Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts - Rodney Castleden - Страница 62

There were two Gaulish chiefs of this name, both leaders of invasions. It is possible that “Brennus” was a title, meaning dux bellorum or “commander-in-chief” rather than a personal name.

Diodorus Siculus tells us about the second Gaulish King Brennus, who lived in the third century BC:

Brennus the King of the Gauls, on entering a temple [at Delphi in Greece] found no dedications of gold or silver, and when he came only upon images of stone and wood, he laughed at them [the Greeks], to think that men, believing that gods have human form, should set up their images in wood and stone.

The implication is that the more sophisticated Gauls did not think of the gods in anthropomorphic terms and this tallies with their art, much of which at that time did not feature humanoid forms.

It was an earlier Gaulish King Brennus, who was the King of the Senones tribe, who led the Celtic warriors in the sack of Rome in 387 BC. He caused more havoc there than would be seen again until Alaric the Goth descended on the city in the fifth century AD. Brennus demanded his own weight in gold, with the cry, “Vae Victis!” (“Woe to the defeated!”) He was interested in loot rather than conquest, which was perhaps unfortunate in the longer term, though the Celts remained a force to reckon with in Italy until 295 BC.