colour, and wearing it like a horse's mane, while some also had beards the majority only had moustaches, which they allowed to grow very long and straggly while the Celtic women were tall and well built with long hair and took great pride in their appearance.

    The Celts developed superior weaponry as an Iron sword was now also carried in a bronze scabbard, a sheathed dagger, and spears, and there was also a finer 3 - linked bit for the horses, chain mail and chariots.

  Although individual challenge (one on one) was by now generally outmoded during a conflict, it was still part of Celtic Culture and would remain so eventually to their detriment.

450 BC The Celts were in Gaul at Massilia / Marseilles which was a Greek colony, and Nyrax / Noricum / Noreia in the Austrian region, with the source of the River Danube near Pyrene, which was also a Greek trading post on the north - east of the Spanish coast, and the Greeks there were to also record the Celts as the Celtoi, as this is what their name sounded like to them orally, and as the Celts spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula to Massilia and the region of Noricum the term Celtici survived as their generic name, as they were from the south - western Spanish region up until Roman times, and their Upper Danube Celti homeland spread to Spain, and then later on also into Italy and the Balkans. (The Celts were by then the major People living west and north of the Western Mediterranean and beyond the Alps.)

      The Celtic Teutonic Fir Bolg / Belgae Septs from the main part of Gaul, which was in France, were to cross over the English Channel and began to settle in the Brythonic Isles.

443 BC During this period Pytheus a Greek wrote of the Pretanic Isles / British Isles, named for the Celtic Scythian Gaelic Priteni / Pritani, Latin / Brittani, while Strabo who was actually a Celtic Noble recorded Ireland's name at this time as Ierne. All of the territories before this period in time that had been assigned to the Celts / Celtoi, were to be actually known as Germanic to the Greeks, as the Teutonic Germanic peoples themselves were still not in any way dominant during this period in history. The Celts / Celtoi who had previously gone into Asia Minor and founded Galatia there were still speaking a Celtic dialect until this time also, but they would be eventually assimilated into Turkey.

           Home Page                                    Return to Celtic Heritage                                       On to the 4th Century BC                                           On to 400 - 300 BC