THE GALLIC FRONTIER IN NORTHERN ITALY

From the beginning, Rome was a society of frontiers. For the first Palatine communities, political boundaries were close at hand. The shrines of Janus preserved the folk memories of their existence. Nor was the experience of Rome exceptional for the communities of the Italian peninsula during the first millenium B.C. The whole area was a crazy quilt of political units varying in ethnic background and level of social development. Etruscans, Greeks, Italians, and Gauls all met along complex and changing frontiers.

For this study, the meeting between Rome and the Gauls seems the most appropriate place to begin. Starting with the traumatic events of the defeat on the Allia and the sacking of the city by the Celts, the Romano-Gallic wars developed into some of the longest, most brutal conflicts in the history of the Republic. The Gauls seared themselves into the Roman national consciousness in a way that no other group did. Art, rhetoric, and even religious ritual reflected this. Gallorum autem nomen quod semper Romanes terruit.

The initial involvement with the Gallic folk was almost accidental and largely the result of forces shaped well outside central Italy. It was the Etruscans who first brought the Gauls into contact with Rome, and it was Rome's concern with Etruria that led to her first Celtic confrontation. Some background is necessary in order to understand the events at Clusium, the Allia, and Rome that were to open the frontier experience for the Tiber state.

During the last third of the sixth century B.C., the Etruscans extended their trade and colonizing networks over the Apennines into northeastern Italy. The expansion resulted in new contacts with local tribes and Greek traders along the east coast of Italy. It also allowed Etruscans to tap trade routes extending into and beyond the Alps. This new expansion was undoubtedly related to the political changes taking place north of the Alps. By the fifth century B.C. the Hallstatt culture in west-central Europe was being replaced by the new group known as La Tene. The main La Tene power centers lay more to the east. This meant that the trade routes linking continental Europe to the Mediterranean were shifting eastward, increasing the importance of the Alpine passes and the Po drainage. Northeastern Italy and transalpine Europe were drawn more closely together. Trade networks developed and along these routes were soon to move peoples from central Europe.

By the time these ultramontane invaders had arrived, the Etruscans had produced considerable changes in the region. Later tradition spoke of the foundation of twelve cities; some important centers such as Felsina and Marzabotto were established. The number of Etruscan settlers was probably smaller than later tradition implied. It is often difficult to distinguish in the archaeological records between the Etruscans and the natives whose culture had rapidly acquired an Etruscoid veneer. Students of Etruria have increasingly realized the distinctive quality of this transapennine Padane culture and its blend of Etruscan and native elements.

Quite early, transalpine migrants moved into the area, thus starting the sequence of events that led to Rome's intervention. Traders spread news of fertile lands south of the mountains that were sparsely populated and dotted with rich centers. This appealed to the Celts in the north, who lived in a poor and overpopulated country. More migrants began moving through the mountain passes. At first they were tolerated or perhaps even welcomed, but they slowly became a menace to the people of Italy. Archaeologists and ancient historians continue to disagree about when this movement began. The classical authors offer radically different versions, and the fragmentary evidence of archaeology has not yet helped to resolve the dispute. Yet the issue calls for some discussion, since it is fundamental to an understanding of the kind of Gallic society the Romans met when they crossed the Apennines.

The ancient writers provide us with two traditions. The first placed the initial Celtic migration in the period of Tarquinius Priscus, during the sixth century B.C. Livy is our main source for this. Whatever faults the Patavian historian might have had, he was a child of the Padane region and undoubtedly knew its Celtic traditions. In this version the motives for migration were basically economic. The Celts went through the western Alpine passes to the area of Milan, where the first Celtic center south of the mountains was founded. Livy makes it clear that there were several Celtic migrations and that the process of domination of northeastern Italy was only completed in the early years of the fourth century B.C.

The second tradition, which ultimately rests on the authority of the second-century Greek Polybius, places the arrival of the Celts during the late fifth century B.C., shortly before the attack on Rome. Historians have tended to favor this second version, partly because of the generally greater respect accorded Polybius over Livy. The arrival of the Celts has been seen as a sudden folk migration in the pattern so beloved of prehistorians. This acceptance of the Polybian version may be rash. Before this problem is addressed, however, the archaeological evidence should be briefly reviewed.

In the field of Celto-Italian archaeology, both the quantity of evidence and its interpretation are rapidly changing. Until recently it had been a somewhat neglected subject. This was in part a result of a certain lingering prejudice against the barbarian invaders, but it was also related to the paucity and ambiguity of the physical remains. Except for a few cemeteries such as Filottrano and Ornavasso, the traces left by the Celts are unimpressive. Nothing like the great oppida sites of France and Germany survive, although a few centers, such as Mediolanum, must have once rivaled their counterparts north of the Alps. Settlement sites are still almost unknown, and nearly all cultural reconstruction is based on cemetery finds. A further complication for the cultural historian is that Celtic society was undergoing rapid change during this period, partly because of contacts with the Italic and Greek world. Thus it is often difficult to tell whether one is dealing with a Celtic site that has undergone some degree of Mediterranean acculturation, or a site of a local Italic group that shared many cultural characteristics with the Celtic invaders and was even slightly influenced by them. Moreover, the Celts appear to have arrived in different areas at different times and thus possessed diverse blends of cisalpine and transalpine traits. New excavations and the renewed study of material from older excavations have helped clarify our picture of Celto-Italian culture, but much needs to be done. We are still far from such basic...