The Kimric invasion of Gaul reached at first neither to the extreme
west nor to the north, for its main advance was down the Rhone valley
to the Midi. But there is evidence that small bands moved towards the
north-east, down the valleys of the Meuse and Moselle, and we can pick
up their traces again in Belgium.[504] So far direct archæological
evidence still further north fails us, at least in Hallstatt times,
though perhaps the Kimri did not cross the mouth of the Rhine until
they had adopted La Tène culture; but if, as I have suggested, we are
to consider the name Cimbri as a variant of Kimri, they must have
reached the peninsula of Jutland, to which they gave the name of the
Cimbric Chersonese. That they came within sight of the Baltic sea is
clear, for an old name for that sea, _Morimarusam_,[505] is Celtic.
If, however, Rhys is correct in considering the word Goidelic,[506] it
must have been given to the sea by the Gaelic refugees. In Jutland the
Kimri came into contact with the Teutones, descendants of the Wiros who
had carried northwards the Type B swords. Whether they fought them at
first is uncertain, but by the second century they had made an unholy
alliance with them to ravage the lands to the south, and they would
again have carried fire and sword throughout Europe had not their
operations been cut short in 102 /B.C./ at Aquæ Sextiæ by the Roman
army under Marius.
It was apparently in the fourth century, or a few years earlier, that
certain tribes of these Kimri, whether a southern branch of the Cimbri
or tribes living to the south-west of the chersonese in Frisia, Holland
or Belgium, is uncertain, began to move southwards and westwards.
These were the Galati, Galli and Belgæ. They began in various waves to
disturb southern Europe, and to harry the settled communities as far as
Asia Minor, where they survived for several centuries as Galatians.
It is not necessary for our purpose to trace in detail these movements,
except in so far as they affect our problem. In the second century,
or thereabouts, the Veneti, one of these tribes, who had taken to the
sea, sailed down the channel and settled at Vannes, at the head of the
Morbihan bay.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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