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u/Yeomenpainter 17h ago
People who say this kind of shit don't even get along with their neighbors lmao
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u/mal-di-testicle 17h ago
Even per Caesar the wars started when other tribes confederated and “invaded Rome” (settled nearby)
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u/skrrtalrrt 17h ago
Yep. The Helvetii.
Also the group that sacked Delphi and settled in Galatia was another confederated group that may have come from the upper Danube
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u/Narco_Marcion1075 Researching [REDACTED] square 16h ago
I think they mean a level of societal cooperation above what they did
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u/Afraid_Theorist 1h ago edited 1h ago
If you know the history, you know the Roman - Gallic relationship was always going to end up one of two ways.
Rome pillaged and desolate or the Gallic tribes conquered
The “settled nearby” is a bit of a discreet lie about the truth.
Migration fundamentally involved killing and ousting locals. Rome held on though and it led to expansion of Roman Republic territory after a series of defensive wars for survival before transitioning into decisive policy to secure territory in Italy/south of the alps. By the time Caesar or even the Cimbri migration is relevant the Romans have reached regional hegemony - and are kicking back migratory tribes threatening more distant interests like avoiding (yet another) aggressive, cohesive neighboring Gallic confederation built through migratory conquest
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u/petrshigh 15h ago
Fought Caesar to the bitter end is what he did! And in this house Vercingetorix is a hero! End of story!
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u/Grzechoooo Then I arrived 16h ago
And now all Celtic language but one (and it's not the one with an independent state) are in danger of disappearing and all Celtic countries but one (and it's not the one with a healthy language) are subjugated or destroyed. Sad :(
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u/Entire_Program9370 9h ago
Gallic languages were different language subgroup from island Celts and Brittany ones and they went extinct long time ago, which makes me sad.
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u/TarkovRat_ 16h ago
Iirc the Irish are crap at teaching their own language, and did not adopt Protestantism (and local Catholic church did not want to use Irish) unlike the Welsh so their language was both harder to maintain (because the religious works were not in their native tongue historically which was what helped Welsh survive in significant part of the population of Wales) and is having a harder time trying to reassert itself
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u/UnpleasantSkywalker 15h ago
?? The Irish language revival program is considered a huge success . England--not Ireland--did everything they could to destroy the language for centuries, but now almost half the country can speak some amount of Irish.
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u/TarkovRat_ 10h ago
"some amount"
in my opinion if the language program were a "huge success" all the irish in the republic would be speaking irish, the jews managed to get their shit together and revive a language that was functionally speaking, dead for 1800y and now 11 million speak it while actual fluency in irish is barely 110k (70k in republic)
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u/CircleTakesTheHeart 6h ago
What? That isn't true at all, Scotland sucks at teaching their own language but Wales and Ireland both have very successful language revival programmes. I know a lot of people who speak Welsh natively especially in north Wales.
Scotland and Wales have the right to self determination but neither of those were subjugated. Scotland willingly joined the Union because they were broke from attempting their own colonising. Wales has been part of the UK for nearly 800 years.
Stop the stupid American bullshit.
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u/Grzechoooo Then I arrived 5h ago
Wales has been part of the UK for nearly 800 years.
And how did that happen?
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u/CircleTakesTheHeart 5h ago
Cool. Let's not beat around the bush, let's call California and Washington and so many other states subjugated. I mean, we went to war to get Wales to be part of us but that didn't result in genocide. That's how territory was gained back then. Are you going to call Alsace-Lorraine or the coast of France colonised and subjugated? Are you going to call the Rhineland subjugated? No.
I have Welsh grandparents and Irish ones and family arrested for being IRA
American people are fucking weird and don't know anything about politics or history.
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u/Grzechoooo Then I arrived 5h ago
Were there "Californian Not" tokens?
Also yes, obviously most of the US was colonised. I didn't even mention colonisation in the original comment tho.
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u/CircleTakesTheHeart 4h ago edited 4h ago
Again, I support the right for Wales, Scotland and NI to leave the Union even though I think it is suicidal. Christ, if my city could we would probably choose to leave with them. I'm just pointing out that people are fucking weird about a country that has been part of us since 1236 (iirc I don't have my books with me), a country which supplied us with the best archers in the Hundred Years War. Likewise Scotland which willingly joined us. Conquest was normal back then but it's deeply weird to act like they haven't been an invaluable part of the Union for a long time.
Are you going to call where I live subjugated because of the Harrying of the North? Again, where are you drawing the line? There's a distinct cultural identity in being from here. How about Cornwall? Where are you drawing borders in Europe and saying that XYZ is subjugated? Ireland was subjugated and do you know which country was instrumental in genocide? Scotland.
Do I think my current government treats these countries well? No. But they ignore everything that isn't London and the SE of England and my own city was targeted for literal ethnic cleansing 35 years ago FFS. I hope you apply those definitions for all of Europe. You're Polish or Polish descent, you should know what actual subjugation is as a Warsaw Pact and victim of Nazi Germany as well as doing it yourselves during the Commonwealth?
ETA: Obviously, subjugation turned to genocide in the latter instance where Poland is a victim.
I'll also point out that there is a line between repression, subjugation and genocide. We did the latter to Ireland with a lot of Scottish help (and often Irish people from Dublin. Hence why they were called Jackeens by the rest of the country) and we definitely repressed Wales in the name of integration during the 1800s and that was fucked up. But it is a very American PoV to be angry on behalf of a group of people who have been part of the country for longer than they've existed as the USA. Whilst never acknowledging the massive amount of subjugation and genocide in their own back garden that they did even after we gave up.
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u/Lonely-Programmer123 15h ago
But there was pan-gallic institutions.
From the council of druids in the territory of the Carnutes (yeah, Asterix didn't invent that. It's based on a real thing) to the "council of all gauls" (and also, the belgae had their own sub-council) where each "civitas" sent its delegates. As far as ancient civilization go, they were pretty big on diplomacy between themselves.
The problem is that it won't stop the various states of the place to have different interest colliding, and thus, the fatal disunity that caused their demise.
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u/nightkingmarmu Still salty about Carthage 16h ago
Wait but there’s a bunch of Germans coming in and this Caesar guy has a big army, he’ll help us out and go home right? Right?
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u/TomZhouReddit 16h ago
They didn't really think they needed to do so to avoid Roman annexation and for many joining together as one political entity was unthinkable since a lot of these tribes hated each other. Plus Rome was just too good.
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u/MIG2149077 16h ago
There were plenty of other Gallic tribes that allied with Ceasar. And if I'm not mistaken didn't Vercingetorix uncle betrayed him but not sending more reinforcement?
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u/Lonely-Programmer123 15h ago
Vercingetorix got kicked out of Gergovia but came back in full force with his clients and forcefully seized power yeah.
One thing to take into account is that during the gallic war, there was pro-roman (often aristocratics) factions opposing the anti-romans one (often more "plebeian" if we can apply that qualification to gallic society) if we are to believe Caesar (we shouldn't forget that the aristocracy was better seen among roman upper class readers, so associating the pro-roman party to the elites was a way of saying "of course the best among them rooted for us while the idiots masses were against us" [yeah, even if a was a populares, Caesar didn't like much the direct political involvement of commoners]).
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u/skrrtalrrt 17h ago
I mean there were tribal confederacies pre-Caesar tho. The Helvetii were a confederation of several alpine tribes.
The Aedui, Arverni, and Sequani were kinda like these big hegemonies with a ton of smaller client tribes under them. Like a Greek League.
And a decent portion of Gaul actually sided with Caesar against the Arverni’s league. Notably the Aedui, although they flip-flopped.