Actually, the Romans were hardly any more civilized than the Gauls and Norican Celts they conquered - only somewhat better organized. Those Celtic peoples had rich trade cities, salt, gold and iron, a well founded tradition of learning with a voluntary lack of writing - everything the Romans desired. The Romans were just "urban" barbarians who happened to have a veneer of Greek learning and to have conquered a couple of civilized cultures (Carthage, Macedon Greece).
Linguistics show some continuity of language where records survived. The Celts have better documentation than the contemporary "Germans" or Slavic peoples, by the very same Greek or Phoenician traders who brought culture to the Italian barbarians.
Oh, and according to the Chiemgau impact theory, the Celts had just survived the equivalent of the Greater Darkness or a nuclear winter which had destroyed much of the so-called Hallstatt area. Hence the sudden appearance of the Thunderer god, according to a derivative theory (which isn't very popular with official authorities right now).
If you accept the Chiemgau impact as a cataclysmic break in the culture of the Danubian urban development, this was what gave the Romans a century or two advantage against their northern neighbors. To the Greeks, the Romans were distinguishible from the Celts mainly by their location.
Besides, the terms "Greeks" or "Phoenicians" were hardly more homogeneous than the Celts or Italian farmer tribes. Or any other cultural region of that era.
> So, the term Orlanthi doesn't really mean ANYTHING to the people so
> designated. It only has meaning to/for outsiders (and in that sense,
> I'll continue using it).
A bit more than merely nothing. They have the Thunderer god in common, and an older goddess-dominated religion. Their identity was born from an outbreak of violence. (Still sounds like "Celts", doesn't it?)
> Well, this thread has answered my first question, there isn't enough
> commonality of culture amongst the various Orlanth worshipping peoples
> to make a concerted GL attempt at social enginnering possible. In
> fact, even the term "Orlanth worshipping people" is meaningless. There
> are simply various groups at roughly similar levels of urbanisation,
> social structure, technology etc who may, or may not (eg Elmali),
> worship the Storm Pantheon and even those that do may have huge
> variations in myth/practice, justice, social structure etc.
Probably the better term for the _culture_ would be Ernaldings.
> Benedict
>>Of course Heortlings wear horned helmets. They're vikings!
In that case, they would not have worn horned helmets... But they also lack the boats and seas that make the Vikings at least somewhat distinct from the Goths. (And not very much distinct from Saxons, Vandals or other migration era Germanic tribes which returned to sea shores after leaving the Baltic Sea area).
Roderick
> Nobody *sane* wears horns on their helmet - which just goes to show you
> about the Uroxi!
> (no "fighting" helmets have been found with horns on, though there have
> been ceremonial helmets found
Note that in (Island) Celtic mythology, fighting often was ceremonial - similar to the Vedic heroes.
> Possibly not. I visualize some very great differences between the
> cultures of Kerofinela, Wenelia, Ralios, Talastar and Brolia.
How much of a separate culture could the Talastari maintain, or do you count the Sylilans and Vanchites into this culture?
The Talastari contact with the Theyalan missionaries is the only incident where we have some detail information, and that doesn't offer much significant culture left late in the first century of Time. 150 years later, they appear as a culture with distinct religious and leadership practices.
Or do you mean Talastari and Dara-Ni culture?
David:
>> A big difference would be that the Orlanthi have a more unified
>> religion than the Celtic peoples.
> We know so little about the so-called Celtic religion that this is
> difficult to say with any certainty.--
A similar situation to what we know about pre-christian religion of the Germanic and Slavic peoples. Our best information comes from the island fringe colonies where less continental influence permeated (Wales and Ireland for Celts, Iceland for Germanic peoples, and both recorded only in Christian times).
Of course, we know way more about Orlanthi religion than we know about their material culture or languages. Quite the opposite situation to our knowledge about the Celts (or Germanic and Slavic peoples, not to mention the complete lack of information about the Dacians slaughtered by Trajan's legions).
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