Misplaced Pages

#222777

87-584: The name Vexin is derived from a name for a Gaulish tribe now known as the Veliocasses . They had inhabited the area and made Rouen their most important city. The Norse nobleman Rollo of Normandy (c. 846 – c. 931), the first ruler of the Viking principality that became Normandy, made several incursions into the western half of the county. He halted his actions when the Carolingian king Charles

174-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

261-577: A Roman character sarcastically suggests that he and his partner "chalk our faces so that Gaul may claim us as her own" in the midst of a rant outlining the problems with his partner's plan of using blackface to impersonate Aethiopians . This suggests that Gauls were thought of on average to be much paler than Romans. Jordanes describes the physical attributes of the Gauls as including "reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies." All over Gaul, archeology has uncovered many pre-Roman gold mines (at least 200 in

348-400: A Roman province by the time of Caesar, Latin was the language spoken since at least the previous century. Gaulish is paraphyletically grouped with Celtiberian , Lepontic , and Galatian as Continental Celtic . Lepontic and Galatian are sometimes considered dialects of Gaulish. The exact time of the final extinction of Gaulish is unknown, but it is estimated to be around or shortly after

435-428: A certain number of years, probably after spending time in an afterlife, and noted they buried grave goods with the dead. Gallic religious ceremonies were overseen by priests known as druids , who also served as judges, teachers, and lore-keepers. There is evidence that the Gauls sacrificed animals , almost always livestock . An example is the sanctuary at Gournay-sur-Aronde . It appears some were offered wholly to

522-437: A father god, who was often a god of the tribe and of the dead ( Toutatis probably being one name for him); and a mother goddess who was associated with the land, earth and fertility ( Matrona probably being one name for her). The mother goddess could also take the form of a war goddess as protectress of her tribe and its land. There also seems to have been a male celestial god—identified with Taranis —associated with thunder,

609-557: A group of Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul ( Gallia ). They spoke Gaulish , a continental Celtic language . The Gauls emerged around the 5th century BC as bearers of La Tène culture north and west of the Alps . By the 4th century BC, they were spread over much of what

696-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

783-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

870-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

957-490: A role in gender shifts of words in Early French, whereby the gender would shift to match the gender of the corresponding Gaulish word with the same meaning. Like other Celtic peoples, the Gauls had a polytheistic religion . Evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology and Greco-Roman accounts. Some deities were venerated only in one region, but others were more widely known. The Gauls seem to have had

SECTION 10

#1732765750223

1044-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

1131-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

1218-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1305-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

1392-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

1479-403: Is blond, and not only naturally so, but they make it their practice to increase the distinguishing color by which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater, and they pull it back from their forehead to the top of the head and back to the nape of the neck... Some of them shave their beards, but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks, but they let

1566-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

1653-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

1740-739: Is mostly geometric and linear, and is best seen on fine metalwork finds from graves. Animals, with waterfowl a particular favorite, are often included as part of ornamentation, more often than humans. Commonly found objects include weapons, in latter periods often with hilts terminating in curving forks ("antenna hilts"), and jewelry, which include fibulae , often with a row of disks hanging down on chains, armlets, and some torcs . Though these are most often found in bronze, some examples, likely belonging to chieftains or other preeminent figures, are made of gold. Decorated situlae and bronze belt plates show influence from Greek and Etruscan figurative traditions. Many of these characteristics were continued into

1827-587: Is now France , Belgium , Switzerland , Southern Germany , Austria , and the Czech Republic , by virtue of controlling the trade routes along the river systems of the Rhône , Seine , Rhine , and Danube . They reached the peak of their power in the 3rd century BC. During the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the Gauls expanded into Northern Italy ( Cisalpine Gaul ), leading to the Roman–Gallic wars , and into

SECTION 20

#1732765750223

1914-595: The Aedui , Helvetii and others, had enjoyed stable political alliances with Rome. They imported Mediterranean wine on an industrial scale, evidenced by large finds of wine vessels in digs all over Gaul, the largest and most famous of which being the one discovered in Vix Grave , which stands 1.63 m (5′ 4″) high. Gallic art corresponds to two archaeological material cultures : the Hallstatt culture (c. 1200–450 BC) and

