The
Volcae () were a tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined
Gauls that invaded
Macedon circa 270 BC and defeated the assembled Greeks at the
Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC. Though our view of Celtic tribal configurations has to be pieced together from mentions in Greek and Latin sources, for archaeology determines no tribal identities purely through
material culture of the late
La Tène Celts, tribes called
Volcae were to be found simultaneously in southern France,
Moravia, the
Ebro River valley, and
Galatia in
Asia Minor (
Anatolia).
Driven by highly mobile groups operating outside the tribal system and comprising diverse elements, the Volcae were one of the new
ethnic entities formed during the Celtic military expansion at the beginning of the third century BC.Kruta, Venceslas.
Celts: History and Civilization. London: Hachette Illustrated, 2004: 204. Collecting in the
famous excursion into the Balkans, ostensibly, from the Hellene point-of-view, to raid
Delphi, a branch of the Volcae split from the main group on the way into the Balkans and joined two other tribes, the
Tolistobogii and the Trocmi, to settle in central
Asia Minor and establish a new Gaulish identity as the
Galatians.
The Tectosagii were a
sept of the Volcae who moved through
Macedonia into
Asia Minor circa
270 BCE.
Strabo says the Tectosagii came originally from the region near modern
Toulouse, in France.
Volcae of the Danube
Julius Caesar was convinced that...
Read More