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Celtic Tribe of Suessiones in North-eastern Gaul
Bronze 16mm (2.3 grams) Struck circa Circa 60-50/25 B.C.
Reference: D&T 563. Depeyrot, NC VI, 95. Rare!
Celticized janiform head; ornaments around.
Celticized bull standing left; annulets (pellets) around.
Coin Notes:
This design represents Lugh: “evidence shows that the religious rites included an offering of the ‘First Fruits’, a feast of the new food and of bilberries, the sacrifice of a bull, and a ritual dance-play in which Lugh seizes the harvest for mankind and defeats the powers of blight.” Lugh was worshipped by the Suessiones, as he was the most well represented god in Gaul/Celtic culture, and the Bull is his animistic representation.
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The Suessiones were a Belgic tribe, dwelling in the modern Aisne and Oise regions during the La Tène and Roman periods.
 During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), their oppidum Noviodunum (Pommiers) was besieged and conquered by Caesar. Following their defeat by the Romans at the end of the campaign of 57 BC, they fell into dependence upon Rome and remained faithful to the Romans during the revolt of 51 BC.
They are mentioned as Suessiones by Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Pliny (1st c. AD), as Souessíōnes (Σουεσσίωνες) and Ou̓essíōnas (Οὐεσσίωνας) by Strabo (early 1st c. AD), and as Ouéssones (Οὐέσσονες) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).
The territory of the Suessiones was bordered by the forest of the Oise valley to the west, and by wooded heights along the Marne river (near Épernay) to the southeast. They dwelt northeast of the smaller Meldi and Silvanectes, and west of the Remi.
The oppidum of Villeneuve-Saint-Germain, founded on a plain near the Aisne river in the middle of the 1st century BC, was the main settlement of the Suessiones before the Roman conquest. It was an important Gallic agglomeration, reaching 70ha at its height.
From the period of the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), their chief town became the oppidum of Pommiers, generally identified with the fortress of Noviodunum (Gaulish: ‘new fortress’) mentioned by Caesar. Pommiers was progressively abandoned and became unoccupied after the end of reign of Augustus (27 BC–14 AD), when their chief town became Augusta Suessionum.
Smaller oppida were also located at Ambleny, Pont-Saint-Mard, or Epagny.
Augusta Suessionum (modern Soissons), founded ca. 20 BC on an area more adapted to urbanization than Villeneuve-Saint-Germain and Pommiers, became the capital of the civitas Suessionum during the Roman period. Reaching 100–120ha at its height, it was one of most important settlements of northwestern Gaul. The Germanic Migrations in the 3rd century AD led to the erection of fortifications around the city. Rome was only able to defend the region until the defeat of Syagrius against the Frankish king Clovis in 486.
Smaller agglomerations within the civitas were also located at Château-Thierry, Ciry-Salsogne, Épaux-Bézu, Blesmes, Sinceny, and Ressons-le-Long.
According to archaeologist Jean-Louis Brunaux, large-scale migrations occurred in the northern part of Gaul in the late 4th–early 3rd century BC, which may correspond to the coming of the Belgae. Those cultural changes emerged later among the Suessiones, who probably came to be fully integrated to the Belgae only after the 3rd century. New funerary customs (from burial to cremation) are noticeable from 250–200 BC on the territories of the Ambi or Bellovaci, whereas incineration occurred later in the Aisne valley, from around 200–150.
Around 80 BC, the Suessones king Diviciacus gained supremacy in areas of southeastern Britain.
Caesar recounts in his Gallic Wars that in 57 BC the Suessiones were ruled by Galba.