2001-661: The Coligny calendar . The ethnonym Galli is generally derived from a Celtic root * gal - 'power, ability' (cf. Old Breton gal 'power, ability', Irish gal 'bravery, courage'). Brittonic reflexes give evidence of an n-stem * gal-n- , with the regular development * galn - > gall - (cf. Middle Welsh gallu , Middle Breton gallout 'to be able', Cornish gallos 'power'). The ethnic names Galátai and Gallitae , as well as Gaulish personal names such as Gallus or Gallius , are also related. The modern French gaillard ('brave, vigorous, healthy') stems from

2088-569: The French Revolution imposed the modern departmental system . Though the tribes were moderately stable political entities, Gaul as a whole tended to be politically divided, there being virtually no unity among the various tribes. Only during particularly trying times, such as the invasion of Caesar, could the Gauls unite under a single leader like Vercingetorix . Even then, however, the faction lines were clear. The Romans divided Gaul broadly into Provincia (the conquered area around

2175-685: The Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), making it a Roman province , which brought about the hybrid Gallo-Roman culture . The Gauls were made up of many tribes ( toutās ), many of whom built large fortified settlements called oppida (such as Bibracte ), and minted their own coins . Gaul was never united under a single ruler or government, but the Gallic tribes were capable of uniting their armies in large-scale military operations , such as those led by Brennus and Vercingetorix . They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids . The Gauls produced

2262-792: The Germanic Cimbri and Teutones in the Cimbrian War , where they defeated and killed a Roman consul at Burdigala in 107 BC, and later became prominent among the rebelling gladiators in the Third Servile War . The Gauls were finally conquered by Julius Caesar in the 50s BC despite a rebellion by the Arvernian chieftain Vercingetorix . During the Roman period the Gauls became assimilated into Gallo-Roman culture and by expanding Germanic tribes . During

2349-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

2436-624: The Hauts-de-France region; and Eure and Seine-Maritime in the Normandy region. The major towns are Pontoise , Vernon , Meulan-en-Yvelines , Gisors , and Les Andelys . The plateau is primarily an agricultural region with some manufacturing located in the valleys. The French Impressionist artist Claude Monet made his home at Giverny , and the Dutch Post-Impressionist Vincent van Gogh painted

2523-570: The La Tène culture (c. 450–1 BC). Each of these eras has a characteristic style, and while there is much overlap between them, the two styles recognizably differ. From the late Hallstatt onwards and certainly through the entirety of La Tène, Gaulish art is reckoned to be the beginning of what is called Celtic art today. After the end of the La Tène and from the beginning of Roman rule, Gaulish art evolved into Gallo-Roman art . Hallstatt decoration

2610-538: The Mithridatic Wars , in which they supported Rome. In the settlement of 64 BC, Galatia became a client state of the Roman empire, the old constitution disappeared, and three chiefs (wrongly styled "tetrarchs") were appointed, one for each tribe. But this arrangement soon gave way before the ambition of one of these tetrarchs, Deiotarus , a contemporary of Cicero and Julius Caesar , who made himself master of

2697-598: The Punic Wars . One of the leading rebel leaders of the Mercenary War , Autaritus , was of Gallic origin. During the Balkan expedition, led by Cerethrios , Brennos and Bolgios , the Gauls raided the Greek mainland twice. At the end of the second expedition, the Gallic raiders had been repelled by the coalition armies of the various Greek city-states and were forced to retreat to Illyria and Thrace , but

Vexin - Misplaced Pages Continue

2784-756: The Seleucid king Antiochus I (275 BC), in a battle in which the Seleucid war elephants shocked the Galatians. Although the momentum of the invasion was broken, the Galatians were by no means exterminated, and continued to demand tribute from the Hellenistic states of Anatolia to avoid war. Four thousand Galatians were hired as mercenaries by the Ptolemaic Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus in 270 BC. According to Pausanias , soon after arrival

