Editing Volcae (section)

==Volcae of the Danube==
[[File:Volcae Arecomisci and Tectosages (migrations).svg|thumb|300px|Caesar's ethnogenesis and migrations of the Volcae.]]

[[Julius Caesar]] was convinced that the Volcae had originally been settled east of the [[Rhine]], for he mentioned the Volcae Tectosages as a [[Gauls|Gaulish]] tribe which still remained in western Germany in his day (''[[Commentarii de Bello Gallico|Gallic War]]'' 6.24):
{{blockquote|And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine.

Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the [[Hercynian Forest|Hercynian forest]], (which, I perceive, was known by report to [[Eratosthenes]] and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit; now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress; but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization. Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many engagements, they do not now even compare themselves to the [[Germania|Germans]] in prowess.}}
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]];{{citation needed|date=September 2019}} 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 [[metallurgy|metallurgical]] skills and the quality of their weapons, both attracting the attention of their northern neighbors.<ref>Green, D. H. ''[[Language and history in the early Germanic world]]''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998: 163.</ref>  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 ''[[oppidum|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."<ref>Howorth 1908:431.</ref>