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The Celts were a group of peoples that occupied lands stretching
from the British Isles to Gallatia. The Celts had many dealings
with other cultures that bordered the lands occupied by these
peoples.
The first historical recorded encounter of a people displaying
the cultural traits associated with the Celts comes from northern
Italy around 400 BC, when a previously unkown
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group of barbarians came down from the Alps and displaced the
Etruscans from the fertile Povalley, a displacment that helped
to push the Etruscans from history's limelight. The nextencounter
with the Celts came with the still young Roman Empire, directly
to the south of the Po. The Romans in fact had sent three envoys
to the beseiged Etruscans to study this new force.
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***Diodorus
notes that:"Their aspect is terrifying...They are very tall in stature,
with ripling muscles under clear white skin. Their hair is blond, but
not naturally so: they bleach it, to this day, artificially, washing it
in lime and combing it back from their foreheaads. They look like wood-demons,
their hair thick and shaggy like a horse's mane. Some of them are cleanshaven,
but others - especially those of high rank, shave their cheeks but leave
a moustache that covers the whole mouth and, when they eat and drink,
acts like a sieve, trapping particles of food...The way they dress is
astonishing: they wear brightly coloured and embroidered shirts, with
trousers called bracae and cloaks fastened at the shoulder with a brooch,
heavy in winter, light in summer. These cloaks are striped or checkered
in design, with the seperate checks close together and in various colours.
They wear bronze helmets with figures picked out on them, even horns,while
others cover themselves with breast-armour made out of chains. But most
content themselves with the weapons nature gave them: they go naked into
battle...Weird, discordant horns were sounded, [they shouted in chorus
with their] deep and harsh voices, they beat their swords rythmically
against their shields."
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