Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [130]
58–50 Julius Caesar completes conquest of Gaul.
31 Octavian becomes Emperor Caesar Augustus.
Common Era
9 Three Roman legions are destroyed by German tribes on the Rhine.
47 Britain invaded by Romans.
100 Legendary Queen Medb (Maeve) of Connacht reigns in Ireland.
122 Emperor Hadrian builds defensive walls and towers to fortify the northern boundary of Roman Britain.
166 German tribes invade northern Italy.
253 Germanic invasion into Gaul cripples the prosperous northwestern provinces.
378 Mistreatment of the Visigoths by Roman officials causes uprising; the emperor Valens is killed and his army wiped out.
401 Patricius, a Briton, is taken into slavery in Ireland. He will later become known as St. Patrick.
406 German tribesmen invade the Roman Empire.
410 Final withdrawal of Roman Legions from Britain. Alaric the Goth sacks the city of Rome.
431 Council of Ephesus declares that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of God.
432 Bishop Patrick arrives in Ireland; converts Irish Celts to Christianity.
441 Anglo-Saxons start to colonize England.
451 Attila the Hun defeated at Troyes.
455 In sea attack launched from Africa, Vandals sack Rome.
476 The last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, is deposed; he is replaced by Odoacer, “king of Italy,” which marks the end of the Roman Empire in the West.
c. 500 Brigid (later St. Brigid) founds an abbey at Kildare, Ireland.
597 St. Augustine converts Anglo-Saxons to Christianity.
636 Lindisfarne Monastery founded.
789 First recorded Viking raid on England at Weymouth.
793 Vikings plunder Lindisfarne Monastery off British coast.
866 Vikings occupy British city of York.
870 Vikings settle Iceland.
902 Vikings establish a permanent base at Dublin.
911 Vikings found Duchy of Normandy.
982 Vikings settle Greenland.
986 Vikings reach North America and establish settlements.
999–1000 Christianity accepted in Iceland.
1016 Danish king Canute crowned king of England.
1066 Battle of Hastings: Normans—descendants of the Vikings—invade and conquer England.
c. 1220 Prose Edda, Norse myths compiled by Snorri Sturluson.
P
icture this. It is about fifty years before the birth of Jesus, a typical day in the ancient world. In Greece, philosophers and their students stroll the streets of Athens, thinking Big Thoughts as they walk past centuries-old temples and statues gracefully carved from elegant marble. In Egypt—where the pyramids are already more than two thousand years old!—the Library of Alexandria is filled with scholars reading great works of classic literature, contemplating philosophy, drawing maps of the world, and studying higher mathematics and astronomy. In Rome, a Classic Age of poets and writers has begun to flourish and, before long, Imperial Rome will spread its language, law, martial order, and carefully constructed roads across the Mediterranean and European world. But on a remote battlefield somewhere in Europe, the Roman general Julius Caesar leads his well-ordered legions against a howling band of naked warriors. These barbarians rush into battle with weird musical instruments—shrieking pipes made out of animal skins and strange, curved trumpets. If they win the day, these “savages” will surely take their Roman enemies’ heads as trophies and sacrifice hundreds of captives in ceremonies led by priestly magicians called Druids. These Druid priests don’t worship gods in majestic temples in city centers. Their gods are everywhere around them, a host of mythical spirits that fill every forest, field, mountain, lake, and spring. Even in the strange and mysterious circles of stones that dot the European landscape.
Descended from an ancient people of Indo-European origins, these savage warriors are called Celtae or Galli by the Romans, and Keltoi and Galatatae by the Greeks. Today they are known by a catchall word as the Celts.*
While great and glorious civilizations rose and fell in the Mediterranean worlds of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, the rampaging Celts