Torcs

There are twenty-four golden torcs of various types in the National Collection and one of bronze; but the Irish provenance of the latter is doubtful.

The best known are the two magnificent gold torcs found in the side of one of the raths at Tara, and these belong to a type that has been found in England and France, of which the best known examples are those found at Yeovil, Somerset,[28] and Grunty Fen, Cambridge.[29] A torc of this type was also found by Schliemann in the royal treasury in the second city of Troy. This find has led to a good deal of speculative opinions varying as to whether the model of the torc was imported into Ireland from the south, or whether the Irish gold could have reached the Mediterranean in pre-MycenÆan times.[30] Torcs of this type were made by folding two thin ribbons of gold along the middle at a right angle; they were then attached with some kind of resinous flux, apex to apex, and twisted together. In some cases, instead of two folded ribbons a flat one and two halves of another were used, after being fastened together, the twisting being done in the same way. In some of the Irish examples the body of the torc is plain, or was grooved to simulate the appearance of the twisted torc. A peculiar feature of these torcs is the large hooks with which they are provided. It must be noted that whereas twisted torcs of bronze are fairly common in England and France there is only one bronze torc in the Irish National Collection, and, as mentioned above, the provenance of this is doubtful. The dating of these twisted torcs is a matter of difficulty, as there are only two instances of their having been found in association with bronze objects, one in the case of the Grunty Fen torc which was discovered with three bronze palstaves, and another found at FresnÉ la MÈre, near Falaise, Normandy, which was found with a bronze razor and other objects of bronze. Such evidence as exists, therefore, would place them in the late Bronze Age, probably somewhere about 1000 b.c., but certain varieties of torcs, as we shall see, continued in use as late as the first century. The area of distribution of gold torcs of the Tara type in Ireland, England and France is very limited, none having been found in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, or Spain and Portugal.[31] It has been suggested that the gold of which all these torcs were composed came from the Wicklow Mountains,[32] and in view of the extreme wealth of Ireland in gold, as evinced by the number of gold ornaments which are still constantly found, this may be considered probable.

Plate VII.

Plate VIII.

Among the other types of gold torcs are two splendid examples, one of which appears to have been prepared for twisting and left unfinished, while the other is in a complete state (Plate VIII).

Small torcs made by twisting a plain ribbon are fairly common, and some of these are so small that they must have been used as bracelets.

In later times the torc was the distinguishing ornament of the Celt, and there are many allusions to torcs in classical writers. In 223 b.c., when Flaminius Nepos gained his victory over the Gauls on the Addua, it is related that instead of the Gauls dedicating, as they had intended, a torc made from the Roman spoils to their god of war, the Romans erected a Roman trophy to Jupiter made from Gaulish torcs.

The name of the Torquati, a family of the Manlia Gens, was derived from their ancestor, T. Manlius, who, having slain a gigantic Gaul in b.c. 361, took the torc from the dead body, and placed it round his neck.

The famous statue of the Dying Gaul preserved in the Capitol at Rome shows a torc on the warrior’s neck. This is one of a series of statues set up by the Greeks of Pergamos to celebrate their struggle with, and first victory over, the Gauls of Asia Minor, with whom they came in contact from about 240 to 160 b.c. The twisted torc appears to have been replaced in Ireland about the second century b.c. by the plain torc, which was probably introduced from Gaul. The fine gold torc from Clonmacnois (Plate IX), with La TÈne decoration, is a good example of these torcs, and is almost identical with one from the Marne district now preserved in the St. Germain Museum. Probably the finest La TÈne torc in existence is that found in the celebrated Broighter find, which is richly decorated with La TÈne ornament (Plate IX, the inner torc).