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Alexander 	Falileyev:
The Celtic Balkans.
CMCS:	 Aberystwyth,	2013.	XII	+	182	pp.,	5	maps.	
ISBN: 978-0-9557182-4-3.
Dr. Alexander I. Falileyev, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and cur-
rently a research fellow at the Department of Welsh, Aberystwyth University, Wales, 
has as a part of his past and future endeavours to thoroughly scrutinize the Eastern 
frontiers of the Celtic world for Celtic linguistic remains
1
 (research conducted as a 
part of a larger project “Gaulish Morphology with particular Reference to Areas South 
and East of the Danube” funded by the AHRC and run by the Department of Welsh) 
conducted another thorough examination of the vast and problematic Balkan area, this 
time focusing on the Eastern part of the peninsula proper, i.e. modern day Serbia and 
Bulgaria, including the adjacent territories of Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Macedo-
nia, Greece and the European part of Turkey. His interest in the problematic onomas-
tic landscapes of South-Eastern Europe has already yielded a reappraisal of the full 
inventory of place-names of Thrace and Moesia Inferior as attested in Ptolemy (A. I. 
Falileyev, Восточные Балканы на карте Птолемея. Критико-библиографические 
изыскания, Munich 2005), an investigation into the “altceltische Sprachreste” of Da-
cia, Scythia Minor, and the lands to the North of the Danube delta (A. I. Falileyev, 
Celtic Dacia, Aberystwyth 2007), and several important contributions dedicated to the 
study of Old Celtic onomastics in the form of conference papers and a number of arti-
cles, some of which were recently brought together and reprinted in his well-rounded 
monograph Selecta Celto-Balcanica (St. Petersburg 2012).
2
 The enduring interest in 
the Celtic Sprachreste of the territories to the (south-)east of the Eastern Alpine region 
seems to be a spin-off of no less than three major attempts to provide a comprehensive 
enough picture of the actual linguistic Celticity of Europe and Asia Minor, all three 
conducted at the Department of Welsh in Aberystwyth, and yielding several outstand-
ing publications.
3
 The research behind these volumes has undoubtedly proved to be a 
convincing reminder of all the complexities and uncertainties of the discipline, but at 
the same time outlined what at present appears to be the best strategy to deciphering the 
1 Health-warning: the use of the term Celtic here concerns linguistic Celticity only.
2 For relevant bibiliography “Celtic” Bulgaria. A Select Bibliography (A. Falileyev/J. Emilov/N. 
Theodossiev 2010) is to be consulted as well. 
3 Such as (limiting the list to works on toponymy only!) G. R. Isaacʼs The Antonine Itinerary 
Land routes. Place-names of Ancient Europe and Asia Minor (CD-ROM, Aberystwyth 2002), 
id. Place-Names in Ptolemyʼs Geography (CD-ROM, Aberystwyth 2004), two conference 
proceedings (“Ptolemy: Towards a Linguistic Atlas of the Earliest Celtic Place-Names of 
Europe.” In: P. Sims-Williams/D. N. Parsons (eds), Aberystwyth 2000, and “New Approaches to 
Celtic Place-Names in Ptolemyʼs Geography.” In: J. de Hoz/E. R. Luján/P. Sims-Williams (eds), 
Madrid 2005), P. Sims-Williamsʼ Ancient Celtic Place-Names in Europe and Asia Minor (Oxford 
2006), and the Dictionary of Continental Celtic Place-Names by A. Falileyev in collaboration 
with Ashwin E. Gohil and N. Ward (Aberystwyth 2010).

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linguistic impression of the Celtic (or any other for that matter) idiom onto the different 
onomastic landscapes across Europe, i.e. simply that of taking the available data bit by 
bit, studying it in a comprehensive manner, and, most importantly, in the full context of 
the area(s) under investigation.
