an empire for some time, if it had happened that the ancient Celts, led by Brennus, who had invaded Rome around 390BC, had been more greedy for wealth and a perhaps a little more organized . . . Rome would probably have fallen to them before it ever became the sterling force it grew to be.

Oddly enough, it is in fact Rome herself we have to thank for much of the information we have concerning Celtic ancestry: the mysterious Keltoi, or, in a rough translation of that word - the secret people.

The wild Celts were the first transalpine people to emerge into Roman history, or history itself for that matter. As a people they