and rituals from the Celtic, as the Romans had adopted Greek gods into their pantheon.
Yet the Scandinavians kept their own Germanic language, quite different from Celtic, Greek or Latin. In burials, they used ship, not cart, imagery. They lived in scattered villages, did not develop them into towns.
During 58-49 BC, Julius Caesar conquered Gaul and began the Roman conquest of Central Europe up the Danube. Julius Caesar left the first record, in 1st Century BC (followed later by medieval Christian writers and Arab geographers), describing Scandinavians as tall, fair complexion, light eyes, blonde or redheaded and hardy.
The Romans saw Scandinavian religious practices as different than Celtic—for instance, the Scandinavians had no priestly caste, no druids. The religious practices remained particularly Scandinavian—for instance, the Tollund man (found in a Danish bog) was probably strangled or hanged as a sacrifice to an early form of the god Odin.
Augustus completed the conquest of the Danube area—in less than a generation, the Celtic world was shattered, incorporated in the Roman Empire, most of Central Europe was now open for migration by Germanic people. Germanic tribes spread from Scandinavia to lands between the Rhine and Vistula and north of the Danube, with the Romans called Germania, and expanded to include not only Central Europe, but also Scandinavia.
The Celtic became the foundation of Roman provincial civilization in Britain, Gaul and the Danube from the 1st to 5th centuries AD. Romans stationed 150,000 soldiers along the Rhine, and their demand for goods resulted in, for instance, most of western Germany’s and Denmark’s cattle industry being devoted to feeding the Rhineland Roman army. The Romans also needed labor—day workers, slaves, auxiliary warriors. Many German tribes moved to the region under contract to farm.
In return, Roman goods, including fine tableware, glass, Roman ceramics were imported into Denmark and southern Sweden, transforming the lives of Scandinavian aristocrats.
Scandinavians held some things too sacred to change, but readily changed others. Tacitus, writing Germania in c100 AD, says Danish priests paraded the idol of the goddess Nerthia in a sacred cart. Yet they habituated to drinking wine and would gamble everything for fine imported vintages.
The Scandinavians also imported superior weapons—early chain mail in 200-400 AD. Petty kings of dynasts began to consolidate power. They had been disorganized in the 1st Century, but were no longer by 100 AD onward. Some local kings retained warriors (comitatus in Latin), described by Tacitus similarly as by later Norse literatures as berserkers (frenzied warriors inspired by Odin to fight). Tacitus said these warriors formed a wedge (cuneus, ‘shield wall’), which later Norse legend called a gift from Odin.
By 260 AD in Central Europe, major confederations of Germans formed—Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, Goths. Warship burials at Nydam, Denmark (c350) and Sutton Hoo (c625) show the Scandinavians had also learned from the Romans how to use sails. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus says the Germans were using sails in 4th century raids.
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