4
Using the very same methodological apparatus, The Celtic Balkans brings together, 
amends (Nicovosus, for instance, first considered
5
 possibly Celtic is now rejected as 
improbable), updates, and adds to the research of the Celtic linguistic elements in the 
eastern Balkans previously conducted by the author. The data covers toponymy (in-
cluding river and mountain names) and anthroponymy (including divine names and 
ethnonyms), drawing from both ancient and medieval sources alongside the published 
as well as yet unpublished epigraphic material. The ultimate corpus may be trusted as 
maximally accurate and comprehensive, especially owing to the fact that the author 
takes into account all the relevant publications produced by several local scholars and 
has (re)examined many epigraphic sources in situ. The monograph is arranged in the 
form of an alphabetical dictionary (pp. 1–156), equipped with five maps for basic ori-
entation in the area (viii–xii), a full bibliography (157–79), and an alphabetic index to 
the items discussed (180–2). The headwords offer a recovered, or in a few instances 
a reconstructed image of the element(s) under discussion. The entries aim to be both 
comprehensive and concise, which does not afford space for the repetition of well es-
tablished facts, meaning that the reader will normally be directed to consult other au-
thoritative works on a particular subject. In contrast to the arrangement of the data in 
Celtic Dacia the discussion of toponymy and anthroponymy is not arranged so as to fall 
under separate headings, neither are the place-names treated according to the territory 
in which they occur. This is due to two factors: first of all, the corpus of the relevant 
place-names of the eastern Balkans comprises an incomparably larger number of items 
than could be extracted from Dacia and lands to the north(-east), on the other hand, 
many of these items are to-date too imprecisely localised (or in some cases lack locali-
sation altogether) to be confidently arranged geographically. All names are assigned an 
index of Celticity chiefly intended, I think, for quick orientation. However, the assign-
ing of a particular index to a name seems not to have been always entirely felicitous 
and is, as we are well aware, very often still largely a matter of opinion, meaning of 
course that one should study the full discussion before forming their own opinion on 
the basis of the juxtaposition of all the different viable and competent approaches to the 
problem. The Celtic Balkans is chiefly intended as a polemic work and not as the final 
word on the subject! It is precisely for this reason that the data extracted from the book 
should not be misused for any kind of statistical analysis. In the analysis a five-degree 
marking system seems to have been applied: Celtic (no symbol), probably Celtic (?), 
very probably non-Celtic/may be non-Celtic but at least consistent with Celtic (┼?/?┼), 
4 Cf. Falileyev, Alexander (2005) “In search of Celtic Tylis: onomastic evidence.” In: J. de 
Hoz/E. R. Luján/P. Sims-Williams (eds), New Approaches to Celtic Place Names in Ptolemyʼs 
Geography. Madrid: Ediciones Clásicas, 107–133 (p. 116).
5 Cf. Falileyev, Alexander (2007) “Zwischen Mythos und Fehler: Pseudo-keltische Ortsnamen auf 
der Balkanhalbinsel.” In: H. Birkhan (ed.), Kelten-Einfälle an der Donau. Wien, 195–202 (p. 202). 

275
non-Celtic (┼), with one or two uses of a double question mark (??). However, the in-
tended distinction between the use of the latter symbol and the questionable cross-out 
of a name from the list of Celtic linguistic remains of the area (┼?) is not entirely clear 
to me. In fact, the whole system of indexation would perhaps need some additional 
elucidation, especially as the introductory chapter announces a three-degree scale only. 
The use of the double question mark seems justified for personal names such as Se-
baiacus, Vinulus or Vinus, which appear on poorly preserved inscriptions, meaning that 
the interpretation depends heavily on the reading and may vary accordingly, so neither 
? nor ?┼ would really be suitable here (on much the same grounds, by the way, Vipius 
(p. 153) should be indexed as uncertain too). However, I cannot find sufficient justifi-
cation for the use of ?? for place-names such as Tegulicium, which although resisting 
a convincing Celtic explanation cannot be readily assigned to another idiom used in 
the area either. Indeed, being able to say that a particular name belongs to a particular 
idiom is the best indication that it is not Celtic (even if, in theory, it could be), but at the 
present state of our knowledge of the local idiom(s) such a name surely cannot be on a 
different level with, say, Braiola (marked ?┼), which allows for a Celtic interpretation 
but is more likely to be non-Celtic. Similar “corrections” towards greater consistency in 
the use of the marking system could perhaps be applied to PNN Avitus (?), Gallus (┼), 
Manneius (?) Nonnula (?┼), Ronela (?), Vindenis (┼?), Viracius (?), and LNN Rimesica 
(?┼ or better still ?), Mediolana (??), Tannonia (?┼) etc. 
T oponymy . A note of warning is perhaps in place concerning the remark that “the 
problem of ʽplaces, Celtic namesʼ is known to linguists and historians alike” (p. iv), 
the implication not being, of course, that the Romans went around the Roman Empire 
giving Celtic names to their settlements – Celtic place-names still presuppose Celtic 
presence –, but rather that one should not make far-reaching demographic conclusions 
on the basis of statistical analysis. By way of a summary the following picture can be 
established (imprecisely located places are placed between square brackets, probable 
but uncertain Celticity is indicated by the question mark): there is a definite presence of 
Celtic place-names in the territory of the Scordisci, who, as we know, after the defeat 
at Delphi settled in confluente Danuvii et Savi (Iustinus, Epitoma 32, 3, 8). The exact 
limits of their territory are unknown but judging from the distribution of Celtic to-
ponymy in the area must have roughly coincided with present-day central and (south-)
eastern Serbia. The place-names in question cluster along the river Istros (Danube), be-
tween and around Singidunum (Belgrade) and Bononia (Vidin, BLG): ?Rittium, [Iatu-
mentianae], [Capedunon], Singidunum, Tricornium, ?Vinceia, ?Viminacium, ?Taliata, 
Bononia;
6
 on the Naissus (Niš) – Serdica (Sofia, BLG) road: ?[Brittura], ?[Olodoris], 
?Magimia, Lucunanta, ?Remesiana, ?Burgaraca; and in the area between Serdica and 
the Ister in the north (more or less SW Bulgaria): [Arcuna], ?[Ardeia], ?[Duria], ?[Vo-
rovum Minus]. The second remarkable cluster of Celtic place-names is to the far east 
of the Scordiscan territory and can according to the author be historically connected 
6 This area, i.e. the northern part of the Scordiscan territory, coincides with the southern-most limit 
of the area under the interest of Die vorrömischen Namen Pannoniens (P. Anreiter, Budapest 
2001), where the bulk of these names is discussed from the »pannonian« perspective.