2871-680: The crisis of the third century , there was briefly a breakaway Gallic Empire founded by the Batavian general Postumus . First-century BC Roman poet Virgil wrote that the Gauls were light-haired, and golden their garb: Golden is their hair and golden their garb. They are resplendant in their striped cloaks and their milk white necks are circled in gold. First-century BC Greek historian Diodorus Siculus described them as tall, generally heavily built, very light-skinned, and light-haired, with long hair and mustaches: The Gauls are tall of body, with rippling muscles, and white of skin, and their hair

2958-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

3045-487: The 2nd century that the powerful Greek colony of Massilia had to appeal to the Roman Republic for defense against them. The Romans intervened in southern Gaul in 125 BC, and conquered the area eventually known as Gallia Narbonensis by 121 BC. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar launched the Gallic Wars and had conquered the whole of Gaul by 51 BC. He noted that the Gauls (Celtae) were one of the three primary peoples in

3132-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

3219-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

3306-659: The Balkans , leading to war with the Greeks . These latter Gauls eventually settled in Anatolia (contemporary Turkey ), becoming known as Galatians . After the end of the First Punic War , the rising Roman Republic increasingly put pressure on the Gallic sphere of influence . The Battle of Telamon (225 BC) heralded a gradual decline of Gallic power during the 2nd century BC. The Romans eventually conquered Gaul in

3393-752: The Belgae; it borders, too, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, upon the river Rhine , and stretches toward the north. The Belgae rises from the extreme frontier of Gaul, extend to the lower part of the river Rhine; and look toward the north and the rising sun. Aquitania extends from the Garonne to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Atlantic ( Bay of Biscay ) which is near Spain : it looks between

3480-588: The Celts as a distinct cultural branch of the Indo-European-speaking people . The spread of iron working led to the Hallstatt culture in the 8th century BC; the Proto-Celtic language is often thought to have been spoken around this time. The Hallstatt culture evolved into La Tène culture in around the 5th century BC. The Greek and Etruscan civilizations and colonies began to influence

3567-642: The Celts plotted “to seize Egypt”, and so Ptolemy marooned them on a deserted island in the Nile River . Galatians also participated at the victory at Raphia in 217 BC under Ptolemy IV Philopator , and continued to serve as mercenaries for the Ptolemaic dynasty until its demise in 30 BC. They sided with the renegade Seleucid prince Antiochus Hierax , who reigned in Asia Minor . Hierax tried to defeat king Attalus I of Pergamum (241–197 BC), but instead,

Vexin - Misplaced Pages Continue

3654-664: The Gallo-Latin noun * galia - or *gallia- ('power, strength'). Linguist Václav Blažek has argued that Irish gall ('foreigner') and Welsh gâl ('enemy, hostile') may be later adaptations of the ethnic name Galli that were introduced to the British Isles during the 1st millennium AD. According to Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), the Gauls of the province of Gallia Celtica called themselves Celtae in their own language, and were called Galli in Latin. Romans indeed used

3741-495: The Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld, whom he likened to Dīs Pater . Some deities were seen as threefold , like the Three Mothers . According to Miranda Aldhouse-Green , the Celts were also animists , believing that every part of the natural world had a spirit. Greco-Roman writers say the Gauls believed in reincarnation . Diodorus says they believed souls were reincarnated after

3828-614: The Gauls from the Aquitani; the rivers Marne and Seine separate them from the Belgae. Of all these, the Belgae are the bravest, because they are furthest from the civilisation and refinement of (our) Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them, and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind; and they are the nearest to the Germani, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war; for which reason

3915-406: The Gauls tribes, perhaps with Germanic elements. Julius Caesar , in his book, Commentarii de Bello Gallico , comments: All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, whereas those who in their own language are called Celts and in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The river Garonne separates

