FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1791   1792   1793   1794   1795   1796   1797   1798   1799   1800   1801   1802   1803   1804   1805   1806   1807   1808   1809   1810   1811   1812   1813   1814   1815  
1816   1817   1818   1819   1820   1821   1822   1823   1824   1825   1826   1827   1828   1829   1830   1831   1832   1833   1834   1835   1836   1837   1838   1839   1840   >>   >|  
German horsemen in Noviodunum(53) and to that of the Boii in the canton of the Haedui (54)--which latter settlement already rendered quite the services of a Roman colony in the war with Vercingetorix(55)-- the reason was merely that his farther plans did not permit him to put the plough instead of the sword into the hands of his legions. What he did in later years for the old Roman province in this respect, will be explained in its own place; it is probable that the want of time alone prevented him from extending the same system to the regions which he had recently subdued. The Catastrophe of the Celtic Nation Traits Common to the Celts and Irish All was over with the Celtic nation. Its political dissolution had been completed by Caesar; its national dissolution was begun and in course of regular progress. This was no accidental destruction, such as destiny sometimes prepares even for peoples capable of development, but a self-incurred and in some measure historically necessary catastrophe. The very course of the last war proves this, whether we view it as a whole or in detail. When the establishment of the foreign rule was in contemplation, only single districts-- mostly, moreover, German or half-German--offered energetic resistance. When the foreign rule was actually established, the attempts to shake it off were either undertaken altogether without judgment, or they were to an undue extent the work of certain prominent nobles, and were therefore immediately and entirely brought to an end with the death or capture of an Indutiomarus, Camulogenus, Vercingetorix, or Correus. The sieges and guerilla warfare, in which elsewhere the whole moral depth of national struggles displays itself, were throughout this Celtic struggle of a peculiarly pitiable character. Every page of Celtic history confirms the severe saying of one of the few Romans who had the judgment not to despise the so-called barbarians--that the Celts boldly challenge danger while future, but lose their courage before its presence. In the mighty vortex of the world's history, which inexorably crushes all peoples that are not as hard and as flexible as steel, such a nation could not permanently maintain itself; with reason the Celts of the continent suffered the same fate at the hands of the Romans, as their kinsmen in Ireland suffer down to our own day at the hands of the Saxons--the fate of becoming merged as a leaven of future development in
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   1791   1792   1793   1794   1795   1796   1797   1798   1799   1800   1801   1802   1803   1804   1805   1806   1807   1808   1809   1810   1811   1812   1813   1814   1815  
1816   1817   1818   1819   1820   1821   1822   1823   1824   1825   1826   1827   1828   1829   1830   1831   1832   1833   1834   1835   1836   1837   1838   1839   1840   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Celtic

 

German

 
history
 

Romans

 

future

 

judgment

 

foreign

 

development

 

peoples

 

dissolution


national

 
nation
 
reason
 

Vercingetorix

 
immediately
 
kinsmen
 

Ireland

 

brought

 

Indutiomarus

 

guerilla


warfare

 

sieges

 

suffered

 

Camulogenus

 

Correus

 

capture

 

nobles

 

undertaken

 

altogether

 
merged

leaven

 

established

 
attempts
 

Saxons

 

extent

 
prominent
 

suffer

 
displays
 

flexible

 
danger

challenge

 

called

 

barbarians

 
boldly
 

inexorably

 

mighty

 
vortex
 

presence

 

courage

 
crushes