\'The myth of Celtic and Roman Britain\'

[authun]

The poor old Victorians do get the blame for this often, but as far as I know ideas of a common 'celtic' British heritage were thriving back in the 17th century and before.

I didn't blame the Victorians. I wrote that it was linked to the Act of Union (1707).

But England, Germany and the Netherlands are modern nation states, products of modern history and speaking modern languages. The 'celtic speaking nations' are an interpretation of the ancient past.

I thought I had qualified this by referring to Scotland, Wales, Ireland all of which have celtic speaking minorities and too are modern constructs. The fact that they can still be associated with celtic languages does not imply a homogeneous celtic culture in the past.

... there's also Caratacus, a southern British king turning up in (modern) Wales as leader of the Silures before heading north into Brigantia. No reason why this should mean that the Catuvellauni, Silures and Brigantes were all the same, of course ....

Certainly not the same politically since he was subsequently handed over to the romans by the Brigantes. The danger of stressing commonality is that we ignore the rivalries between groups that should show, given the number of hill forts, signs of antagonisitc behaviour towards each other.

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authun