What should we call the ancient Britons?
What should we call the ancient Britons? There is no evidence that the people of ancient Britain or Ireland ever referred to themselves as Celts, like we do today, and there are no ancient writings in existence that refer to them as Celts, although we know that their ancestors migrated to the islands from mainland Europe. Neither the Romans nor the Greeks ever used “Celt” in their descriptions of the islanders. However, the term Celt was used by the Romans to describe the inhabitants of central Gaul. After the downfall of the Roman Empire, “Celt” and “Celtic” became forgotten words and did not come into use again for over a thousand years later, when in the 16th century Scottish scholar George Buchanan described the speech of the inhabitants of ancient Gaul as “Celtic”.
So what did the Ancient Britons call themselves, and what did they call their island? The oldest recorded name for the island of Britain comes from the sixth century B.C., when an explorer from the Greek colony of Massilia called the island “Albion”. Then, in 400 B.C., Avienus referred to the island of Britain as being “island of the Albions”.
Around the third century B.C. the Greek explorer Pytheas sailed around the British islands, made several landings, and called the islands “The Pretanic Isles”. However, he didn’t give any specific name to Britain, although he named the inhabitants the “Pretani”, which means “people who paint themselves”. Pretani is possibly derived from the Celtic tongue.
Did, then, the ancient Britons speak Albion, or Pretani? At the time of the Roman landings (Julius Caesar 54 B.C.) the Romans referred to the language the islanders spoke, a variant on the continental Celtic tongues, as Brythonic, or Brittonic, and they called the people Pretanni, or Brytanni. Julius Caesar and other Roman writers converted the ancient name Pretani into Britanni, and the island became known as Britannia, and later Britain.
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| Ancient Briton Warriors |
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| Celt Vercingetorix surrenders to Julius Caesar |
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| Ancient Briton Torque |
Im currently writing a novel about ancient Britain. I decided not to have my characters refer to themselves as "Celts".
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