276
with the group of Celts in ancient Thrace (2nd half of the 3rd c.), who, as we know 
from Polybius, παραγενόμενοι πρὸς τὸν Ἑλλήσποντον ... αὐτοῦ δὲ κατέμειναν ... and 
κρατήσαντες τῶν Θρᾳκῶν, καὶ κατασκευασάμενοι βασίλειον τὴν Τύλιν (Polybius, 
Historiae IV , 46). Their short-lived kingdom is only roughly (none of the toponyms 
are precisely localised) but convincingly located in the area of eastern Haemus (The 
Balkan Mountains): ?[Casibona], [Orcelis], ?[Rimesica], ?[Tylis], [Valla]. To the north-
east of this enclave, in northern Scythia Minor (Dobrudja, ROM), we find another area 
with close distribution of convincingly Celtic toponymy: Aliobrix, ?Arubium, Novio-
dunum.
7
 There are two or three other very probably Celtic place-names interpersed 
through the area such as Icacidunum and Zeisodunum but both are left unlocalised. 
The last group is perhaps represented by three or four potentially Celtic place names to 
the south of these Celtic areas proper, i.e. in the area of ancient Macedonia (Gallicum, 
Galata, ?Klitai, ?Cambunii m.).
8
Anthr oponymy . As with place-names, or even more so, different chronological 
strata need to be clearly distinguished within the corpus of personal names, areal dis-
tribution then applying to each of these strata in turn. As is expected, the greater bulk 
of Celtic names in the area are introduced after and during the Roman occupation. 
These names are interesting from the point of view of the administrative “movements” 
of the (mostly western) Celts and are as a rule difficult to separate from the genuine 
Celtic nomenclature used in the area. Chronologically earlier names cluster around 
(south-)eastern Bulgaria and Albania, Macedonia and Greece: Ambicatos, Berimaros, 
Biturix, Bosborix, Brikkon, Casignakos, Dercimaros (on a thus far unpublished inscrip-
tion!), ?Miros, ?Mogita, Smertomarus, Smertos. By far the most interesting attestation 
is Gaisatos (Γαίζατε, voc. sg.) from present-day Albania (pp. 69–70), which seems to 
be a personal name rather than its homonymous appellative. Other possibly autoch-
thonous names (i.e. at least not occurring on imported objects) cluster in the area to 
the north and north-west of Haemus: Caurus, Itouvius (< *it-ow-yo- to *it-u-, *it-ew-), 
?Magio, ?Melitta, ?Manneius, ?Rusonius, ?Vericia; and to the south and south-west of 
the Scordiscan territory: Amaca, Abudius, Amba, Ambactus, Attedius, Attedia, ?Cutius, 
?Iaritus, Nantius, Oclatius, ?Viracius, ?Voconia etc. Special mention should be made 
of Birbilo (pp. 22–4), a name of a miles yet undetected in western Celtic nomenclature, 
which although of no immediate relevance to the onomastic landscape at hand will very 
likely be an invaluable addition to the Celeian name-inventory of Celtic provenance. 
With personal names, of course, one needs to tread cautiously. Celticity of a particular 
name, for instance, does not mean that that name will be Celtic in all its attestations 
(cf. p. 8). We are aware of names that will be Celtic in a Celtic context and indigenous 
in another (cf. Attalus, Melitta, Silus, names in Tout- etc., on which see s. vv.). What 
the author calls “Celtic symptoms” (p. v) of a particular inscription, i.e. the presence 
of other indisputably Celtic names, may occasionally facilitate the decision as to the 
Celicity of a problematic and yet unknown name. Very often, however, extra-linguistic 
7 Falileyev, Alexander (2007) Celtic Dacia. Aberystwyth: CMCS Publications, pp. 3–10.
8 Cf. Falileyev, Alexander (2008) “Celts on the Margins: Toponymic Notes.” In: J. L. García Alonso 
(ed.), Celtic and Other Languages in Ancient Europe. Salamanca, 145–152 (pp. 149–151).