4002-580: The Gauls, especially in the Mediterranean area. Gauls under Brennus invaded Rome circa 390 BC. By the 5th century BC, the tribes later called Gauls had migrated from Central France to the Mediterranean coast. Gallic invaders settled the Po Valley in the 4th century BC, defeated Roman forces in a battle under Brennus in 390 BC, and raided Italy as far south as Sicily . In

4089-537: The German side. However, most of the casualties came from the inhabitants of the area, with an estimated loss of 2,500 civilians. There were around 3,000 casualties in total during the fighting, but the victory at Fontenay allowed the American troops to lead a successful counteroffensive, and eventually led to the liberation of Vexin on 30 August 1944. A monument in honor of the liberation is depicted on three plaques. In

4176-593: The Greeks were forced to grant safe passage to the Gauls who then made their way to Asia Minor and settled in Central Anatolia . The Gallic area of settlement in Asia Minor was called Galatia ; there they created widespread havoc. They were checked through the use of war elephants and skirmishers by the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus I in 275 BC, after which they served as mercenaries across

4263-696: The Hellenized cities united under Attalus's banner, and his armies inflicted a severe defeat upon the Galatians at the Battle of the Caecus River in 241 BC. After this defeat, the Galatians continued to be a serious threat to the states of Asia Minor. In fact, they continued to be a threat even after their defeat by Gnaeus Manlius Vulso in the Galatian War (189 BC). Galatia declined and at times fell under Pontic ascendancy. They were finally freed by

4350-468: The Helvetii also surpass the rest of the Gauls in valour, as they contend with the Germani in almost daily battles, when they either repel them from their own territories, or themselves wage war on their frontiers. One part of these, which it has been said that the Gauls occupy, takes its beginning at the river Rhône ; it is bounded by the river Garonne , the Atlantic Ocean , and the territories of

4437-595: The Mediterranean), and the northern Gallia Comata ("free Gaul" or "wooded Gaul"). Caesar divided the people of Gaulia Comata into three broad groups: the Aquitani ; Galli (who in their own language were called Celtae ); and Belgae . In the modern sense, Gallic tribes are defined linguistically, as speakers of Gaulish. While the Aquitani were probably Vascons , the Belgae would thus probably be counted among

SECTION 50

#1732765750223

4524-540: The Pyrenees), suggesting they were very rich, also evidenced by large finds of gold coins and artifacts. Also there existed highly developed population centers, called oppida by Caesar, such as Bibracte , Gergovia , Avaricum , Alesia , Bibrax , Manching and others. Modern archeology strongly suggests that the countries of Gaul were quite civilized and very wealthy. Most had contact with Roman merchants and some, particularly those that were governed by Republics such as

4611-566: The Romans called them (singular: pagus ; the French word pays , "country", comes from this term) were organized into larger super-tribal groups that the Romans called civitates . These administrative groupings would be taken over by the Romans in their system of local control, and these civitates would also be the basis of France's eventual division into ecclesiastical bishoprics and dioceses , which would remain in place—with slight changes—until

4698-460: The Romans, the internal division between the Gallic tribes guaranteed an easy victory for Caesar, and Vercingetorix 's attempt to unite the Gauls against Roman invasion came too late. After the annexation of Gaul, a mixed Gallo-Roman culture began to emerge. After more than a century of warfare , the Cisalpine Gauls were subdued by the Romans in the early 2nd century BC. The Transalpine Gauls continued to thrive for another century, and joined

4785-485: The Simple abandoned the part of the territory that Rollo occupied under the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911. The terms of the treaty established the Duchy of Normandy and fixed its boundary with the Kingdom of France along the river Epte . This divided the county of Vexin into two parts: During the twelfth century, the county of Vexin was a heavily contested border between the Angevin kings of England and Capetian France (see Capetian-Plantagenet rivalry ). It

4872-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

4959-410: The area, along with the Aquitanians and the Belgae . Caesar's motivation for the invasion seems to have been his need for gold to pay off his debts and for a successful military expedition to boost his political career. The people of Gaul could provide him with both. So much gold was looted from Gaul that after the war the price of gold fell by as much as 20%. While they were militarily just as brave as

