13. The Ancient Greeks even gave us the name by which we know “The Celts” today.
Quite whether the Celts saw themselves as a single people is debatable. It is more likely they saw themselves as separate tribes united by a common culture. Some people believe that the name “Celt” derives from a Celtic term of reference. However, most others believe the Ancient Greeks named them. The Romans, who had also encountered the Celts referred to them as “Galli’ or barbarians. However, to the Greeks, they were the “Keltoi.” “The first person to name the Celts as such was a Greek geographer called Hecataeus of Miletus who in 517BC used the term to describe the local tribes living near the Greek colony of Marseilles. According to Patrizia De Bernardo Stempel, the term means “the tall ones.” Tallness, as it turns out, wasn’t the only attribute the Greeks attributed to Celtic people.
