The ancient Celts were a collection of tribes that roamed Europe for centuries, reaching as far east as what is now Turkey. Best known from the writings of Julius Caesar, who recorded information on his war with the Gauls — a tribe that lived around modern-day France — the Celts are often depicted as violent, fierce and scruffy. But this picture has been filtered through ancient Roman and Greek authors who knew little about these groups, which spoke different languages and had complex cultures.
There’s also no universal definition of who counted as an ancient Celt. Some historians count only continental tribes as Celtic, while others view the Brittonic-speaking tribes in the British Isles, such as the Durotriges and Iceni, as Celts as well. The association of the Celts with only the British Isles — and with Ireland in particular — that often persists today is a Renaissance invention.
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