Until the Gallic Wars (58–50 BC), the Suessiones shared a common cultural identity with the neighbouring Remi, which with they were linked by the same law, the same magistrates and a unified commander-in-chief. In reality, this virtual state of union between the two tribes probably leaned in favour of the Suessiones. When Caesar entered Gallia Belgica in 57 BC, the Remi asked the protection of the Romans, thus gaining independence from a possibly asymmetrical relationship. The Meldi were probably also tributary to the more powerful Suessiones. During the Roman period, the Suessiones were regarded as dependant upon Rome, whereas the Remi were considered the allies of the Romans. Parts of the Suessionean territory were given to the Remi, the Meldi, and perhaps to the Sulbanectes. The dependency of the Suessiones upon the Remi appears to have lasted until the beginning of the 1st century AD, and a Roman military presence is attested in Suessionean territory at the camp of Arlaines (Ressons-le-Long) until the Flavian period.
In Augusta Suessionum were found a votive stele dedicated to the native goddess Camuloriga (Camloriga), and a statuette of the Roman god Mercury. The divine name Camuloriga stems from the Gaulish term camulos, possibly translated as ‘champion, servant’ (denoting one who makes efforts) and attached to the suffix -riga- (< rigani ‘queen’; compare with Old Irish rígain ‘queen’).
Rural sanctuaries have been identified at Fossoy, Grand-Rozoy, and Pasly. Archaeologists have not been able to identify which deities were worshipped there.
The Suessiones straddled two river routes, the Aisne and the Marne. Coinage minted by Belgic Gauls first appeared in Britain in the mid-2nd century BC with the coinage now categorized as the “Gallo-Belgic A” type. Coins associated with King Diviciacus of the Suessiones, issued near or between 90 and 60 BC, have been categorized as “Gallo-Belgic C.” Finds of this issue of coin extend from Sussex to the Wash, with a concentration of finds near Kent. A later issue of coin, “Gallo-Belgic F” (c. 60-50 BC), has concentrated finds near Paris, throughout the lands of the Suessiones, and the southern, coastal areas of Britain. These finds lead scholars to suggest that the Suessiones had significant trade and migration into Britain during the 2nd and 1st centuries prior to Roman conquest. Caesar describes the Belgae as going to Britain looking for booty: “The inland part of Britain is inhabited by tribes declared in their own tradition to be indigenous to the island, the maritime part by tribes that migrated at an earlier time from Belgium to seek booty by invasion.”
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The Celts or Kelts were an ethnolinguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture, although the relationship between the ethnic, linguistic and cultural elements remains uncertain and controversial.
 Diachronic distribution of Celtic peoples:
core Hallstatt territory, by the 6th century BC maximal Celtic expansion, by 275 BC Lusitanian area of Iberia where Celtic presence is uncertain the six Celtic nations which retained significant numbers of Celtic speakers into the Early Modern period areas where Celtic languages remain widely spoken today
The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of Central Europe, which flourished from around 1200 BC. Their fully Celtic descendants in central Europe were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC) named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria. By the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded by diffusion or migration to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), Bohemia, Poland and much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls) and, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC, as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians).
Beginning in 2010, it was tentatively proposed that the language of the Tartessian inscriptions of south Portugal and southwest Spain (dating from the 7th-5th centuries BC) is a Celtic one; however, this interpretation has largely been rejected by the academic community.
The earliest undisputed direct examples of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions, beginning in the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic is attested beginning around the 4th century through ogham inscriptions, although it was clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century. Coherent texts of Early Irish literature, such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), survive in 12th-century recensions.
By the mid 1st millennium AD, with the expansion of the Roman Empire and the Great Migrations (Migration Period) of Germanic peoples, Celtic culture and Insular Celtic had become restricted to Ireland, the western and northern parts of Great Britain (Wales, Scotland, and Cornwall), the Isle of Man, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious, and artistic heritage that distinguished them from the culture of the surrounding polities. By the 6th century, however, the Continental Celtic languages were no longer in wide use.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scottish and Manx) and the Brythonic Celts (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern “Celtic identity” was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Great Britain, Ireland, and other European territories, such as Portugal and Spanish Galicia. Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their historical territories, and Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.
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