Brennus

Brennus is the name of two Celtic chieftains famous in ancient history:

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1. In 387 BC, in the Battle of the Allia an army of Celts attacked Rome, led by one Brennus, capturing all of the city except for the Capitoline Hill, which was successfully held against them. This Brennus is famous for exclaiming to the Romans, "Vae victis!" ("woe to the conquered"). According to legend, during a dispute over the accuracy of the weights used to measure the ransom of gold Brennus demanded, he threw his sword upon the scales and uttered the famous quote.

Related Topics:
387 BC - Battle of the Allia - Rome - Capitoline Hill - Vae victis

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2. In 279 BC, another army of Celts led by one Brennus invaded Macedonia and northern Greece. The following year they crossed the Bosporus and settled in a part of Asia Minor that came to be called Galatia.

Related Topics:
279 BC - Macedonia - Bosporus - Asia Minor - Galatia

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The name Brennus is likely a title rather than a proper name. Probably meaning "courageous, zealous, intense", it is the Old Celtic word from which is derived the Brythonic Celtic word "Brenin", which means King. In AD 69, when the Canninefates at the mouth of the Rhine joined in the Batavian uprising, they were led by "a certain Brinno, a man of a certain stolid bravery and of distinguished birth. His father, after venturing on many acts of hostility, had scorned with impunity the ridiculous expedition of Caligula. His very name, the name of a family of rebels, made him popular. Raised aloft on a shield after the national fashion, and balanced on the shoulders of the bearers, he was chosen general" (Tacitus, Histories, iv http://classics.mit.edu/Tacitus/histories.4.iv.html).

Related Topics:
Brythonic Celtic - King - Canninefates - Batavian - Tacitus

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Geoffrey of Monmouth also writes in his Historia Regum Britanniae about a personage named Brennius who conquers Rome. He probably created this character from the two Brenni of history.

Related Topics:
Geoffrey of Monmouth - Historia Regum Britanniae - Brennius

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In 1530 the Duke of Norfolk, arguing Tudor claims to imperial status, told the Imperial ambassador Eustache Chapuys that an "Englishman" called Brennus, the founder of Bristol, had conquered Rome (Thomas Healy, Times Literary Supplement 24 June 2005 p 25, reviewing Philip Schwyzer, Literature Nationalism and Memory in Early Modern England and Wales, Cambridge, 2005). This looks like a recollection of Geoffrey's "Brennius".

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