Brennus

BRENNUS, LEADER OF THE CELTIC INVASION OF GREECE

It’s the year 279 BC, Alexander the Great is dead and his generals have spent the last 40 years fighting each other in a vicious war of succession. When they were in their 20s, they followed Alexander to the end of the known world as his generals and companions, but those who are not dead yet, are now old kings of their own Hellenistic states. The Macedonian empire that a few decades ago stretched from the Danube to the Nile and from the Balkans to the Himalayas has fragmented into several successor states.
Brennus (who must not be confused with Brennus of the Senones, who sacked Rome a century earlier, and whose name some believe to be a title rather than a proper name) was initially one of the several Gallic leaders that invaded the Balkan Peninsula. But at the end he assumed command of the great expedition that penetrated deep into Greece. The initial Gallic army was split into three divisions. One division was led by Cerethrius against Thrace (roughly corresponding to present-day southern Bulgaria), another division was led by Bolgios against the kingdom of Macedon (northern Greece) and Illyria (western part of the Balkan Peninsula), and a third division led by Brennus and Acichorius invaded Paeonia (roughly corresponding to the modern Republic of North Macedonia and south-western Bulgaria). The army of Bolgios managed to capture and kill the king of Macedon, Ptolemy Keraunos, who was the eldest son of Ptolemy I Soter (Alexander’s companion and successor in Egypt). The Gauls, as it was their custom, took the head of Ptolemy Keraunos as a trophy. It was after these expeditions that Brennus took command of the entire Gallic force to launch a greater and more lucrative invasion of Greece. Under Brennus, the Gauls crossed the pass of Thermopylae, where they forced the Greeks to retreat. And then, they marched over one of Greece’s most sacred places, the oracle of Delphi. The Celts sacked the treasure of Delphi during a violent thunderstorm. The day after, the Greeks attacked, Brennus was severely wounded and the Celts forced to retreat. On the camp, the Gauls divided into factions and fought amongst themselves, Brennus took his own life and his army was finally annihilated by a coalition of Greeks. A group of Gauls that had split from Brennus’ army were hired by Nicomedes I of Bithynia as mercenaries and finally settled in Anatolia, in a region that would be called Galatia after them.

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