5046-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

5133-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

5220-427: The complicated brew of influences include Scythian art as well as that of the Greeks and Etruscans, among others. The Achaemenid occupation of Thrace and Macedonia around 500 BC is a factor of uncertain importance. Gaulish society was dominated by the druid priestly class. The druids were not the only political force, however, and the early political system was complex. The fundamental unit of Gallic politics

5307-563: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

SECTION 60

#1732765750223

5394-416: The early 3rd century BC, the Gauls attempted an eastward expansion , toward the Balkan peninsula. At that time, it was a Greek province. The Gauls' intent was to reach and loot the rich Greek city-states of the Greek mainland. However, the Greeks exterminated the majority of the Gallic army, and the few survivors were forced to flee. Many Gauls were recorded as serving in the armies of Carthage during

5481-450: The ethnic name Galli as a synonym for Celtae . The English Gaul does not come from Latin Galli but from Germanic * Walhaz , a term stemming from the Gallic ethnonym Volcae that came to designate more generally Celtic and Romance speakers in medieval Germanic languages (e.g. Welsh , Waals , Vlachs ). Gaulish culture developed over the first millennium BC. The Urnfield culture ( c.  1300 –750 BC) represents

5568-563: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

5655-401: The gods (by burying or burning), while some were shared between gods and humans (part eaten and part offered). There is also some evidence that the Gauls sacrificed humans , and some Greco-Roman sources claim the Gauls sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker man . Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

5742-506: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

5829-424: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

5916-437: The inhabitants of Caledonia have reddish hair and large loose-jointed bodies. They [the Britons] are like the Gauls and the Spaniards, according as they are opposite either nation. Hence some have supposed that from these lands the island received its inhabitants. Tacitus noted the Caledonians had "red hair and large limbs" which he felt pointed to a "Germanic origin." In the novel Satyricon by Roman courtier Gaius Petronius ,

6003-405: The invading Gauls. In the second Gaulish invasion of Greece (278 BC), the Gauls, led by Brennos , suffered heavy losses while facing the Greek coalition army at Thermopylae , but helped by the Heracleans they followed the mountain path around Thermopylae to encircle the Greek army in the same way that the Persian army had done at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, but this time defeating

6090-632: The middle of the 1st millennium. Gaulish may have survived in some regions as the mid to late 6th century in France. Despite considerable Romanization of the local material culture, the Gaulish language is held to have survived and had coexisted with spoken Latin during the centuries of Roman rule of Gaul. Coexisting with Latin, Gaulish played a role in shaping the Vulgar Latin dialects that developed into French, with effects including loanwords and calques , sound changes shaped by Gaulish influence, as well as in conjugation and word order. Recent work in computational simulation suggests that Gaulish played

6177-475: The mustache grow until it covers the mouth. Jordanes , in his Origins and Deeds of the Goths , indirectly describes the Gauls as light-haired and large-bodied by comparing them to Caledonians , as a contrast to the Spaniards, whom he compared to the Silures . He speculates based on this comparison that the Britons originated from different peoples, including Gauls and Spaniards. The Silures have swarthy features and are usually born with curly black hair, but

6264-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

6351-497: The other two tetrarchies and was finally recognized by the Romans as 'king' of Galatia . The Galatian language continued to be spoken in central Anatolia until the 6th century. In the Second Punic War , the famous Carthaginian general Hannibal used Gallic mercenaries in his invasion of Italy. They played a part in some of his most spectacular victories, including the battle of Cannae . The Gauls were so prosperous by

6438-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

6525-401: The photo at right, the leftmost plaque lists the names of the American soldiers lost, the middle one contains the commemoration messages, and the rightmostn plaque commemorates the civilians lost. The memorial was inaugurated on September 5, 2021. Today, the county's territory is shared by parts of five departments of France : Val-d'Oise and Yvelines in the Île-de-France region; Oise in

