Title: History of Belgium
Content: show Celtic placenames and personal names. However it is possible in Belgium that especially in the northern areas the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures were brought by new elites, and that the main language of the population was not Celtic. From 500 BC Celtic tribes settled in the region and traded with the Mediterranean world. From c. 150 BC, the first coins came into use, under the influence of trade with the Mediterranean. When Julius Caesar arrived in the region, as recorded in his "De Bello Gallico", the inhabitants of Belgium, northwestern France, and the German Rhineland were known as

Title: History of Belgium
Content: a Germanic language, and their tribal and personal names are clearly Celtic. This is in fact also true of the possibly related tribes across the Rhine from them at this time. Archaeologists have also had difficulty finding evidence of the exact migrations from east of the Rhine which Caesar reports and more generally there has been skepticism about using him in this way due to the political motives of his commentaries. But the archaeological record gives the impression that the classical Belgian "Germani" were a relatively stable population going back to Urnfield times, with a more recently immigrated elite class

Title: History of Belgium
Content: and custom, and he also says they had Germanic ancestry, but he does not go into detail. It seems clear that Celtic culture and language were very influential upon the Belgae, especially those in modern France. On the other hand, linguists have proposed that there is evidence that the northern part of the Belgic population had previously spoken an Indo European language related to, but distinct from, Celtic and Germanic, and among the northern Belgae, Celtic may never have been the language of the majority. (See Belgian language and Nordwestblock.) The leaders of the Belgic alliance which Caesar confronted were

Title: History of Flanders
Content: administrative capital. For the Menapii, this was Cassel, now in northern France. This was within the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. To what extent these tribes were Celtic, or Germanic, or something else is still subject to historical debate. But as a whole, the Belgic area was certainly influenced by both Celtic and Germanic languages and culture. Caesar describes tribes and individuals who had Celtic names, but also recalls a story that the majority of the Belgae had ancestors who had come from east of the Rhine, some time before the migrations of the Cimbri and Teutones in the second

Title: History of Belgian Limburg
Content: in this region by the 2nd century BCE, and there are also signs of an older substrate language in the Belgic region. (See Nordwestblock.) So Celtic, while influential culturally, may never have been the main language of the area. The Aduatuci and the "Germani cisrhenani" participated in an alliance of Belgic tribes against Caesar in 57 BCE, which was defeated at the Battle of the Sabis. Before that battle, information from the Remi, a tribe allied with Rome, stated that the Germani (the Condrusi, the Eburones, the Caeraesi, and the Paemani; but apparently not the Segni) had collectively promised, they

Question: Who were the Celtic-speaking peoples living in France and Belgium during Roman times?
Answer: Gauls