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PLATĘ 16

Central Europę

Central Europę, from the middle Rhineland to the knee of the Danube, contained the original homelands of some of the most vigorous of all Celtic warrior communities, widely employed as mercenary soldiers and repeatedly participating in long-range cmigrations. To the Creeks and Romans they were at once the most familiar and most feared of all the Celts. The western zones of central Europę were also the original source of the earliest Celtic gold coinages.

North-eastwards of the Adriatic the zonę of the eastern Celtic silver tetradrachm meets that of the gold stater, defining an important internat boundary within the central European Celtic grouping as a whole. Within the western (gold) zonę, a further internal boundary divides the Celtic stater tradition at Lakę Constance. Herc, the earliest of all gold Celtic coinages divide into two mutually exclusive groups: the Philippus tradition to the west, based on the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon, and the Alexander tradition between the middle Elbę and upper Danube, based on the gold stater of Alexander III. This geographical divide between the Philip and Alexander traditions, and their separate subsequent development, probably represents an important his-torical and cultural reality whose details are now obscure. It is, however, apparent that from at least the early third century onwards the *Alexander’ Celts faced eastwards while the 'Philip' Celts faced west, something also reflected in their divergent migratory tendencies. In its developed form, the *Alexander' or 'German* Celtic gold tradition selected human figures, single animals, and abstract motifs for reverse designs in preference to the horse or chariot themes favoured by the western grouping, but both regional traditions nonetheless originated at approximately the same time, striking faithful copies of Macedonian coins during the currency of their prototypes; distinctive first-phase ‘tribal* types followed at some point during the third century.

These phenomena undoubtedly represent important cultural boundaries among major central European Celtic groupings, yet all three areas shared a history, and changes seem to have taken place contemporaneously in all of them. There is in fact some controversy about the absoiute dating of the early phases of the central European gold coinages, but the association of gold coins

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