6612-622: The setting of the sun, and the north star.    — Julius Caesar , Commentarii de Bello Gallico , Book I, chapter 1 Gaulish or Gallic is the name given to the Celtic language spoken in Gaul before Latin took over. According to Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War , it was one of three languages in Gaul, the others being Aquitanian and Belgic . In Gallia Transalpina ,

6699-634: The succeeding La Tène style. La Tène metalwork in bronze, iron and gold, developing technologically out of the Hallstatt culture, is stylistically characterized by "classical vegetable and foliage motifs such as leafy palmette forms, vines, tendrils and lotus flowers together with spirals, S-scrolls, lyre and trumpet shapes". Such decoration may be found on fine bronze vessels, helmets and shields, horse trappings, and elite jewelry, especially torcs and fibulae. Early on, La Tène style adapted ornamental motifs from foreign cultures into something distinctly new;

6786-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

6873-416: The village of Fontenay-Saint-Père . Beginning 20 August 1944, fighting broke out, with about 30,000 troops engaged in total; in the nine days of fighting, multiple offensives and counter-offensives were carried out across the city. This eventually ended when a reinforced American army managed to defeat the German battalion. In total, there were about 50 casualties on the American side, and several hundred on

6960-705: The wheat fields of Vexin. A regional nature park was established in the area in 1995. Ownership of Vexin, and the court intrigue related to securing it, is a key plot point in James Goldman's play The Lion in Winter (1966). It also features in the Angevin novels of Sharon Kay Penman, and in the BBC series The Devil's Crown (1978), which stars Brian Cox . List of peoples of Gaul The Gauls ( Latin : Galli ; Ancient Greek : Γαλάται , Galátai ) were

7047-401: The wheel, and the bull. There were gods of skill and craft, such as the pan-regional god Lugus , and the smith god Gobannos . Gallic healing deities were often associated with sacred springs , such as Sirona and Borvo . Other pan-regional deities include the horned god Cernunnos , the horse and fertility goddess Epona , Ogmios , Sucellos and his companion Nantosuelta . Caesar says

7134-565: The whole Hellenistic Eastern Mediterranean , including Ptolemaic Egypt , where they, under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BC), attempted to seize control of the kingdom. In the first Gallic invasion of Greece (279 BC), they defeated the Macedonians and killed the Macedonian king Ptolemy Keraunos . They then focused on looting the rich Macedonian countryside, but avoided the heavily fortified cities. The Macedonian general Sosthenes assembled an army, defeated Bolgius and repelled

7221-446: The whole of the Greek army. After passing Thermopylae, the Gauls headed for the rich treasury at Delphi , where they were defeated by the re-assembled Greek army. This led to a series of retreats of the Gauls, with devastating losses, all the way up to Macedonia and then out of the Greek mainland. The major part of the Gaul army was defeated in the process, and those Gauls survived were forced to flee from Greece. The Gallic leader Brennos

7308-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

7395-415: Was of particular importance due to its close proximity to Paris and the location of the route to the coastal cities of Normandy. As a result, Vexin was the site of defensive castle construction, notably at Château Gaillard . During the liberation of Vexin, German troops in the forests of Marainville , Montgison, and Longues carried out a surprise attack against the American defenders in attempt to reoccupy

7482-523: Was seriously injured at Delphi and committed suicide there. (He is not to be confused with another Gaulish leader bearing the same name who had sacked Rome a century earlier (390 BC). In 278 BC, Gaulish settlers in the Balkans were invited by Nicomedes I of Bithynia to help him in a dynastic struggle against his brother. They numbered about 10,000 fighting men and about the same number of women and children, divided into three tribes, Trocmi , Tolistobogii and Tectosages . They were eventually defeated by

7569-405: Was the tribe, which itself consisted of one or more of what Caesar called "pagi" . Each tribe had a council of elders, and initially a king. Later, the executive was an annually-elected magistrate. Among the Aedui tribe the executive held the title of " Vergobret ", a position much like a king, but its powers were held in check by rules laid down by the council. The tribal groups, or pagi as

#222777