Faeelin said:
Okay, reading about the conquest of gaul by caesar. one thing that strikes me is that gaul seems to fall pretty quickly for a bunch of barbarian tribes; to fall so quickly, it must have had some urbanized centers of power which he took out quickly, and hard.
A bit more reading is done, and it appears that gaul was beginning to have some proto-civilized habits, like coined money.
So any way we can speed this up, so that by 50 BC there are organized states capable of repelling rome?
Easy. Give 'em writing. Caesar writes that the Druids opposed the use of writing, saying that it would erode memories, and make the given word worthless. Now, they had tribal censuses, and kept calendars, among other kinds of records, so the prohibition obviously wasn't absolute. On that basis, some folks have suggested it didn't exist, but the lack of written inscriptions, or of written myths or epics from the pre-Roman period is pretty good evidence that some kind of prohibition was in force.
It couldn't have been mere unfamiliarity. The Gauls had been in touch with the Greeks of Massillia since the colony was founded in ca. 600 BC, and had been trading with the Etruscans since not much later. There was plenty of time for the idea of writing to take root had nothing been stopping it.
We are not totally sure how the Druids were organized. Caesar says they had a center in the lands of the Carnutes, and a supreme council, but there is no supporting evidence for this. From the Irish analogy, it would be more likely that Cenabon, the capitol of the Carnutes, was probably a ceremonial center similar to Uisneach, where some kind of assembly took place, which was not a legislature as such, but was a chance to exchange data and argue over various judgements and decisions by the best known names. In Ireland, the Bards did exactly this, as did the Brehons, in their respective fields, and they were organized mostly by school, with each school being more or less independent, supported by lands they owned, usually given by kings at various points in the past. This in fact very closely resembles the Druidic schools recorded by Caesar.
So, then, we can very tentatively reconstruct that the prohibition against writing must have originated as a judgement by some very well-known Druid, and it was backed up by the judgements of his contemporaries, many of whom might have been his former students. Change this person's life, and you might well reverse the decision. We don't know when such a decision was made, but it was probably a slow process, originating sometime in the 500s BC, and complete by ca 350-400. This, at any rate, was when Greek influence on Celtic art was greatest, and therefore presumably when writing would have come to the attention of the Gaulish intellectual classes, including the Druids.
If the decision is reversed, and Gaul behaves typically of other areas that got writing fairly late, then we might see public inscriptions, dedications of altars, and the like by about 300 BC. By about 250 BC, the Druids are writing down their myths, a mass of ritual texts, and various works of wisdom literature. By about 200, various works of Greek philosophers are being translated, and the Gauls are getting their hands on Greek science. At about the same time, they are writing their first military manuals, and rulers are keeping in touch with their vassals by letter. This is the really big change. OTL, there was a limit to how big or efficient Gaulish states could get. Without adminstration and writing, they stayed tribal, with only a very loose and theoretical vassalage being extended to the whole country.
This means that the Arverni (probably Arwernoi in Gaulish, with semi-modern othography), the leading tribe in Gaul at the time, would have been able to build something much tighter than they did, perhaps something roughly comparable to a medieval feudal kingdom. In addition, they have siege trains by about 150 BC, if not earlier, and decent supply lines, thus eliminating one of the great weaknesses of ancient Celtic armies. With written accounts to show them how _different_ foreigners like the Romans are, the Gauls also have a stronger sense of identity, though not quite nationalism in the modern sense. Throughout the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC, they are able to watch what happens to their relatives in Spain and Italy, and form opinions.
Long before Caesar, they will have a first-class civilization, and be ready for Rome......