277
arguments such as the historical context (cf. the names of “Celtic” chieftains in the ac-
counts of ancient authors) or a (historio-)geographical reference may help to point in 
the right direction (cf. p. 48). It remains a matter of careful consideration, then, whether 
one should entertain more suspicion about the lack of a “good” Celtic etymology or the 
ancient authorsʼ often imprecise and indiscriminate use of the term “Celtic” uel sim.
There is no concluding chapter to the monograph but, as is convincingly argued in 
the introductory section (i–vii),
9
 one is not actually needed. Especially in the light of the 
inconclusiveness of much of the data discussed, a summary or a statistical analysis etc. 
would necessarily force one to make concrete decision as to the validity or relevance of 
a particular item and therefore demand an imposition of a personal opinion, which, as 
we know, is better avoided at the present state of research. A sketchy overview of the 
main emerging trends, however, is given in the Introduction. Working with problem-
atic onomastic remains in problematic onomastic landscapes opened several methodo-
logical questions and demanded a refinement of many a methodological point. These, 
however, are nowhere explicitly laid out, although a general methodological undertone 
can undoubtedly be followed throughout The Celtic Balkans and, for that matter, any 
other authorʼs publication on the same or similar subject(s). It may be useful therefore 
to briefly summarize them here. A fair point has been made that “the absence of a 
single undeniable trace of Celtic onomastics in the area (preferably a compound like 
Neviodunum or Mediolanum) makes it uncomfortable to suggest Celtic etymologies 
for the place-names which may be interpreted altogether differently” (p. 102).
10
 Indeed, 
despite the remarkable progress in this area of Celtic studies, the complex picture of 
Continental Celtic linguistic and onomastic systems is still too insufficient to afford 
absolutely reliable markers for the identification of Celtic elements regardless of the 
complexity of the onomastic landscape they form(ed.) a part of. By default, we may 
therefore expect that a fair amount of data will be at least consistent with Celtic but not 
necessarily Celtic at all. The only really reliable criterion for excluding an item from 
the list of possible Celtic names is to be able to attribute it to another idiom in the area. 
In case of false friends the entire configuration will of course play the decisive role. 
One needs to be extra cautious with names not attested in the “Celtic West”. At present 
we know next to nothing about dialectal differences within Gaulish, to say nothing 
of the possible “Eastern Celtic” linguistic peculiarities, so possible Celticity of place-
names on the periphery of the Celtic world should not be blindly measured against the 
“Western” trends (immediately noticeable, for instance, is the significantly lower pro-
ductivity of compounded names at the expense of those derived with a whole array of 
suffixes). A useful aiding tool is provided by the clustering principle (first advocated by 
Prof. Sims-Williams and drawn upon fruitfully by Falileyev), which states that moving 
away from the central Celtic area to more peripheral areas where Celtic comes in con-
tact with several other idioms, Celtic place-names will nearly always come in groups. 
The chances are, therefore, that possible Celticity of an isolated item will be due to 
9 Cf. Celtic Dacia, p. xi.
10 Cf. ʽCelts on the Margins: Toponymic Notesʼ, p. 148.

278
coincidence, more so when we move on the fringes of the known Celtic world or well 
outside it. On the other hand, of course, the presence of an undoubtedly Celtic place-
name in an area does not by default force us to attribute other names in its vicinity to 
Celtic. The same goes for archaeological finds. There is no doubt that the presence of 
La Tène finds in an area with relative density of Celtic names adds to the cumulative 
value of the evidence in favour of Celtic presence, but we certainly cannot afford to 
make similar conclusions to the contrary on the basis of the absence of such evidence. 
The correlation between the linguistic remains of the Celtic idiom and the physical im-
print of its users (especially on the periphery of the Celtic world), along with the meth-
odological question to what extent it can actually be fruitfully drawn upon, remains 
a moot point. In all fairness one should maintain that the use of the term “Celtic” in 
linguistic studies is as accurately and unambiguously defined as it may be in archaeol-
ogy and that the two do not necessarily coincide. Authorʼs working hypothesis “where 
the Celts are there must be Celtic place-names”,
11
 as reasonable as it sounds (although 
one would want to tone it down slightly), should therefore be taken with some amount 
of caution. The only “Celts” that one is safe to regard as a reliable indicator as to the 
Celticity of an area are the ones whose linguistic attribution makes them Celtic. The 
best proof for or against the Celticity will therefore be the presence of other remains of 
the “altceltischer Sprachschatz” in the area under investigation such as personal names, 
ethnic names, and, possibly, texts.
Luka	Repanšek
Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language
Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of the Sciences and Arts
11  ʻIn search of Celtic Tylisʼ, p. 110.