WI the Celts establish and Ancient Empire

I think the best way to have this happen is to have Rome not exist in the first place. Give Carthage a crushing victory in the Second, or preferably the First Punic War, and throw in Epirus running around Italy. We can have small isolated Greek Colony states like Tarraco, Massilia, and Carthaginians from Spain influence the Celts with Greek Administration. After years and years of influence from Greece, you have an emerging state.

The Greek colonies are not isolated, given their maratime trade connections. And the Celts had already undergone much internal political development up until the First Century BCE. And as I've previously explained, the Gaulish Arverni was at least one example of how the Celts came close to forming a proper state.

Then again, it depends on how one defines a "state". Perhaps the Celtic "tribes" had more in common with the Greek city-state culture than most people think. Both Greeks and Celts had actually expanded far from their original homelands long before their cultural identities developed. Both peoples defined themselves by their city of origin or tribal ancestry before thinking of themselves as "Hellene" or "Celtic", if they even did at all.
 
The problem with the "Celts" is that other than the commonality of speaking the Celtic languages, I would say that they at large that they had relatively little in common with each other. I agree however that the 'Gaulish' area ("Gaulish" in the wider sense, as in including the Celts on the Balkans and the Galatians which probably spoke dialects similar to Gaulish) would be the best case for a Celtic empire of sorts to arrive, especially since there were example of local tribes establishing hegemony.

And yes, the best case for the emergence of such an empire is taking out Rome. Perhaps even, have the Celts take part in taking out Rome. There were several occasions (Senones under Brennus sacking Rome for good, Samnite victory) where Rome could have been wiped out early enough.
 
The Celts of Europe herded animals, cultivated grains, and had a social structure divided into Rulers, Priests, and Commoners, just like the Medes, Persians, and Aryans. All four of these cultures were members of the Indo-European language group and all of them, with the exception of the Celts, formed large and powerful empires in the last millenium BC. What if they had bucked the trend and followed their linguistic brothers in establishing a Celtic Empire in Europe, let's say centered on Gaul.

How long do you think the Empire would last? What threats would it face, what would cause it to fall, and how would history develop during and after the Celtic Empire?

Note that the Medes and Persians didn't BUILD an empire, they took one over.

If you want a parallel, you could have Rome progress until ~Julius Caesar's time, and then have the Celts, somehow, conquer Rome. Hmm... that's not very likely.

Taking over Rome as allies of Pyrrhus or Carthage or a Diadochal nation, maybe?
 

archaeogeek

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One of the great gaulish confederacies survives and takes over the region, then spreads to the med? Gaul not constantly stuck in a mix of civil and regional wars might be a rather formidable opponent for Caesar. You'd probably need something akin to the marian reforms, though, as the mentality is still pretty similar to the romans prior to the punic war, or the greeks of the time: small highly trained professional forces.

An Eduan empire centered on Bibracte (which at the time was a modest city, well, if an estimated capacity of about 25.000 people still qualifies as modest)?
 
Note that the Medes and Persians didn't BUILD an empire, they took one over.

If you want a parallel, you could have Rome progress until ~Julius Caesar's time, and then have the Celts, somehow, conquer Rome. Hmm... that's not very likely.

Taking over Rome as allies of Pyrrhus or Carthage or a Diadochal nation, maybe?
That's a very good point. Lysandros Aikiedes's idea of having Brennus of the Senones sacking Rome instead of just demanding tribute after the battle of Allia could certainly accomplish this.


The problem with the "Celts" is that other than the commonality of speaking the Celtic languages, I would say that they at large that they had relatively little in common with each other. I agree however that the 'Gaulish' area ("Gaulish" in the wider sense, as in including the Celts on the Balkans and the Galatians which probably spoke dialects similar to Gaulish) would be the best case for a Celtic empire of sorts to arrive, especially since there were example of local tribes establishing hegemony.
You are correct. I actually had Gaul in mind when I asked this question.


I wonder what the world would like after the above scenario? Could we see a centralized Celtic Empire develop in Gaul and Italy (after its capture from the Romans)?
 
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