Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast.

Episode 20, the Celtic invasion of Greece, the Gallic Tsunami. In the last episode, we covered the rough outline of Celtic history and the culture of the Latin period,

down to roughly 300 BC.

As I spoke before, the Celtic world had always maintained connections with the Mediterranean.

Trade goods such as wine and jewelry were highly prized,

and the centralization of Celtic life resulted in a movement closer to these Greco-Roman populaces.

This period, starting at roughly 400 BC, can be effectively called the era of

Celtic migrations. It's theorized that the increased political stabilization brought on by the

Latin period resulted in a population explosion, so increasing social agitation and need for farmland

and booty pushed the Celts further south and east.

We have accounts by the Greek historian Polybius and the Roman historian Livy, that the Boeii and other

Celtic tribes had penetrated the Po Valley, a stretch of land immediately south of the Alps and northern

Italy. Initially, the fertility of the land is what

attracted Celtic settlers, but authors maintain that the wealth of the Etruscans and various

Italian tribes had made for a prime target for raiding. The culmination of these events resulted

in the sack of Rome by the Gallic chieftain Brennis in roughly 390 or 389 BC.

While the torching of Rome remains the most famous incursion of Celt in Mediterranean society,

it was only about a century later that yet another explosion occurred, this time in the lands of Greece and Asia Minor.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a vast horde of Celtic warriors had appeared and swept across the eastern heartlands of the former Macedonian Empire.

But in fact, there were clear warning signs of things to come for decades before.

Migrating Celtic tribes had been attempting to enter the region of Valeria, east of Macedon, in the early 4th century BC.

But apparently we don't have any recorded contacts between the Macedonian kings and the Celts until the reign of Alexander the Great.

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