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Brennus or Brennos is the name of two Gaulish chieftains, famous in ancient history:
The linguistic origins of the name are unclear, despite two theories linking it to Welsh words. Despite suggestions by scholars as early as the 12th century AD, including one by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae , Brennus is not likely to share a common origin with the Welsh personal name Bran (or Brân) meaning "crow"; the similarity of the names is deemed to be superficial. Recurrence of the name Brennus makes it possible that it was a title rather than a proper name. However, despite assertions by some 19th-century scholars, Brennus and the modern Welsh word for "king", brenin (earlier breenhin) are not related. [1] Brenin is instead derived from the Celtic *brigantinos, meaning "(someone) pre-eminent, outstanding". [2]
Variants and adaptations of the name may include:
Vercingetorix was a king and chieftain of the Arverni tribe who united the Gauls in a failed revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars. Despite having willingly surrendered to Caesar, he was executed in Rome.
Gaul was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, and parts of Northern Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, particularly the west bank of the Rhine. It covered an area of 494,000 km2 (191,000 sq mi). According to Julius Caesar, Gaul was divided into three parts: Gallia Celtica, Belgica, and Aquitania. Archaeologically, the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture, which extended across all of Gaul, as well as east to Raetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC. During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, Gaul fell under Roman rule: Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 204 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC. Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons, who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC. Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC.
Caratacus was a 1st-century AD British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, who resisted the Roman conquest of Britain.
Magnus Maximus was Roman emperor in the western portion of the Empire from 383 to 388. He usurped the throne from emperor Gratian in 383 through negotiation with emperor Theodosius I.
Brutus, or Brute of Troy, is a legendary descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas, known in medieval British history as the eponymous founder and first king of Britain. This legend first appears in the Historia Brittonum, an anonymous 9th-century historical compilation to which commentary was added by Nennius, but is best known from the account given by the 12th-century chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia Regum Britanniae.
The Trinovantes or Trinobantes were one of the Celtic tribes of pre-Roman Britain. Their territory was on the north side of the Thames estuary in current Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk, and included lands now located in Greater London. They were bordered to the north by the Iceni, and to the west by the Catuvellauni. Their name possibly derives from the Celtic intensive prefix "tri-" and a second element which was either "novio" – new, so meaning "very new" in the sense of "newcomers", but possibly with an applied sense of vigorous or lively ultimately meaning "the very vigorous people". Their capital was Camulodunum, one proposed site of the legendary Camelot.
Tasciovanus was a historical king of the Catuvellauni tribe before the Roman conquest of Britain.
Cassivellaunus was a historical British military leader who led the defence against Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britain in 54 BC. He led an alliance of tribes against Roman forces, but eventually surrendered after his location was revealed to Julius Caesar by defeated Britons.
Eudaf Hen is a figure of Welsh tradition. He is remembered as a King of the Britons and the father of Elen Luyddog and Conan Meriadoc in sources such as the Welsh prose tale The Dream of Macsen Wledig and Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae. He also figures into Welsh genealogies. Geoffrey of Monmouth calls him Octavius, a corruption and faux-Latinization of Old Welsh/Breton Outham. According to the medieval Welsh genealogy from Mostyn MS. 117, Eudaf was a direct ancestor of King Arthur.
Conan Meriadoc is a legendary Celtic leader credited with founding Brittany. Versions of his story circulated in both Brittany and Great Britain from at least the early 12th century, and supplanted earlier legends of Brittany's foundation. His story is known in two major versions, which appear in the Welsh text known as The Dream of Macsen Wledig, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. Both texts associate him with Magnus Maximus, a Roman usurper against the Valentinianic dynasty who was widely regarded as having deprived Britain of its defences when he took its legions to claim the imperial throne. Conan's cousin or sister, Saint Elen, is said to have been Macsen Wledic's wife.
Mandubracius or Mandubratius was a king of the Trinovantes of south-eastern Britain in the 1st century BC.
Brennus was a chieftain of the Senones. He defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia. Later that year, he led an army of Cisalpine Gauls in their attack on Rome and captured most of the city, holding it for several months. Brennus's sack of Rome was the only time in 800 years the city was occupied by a non-Roman army before the fall of the city to the Visigoths in 410 AD.
Brennus was one of the Gaulish leaders of the army of the Gallic invasion of the Balkans. While invading the Greek mainland he managed to momentarily reach as far south as Delphi in an attempt to loot the rich treasury of the sanctuary of Apollo. His army suffered a devastating defeat at Delphi; he was heavily injured during the battle and committed suicide there. His militarily inexperienced army was forced to a continuous retreat by the tactical attacks of the Greek city-states and was cut down to a remaining band that fled from Greece.
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 279 BC between invading Gallic armies and a combined army of Greek Aetolians, Boeotians, Athenians, and Phocians at Thermopylae. The Gauls under Brennus were victorious, and advanced further into the Greek peninsula where they attempted to sack Delphi but were completely defeated.
Tolistobogii is the name used by the Roman historian, Livy, for one of the three ancient Gallic tribes of Galatia in central Asia Minor, together with the Trocmi and Tectosages. The tribe entered Anatolia in 279 BC as a contingent of Celtic raiders from the Danube region, and settled in those regions of Phrygia which would later become part of the Roman province of Galatia. The Galatians retained their Celtic language through the 4th century AD, when Saint Jerome mentions that the Galatians still spoke a Celtic language in his times.
From their new bases in northern Illyria and Pannonia, the Gallic invasions climaxed in the early 3rd century BC, with the invasion of Greece. The 279 BC invasion of Greece proper was preceded by a series of other military campaigns waged in the southern Balkans and against the kingdom of Macedonia, favoured by the state of confusion ensuing from the disputed succession after Alexander the Great's death. A part of the invading Celts crossed over to Anatolia and eventually settled in the area that came to be named after them, Galatia.
The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples of Continental Europe in the Iron Age and the Roman period. The area they originally inhabited was known as Gaul. Their Gaulish language is a Continental Celtic language.
The Gold of Tolosa is the appellation used to refer to a treasure hoard seized by the ancient Roman proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio from the Volcae town of Tolosa, modern-day Toulouse.
The Galatians were a Celtic people dwelling in Galatia, a region of central Anatolia surrounding present-day Ankara, during the Hellenistic period. They spoke the Galatian language, which was closely related to Gaulish, a contemporary Celtic language spoken in Gaul.