Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian writing in Rome between 60BC and AD23 describes the Celtic people thusly: "They wear ornaments of gold, torques on the necks, and bracelets on their arms and wrists, while people of high rank wear dyed garments besprinkled with gold."

The Celts inhabited Europe for over one thousand years, with their peak years being 700BC to AD450. They were a vivacious, spiritual people who never achieved nationhood, but remained a collection of tribes bound together by a common culture. While they were a non-literary society, their metallurgy was state of the art for its day. The Celts certainly loved ornament and display and they would have communal feasts offering plenty to eat and drink. These communal feasts would many times feature lyric poets called bards, who passed oral traditions from one generation to the next, musicians who played lyre-type instruments, as well as philosophers and theologians called Druids. These feasts would often lead to violent combats. As a result, the Celts are described as a high-spirited people, fond of war, but not evil in character.