21. The Celts also loved their “Bling.”
When not stripping off for battle, peacetime Celts had a very defined sense of style. What made them stand out was not so much their clothes but their jewellery. Strabo describes the brashness of Celtic decoration and how high-ranking individuals of both sexes wore “ornaments of gold, torques on their necks and bracelets on their arms and wrists.” All of this gold went over the top of “garments besprinkled with gold.” Strabo viewed the Celtic love of bling as a moral weakness. ” It is this vanity,” he noted, “which makes them so unbearable in victory and so completely downcast in defeat.”
