Volcae

The Volcae () were a Gallic tribal confederation constituted before the raid of combined Gauls that invaded Macedonia c. 270 BC and fought the assembled Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae in 279 BC. Tribes known by the name Volcae were found simultaneously in southern Gaul, Moravia, the Ebro valley of the Iberian Peninsula, and Galatia in Anatolia. The Volcae appear to have been part of the late La Tène material culture, and a Celtic identity has been attributed to the Volcae, based on mentions in Greek and Latin sources as well as onomastic evidence. 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 3rd century BC. Collecting in the famous excursion into the Balkans, ostensibly, from the Greek 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 Anatolia and establish a new identity as the Galatians.

The Tectosagii were a group of the Volcae who moved through Macedonia into Anatolia c. 277 BC. Strabo says the Tectosagii came originally from the region near modern Toulouse, in France.

Name

They are mentioned as ''Volcis'' and ''Volcarum'' by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC), as ''Ou̓ólkai'' (Οὐόλκαι) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD) and Ptolemy (2nd c. AD), and as ''Volce'' on the '' Tabula Peutingeriana'' (4–5th c. AD)., s.v. ''Volcae Arecomici'' and ''Volcae Tectosages''.

Most modern Celtologists regard the tribal name ''Uolcae'' (sing. ''Uolcos'') as stemming from a Gaulish noun ''uolcos'', ''uolca'' ('hawk, falcon'), which can be compared with the Welsh ''gwalch'' ('hawk, rascal' > 'fighter'). In particular, the Gaulish personal name ''Catu-uolcos'' has an exact parallel in the Welsh ''cadwalch'' ('hero, champion, warrior'), itself from an earlier Old Brittonic *''katu-wealkos'' ('battle-hawk'). The Gaulish stem ''uolc''- can also be found in the personal names ''Uolcius'', ''Uolcenius'', ''Uolcenia'', ''Uolcinius'', ''Uolcacius'', ''Uolciani'', and ''Uolcanus''. The Old English ''wealc''- ('hawk'), which has no known cognate in other Germanic languages, was most likely borrowed from Old Brittonic ''*wealkos''. The etymology of those forms remains obscure. Xavier Delamarre has proposed to derive Gaulish ''uolcos –'' alongside Latin ''falcō'' ('falcon') and ''falx'', ''falcis'' ('hook, sickle') – from a stem *''ǵhwol-k''-, itself based on the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *''ǵʷhel-'' ('bend, curve'). In this view, the animal may have been named after the shape of his beak, just like the Ancient Greek '' harpē'' designates both a sickle and a bird of prey.

Alternatively, the name ''Uolcae'' has been derived by some scholars from the PIE name of the wolf, *''wḷkʷos''. According to Ranko Matasović, however, this is unlikely since the Gaulish form would have preserved the o-grade *''wolkʷo''-; he argues that descendants of Proto-Celtic *''ulkʷos'' ('bad, evil' < PIE *''wḷkʷos'' 'wolf') rather include Lepontic ''Ulkos'' and Old Irish ''olc'' ('bad, evil'). Delamarre finds it doubtful since *''wḷkʷos'' would have given **''flech'' (rather than ''olc'') in Old Irish and **''ulipos'' in Gaulish (after the P-Celtic sound shift). John T. Koch derives Old Irish ''olc'' from a Proto-Celtic form *''elko''- ~ *''olko''-, which may be compared with Old Norse ''illr'' (from Proto-Germanic *''elhja''- < Pre-Germanic *''elkyo''-; cf. the Finnish loanword ''elkiä'' 'mean, malicious'); he proposes that reflexes of PIE *''wḷkʷos'' ('wolf') include Old Irish ''foilc'' (from a 9th-century poem) and Old Welsh ''gueilc ' (from the poem '' Y Gododdin'').

After Volcae Tectosages settled in the Hercynian forest (Central Europe), neighbouring Germanic tribes designated them by the name *'' walhaz'', a loanword from Gaulish ''uolcos'' that came to refer more generally to Celtic and Romance speakers in medieval Germanic languages (e.g. ''Welsh'', '' Waals'', ''Vlachs'').

Volcae of the Danube

Julius Caesar was convinced that the Volcae had originally been settled east of the Rhine, for he mentioned the Volcae Tectosages as a Gaulish tribe which still remained in western Germany in his day (''Gallic War'' 6.24):

Caesar related a tradition associating the Celtic tribe of the Volcae to the vast Hercynian Forest, although they were possibly located in the eastern range of the České Středohoří; yet, Volcae of his time were settled in Moravia, east of the Boii. Their apparent movement may indicate that the Volcae were newcomers to the region. Caesar's remark about the wealth of this region may have referred not only to agriculture but also to the mineral deposits there, while the renown attributed to the Volcae "in peace and in war" resulted from their metallurgical skills and the quality of their weapons, both attracting the attention of their northern neighbors. Together with the Boii in the upper basin of the Elbe river to the west and the Cotini in Slovakia to the east, this area of Celtic settlement in '' oppida'' led to the exploitation of natural resources on a grand scale and the concentration of skilled craftsmen under the patronage of strong and wealthy chieftains. This culture flourished from the mid second to the mid-1st century BCE, until it buckled under the combined pressure of the Germanic peoples from the North and the Dacians from the East.

Allowance must be made for Julius Caesar's usual equation of primitive poverty with admirable hardihood and military prowess and his connection of luxurious imports and the proximity of "civilization", meaning his own, with softness and decadence. In fact, long-established trading connections furnished Gaulish elites with Baltic amber and Greek and Etruscan wares.

Caesar took it as a given that the Celts in the Hercynian Forest were emigrant settlers from Gaul who had "seized" the land, but modern archeology identifies the region as part of the La Tène homeland. As Henry Howarth noted a century ago, "The Tectosages reported by Caesar as still being around the Hercynian forest were in fact living in the old homes of their race, whence a portion of them set out on their great expedition against Greece, and eventually settled in Galatia, in Asia Minor, where one of the tribes was called Tectosages."

Volcae of Gaul

Volcae Arecomici

The Volcae Arecomici ( of Ptolemy's ''Geography'' ii), according to Strabo, dwelt on the western side of the lower Rhône, with their metropolis at Narbo ( Narbonne): "Narbo is spoken of as the naval-station of these people alone, though it would be fairer to add 'and of the rest of Celtica', so greatly has it surpassed the others in the number of people who use it as a trade-centre." They were not alone in occupying their territory, with its capital at Nemausus (Nîmes).

The Volcae Arecomici of their own accord surrendered to the Roman Republic in 121 BC. They occupied the district between the Garonne (''Garumna''), the Cévennes (''Cebenna mons''), and the Rhône. This area covered most of the western part of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis. They held their assemblies in the sacred wood of Nemausus, the site of modern Nîmes.

In Gaul they were divided into two tribes in widely separated regions, the Arecomici on the east, living among the Ligures, and the Tectosages (whose territory included that of the Tolosates) on the west, living among the Aquitani; the territories were separated by the Hérault

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