Romans had a penchant for wearing german hair. Blond colored hair was considered desirable back then too, but they didn’t have the ability to dye hair back then. So what they did was hunt “barbaric” germans for their hair. They made wigs out of german hair and wore them. Romans had naturally dark hair.
I’ve never heard of these ancient celts being red haired. They were called gauls back then, or gallic. This is why the irish language is called gaelic. gallic...gaelic...same thing. They all wore plaid and marched to bagpipe music. To my knowledge, the gallic people were black haired and black bearded. The romans called them ghouls...a derrogatory term we still have today that means monster or blood thirsty demon. Gaul...ghoul...same thing.
As for the 'notion' that Romans considered the Germanic tribes to be stereotypically red-heads, that would be from Tacitus.
And a quote: "All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion."
Sorry man, but that’s incorrect. As an American of Irish decent here I feel I need to point out the fact that the Celts and the Gauls were two distinct ethnic groups of ancient Europe.
As a matter of fact, Gaul DOES NOT equal Gael. The words themselves originated from different cultures more than a thousand years apart to describe different peoples.
Gael is derived from a Welsh word. It’s what the Welsh called my Irish ancestors. It didn’t enter into use until after the time of Christ.
Ya see, it was common practice for Irish youth back then to hop the water and wander over to Wales and England to have a bit of “fun”. All harmless stuff really; just a bit of cattle raiding, pillaging, the acquiring of any livestock or young women not nailed down. ;)
The Welsh word translates roughly as “Pirate” or “Raider”.
Gaul on the other hand is a different word entirely. It’s derived from ‘Gallica’, if I recall correctly, which is what the Romans called western Europe.
The Gauls as a people were distinct from the Celts as well (for a time anyway). As a matter of fact, in the late iron age there were a number of Gaulish tribes that had been subjugated by Celtic invaders.