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Volcae
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The Volcae were a Celtic tribal confederation constituted sometime before the Gallic raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon in the 270s and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279. Though our view of Celtic tribal configuations has to be pieced together from mentions in Greek and Latin sources, for archaeology determines no tribal identities purely through material culture of the late La Tène Celts, tribes called Volcae were to be found simultaneously in southern France, Moravia, the Ebro River valley, and Galatia in Asia Minor (Anatolia).
Driven by highly mobile groups operating outside the tribal system and comprising diverse elements, the Volcae were one of the new ethnic entities formed during the Celtic military expansion at the beginning of the third century BC.
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The Volcae were a Celtic tribal confederation constituted sometime before the Gallic raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedon in the 270s and defeated the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279. Though our view of Celtic tribal configuations has to be pieced together from mentions in Greek and Latin sources, for archaeology determines no tribal identities purely through material culture of the late La Tène Celts, tribes called Volcae were to be found simultaneously in southern France, Moravia, the Ebro River valley, and Galatia in Asia Minor (Anatolia).
Driven by highly mobile groups operating outside the tribal system and comprising diverse elements, the Volcae were one of the new ethnic entities formed during the Celtic military expansion at the beginning of the third century BC. Collecting in the famous excursion into the Balkans, ostensibly, from the Hellene point-of-view, to raid Delphi, a branch of the Volcae split from the main group on the way into the Balkans and joined two other tribes, the Tolistobogii and the Trocmi, to settle in central Asia Minor and establish a new Gaulish identity as the Galatians.
The Tectosagii were a sept of the Volcae who moved through Macedonia into Asia Minor circa 270 BC. Strabo says the Tectosagii came originally from the region near modern Toulouse, in France.
Volcae of the Danube
Julius Caesar was convinced that the Volcae had originally been settled north-east of the Rhine, in what is now western and central Germany in the basin of the Weser River, for he mentioned the Volcae Tectosages as a Celtic tribe which still remained in western Germany in his day (Gallic War 6.24):
- "And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine."
- "Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian forest, (which, I perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit; now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization. Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many engagements, they do not now even compare themselves to the Germans in prowess."
Caesar related a tradition associating the Celtic tribe of the Volcae to the vast Hercynian forest, though they were more probably to be located in the eastern range of the Mittelgebirge; yet, Volcae of his time were settled in Moravia, east of the Boii. Their apparent movement may indicate that the Volcae were newcomers to the region. Caesar's remark about the wealth of this region may have referred not only to agriculture but also to the mineral deposits there, while the renown attributed to the Volcae "in peace and in war" resulted from their metallurgical skills and the quality of their weapons, both attracting the attention of their northern neighbors . Together with the Boii in the upper basin of the Elbe river to the west and the Cotini in Slovakia to the east, this area of Celtic settlement in oppida led to the exploitation of natural resources on a grand scale and the concentration of skilled craftsmen under the patronage of strong and wealthy chieftains. This culture flourished from the mid second to the mid first century BC, until it buckled under the combined pressure of the Germans from the North and the Dacians from the East.
Allowance must be made for Julius Caesar's usual equation of primitive poverty with admirable hardihood and military prowess and his connection of luxurious imports and the proximity of "civilization", meaning his own, with softness and decadence. In fact, long-established trading connections furnished Gaulish elites with Baltic amber and Greek and Etruscan wares.
Caesar took it as a given that the Celts in the Hercynian Forest were emigrant settlers from Gaul who had "seized" the land, but modern archeology identifies the region as part of the La Tène homeland. As Henry Howarth noted a century ago, "The Tectosages reported by Caesar as still being around the Hercynian forest were in fact living in the old homes of their race, whence a portion of them set out on their great expedition against Greece, and eventually settled in Galatia, in Asia Minor, where one of the tribes was called Tectosages."
Volcae of Gaul
Volcae Arecomisci
The Volcae Arecomisci (?????a? ?????µ??? of Ptolemy's Geography ii), according to Strabo, dwelt on the western side of the lower Rhone, with their metropolis at Narbo (Narbonne): "Narbo is spoken of as the naval-station of these people alone, though it would be fairer to add "and of the rest of Celtica", so greatly has it surpassed the others in the number of people who use it as a trade-centre." They were not alone in occupying their territory, with its capital at Nemausus (Nîmes).
The Volcae Arecomisci of their own accord surrendered to the Roman Republic in 121 BC, after which they occupied the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (the area around modern day Narbonne), the southern part of Gallia Transalpina. They held their assemblies in the sacred wood of Nemausus, the site of modern Nîmes.
In Roman times, the Volca Arecomici occupied the district between the Garonne River (Garumna), the Cévennes (Cebenna mons), and the Rhône River;, corresponding roughly to the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. In Gaul they were divided into two tribes in widely separated regions, the Arecomici on the east, living among the Ligures, and the Tectosages (whose territory included that of the Tolosates) on the west, living among the Aquitanians; the territories were separated by the Hérault River (Arauris) or a line between the Hérault River and the Orbe River (Orbis).
Volcae Tectosages
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