Illustrations of the Classics from Mann

Extract

The Isle of Man was left untouched by the Romans. It was a stronghold of Celtic culture until in the Dark Ages the Scandinavian sea adventurers made it a naval base. The two races lived side by side and no influence other than theirs showed itself until the seventeenth century, when the English fashions in architecture and social life began to reproduce themselves in the island. Thus the contribution made to the British heritage by those two strains is more easily recognizable here than perhaps in any other part of the British Isles. In this paper I deal only with the Celts, our knowledge of whom (apart from archaeology) is based almost entirely on the records of Greece and Rome. I confine myself to two authors universally read in schools—Caesar, a competent observer at first hand, and Tacitus, a reliable conveyer of borrowed information. All quotations from the former are from the Gallic War, those from Books IV and V referring to Celts in Britain, the others referring to Celts in Gaul. All quotations from Tacitus are from the Agricola. There were really three types of Celts, but their culture was at the time of these writers fairly homogeneous. It is not to be wondered at that illustrations can be found in the Isle of Man for statements made about Celts in Britain and Gaul, for the whole of the Celtic world seems to have enjoyed free intercourse and to have shared the same religious organization.