I'm playing Imperator Rome as Bohemia and I reguarly find myself with trade requests from Carthage. Would this be at all accurate?
As early as the Vth century we know from Herodotus (Historia, VII, 165) that Carthage employed mercenaries from southern Gaul (Ellysices and Ligurians) among Iberians, Libyans, Sardinians or Corsicans, probably recruited (as a lightly equipped shock infantry) trough the Ibero-Punic trade network along Hispanic and Gallic shores up to the Hérault River, their goods finding as easily their way into the region and especially the 'Gallic Isthmus' than Etruscans, Italic or Greek products, if not more.It would have been surprising that, even with the distance between North Africa and Southern Gaul, that these commercial exchanges and early recruitment into Sicilian Wars would have not given indigenous peoples and their intellectual/priestly elite at least some passing knowledge of Carthage's wealth or power, not to mention its very existence; something that would only increase in the Late Iron Age until Carthage's defeat in the Second Punic War.
The new strategic conditions of ancient warfare around the IVth century, involving capacities of projection behind a city own territory and raising troops outside traditional seasons, represented a challenge relatively to their demographic strength but as well political capacities in a sort of "weapon race" involving the need of bigger and specialized forces (light infantry, shock infantry, archers, horsemen, etc.) to make piece of the enemy's own bigger and specialized forces.Military expeditions and migration of peoples from Western and Central Europe to Italy and the Balkans, identified as Celti, Galli and Galatians by Greeks and Romans, provided Mediterranean states with a renewed pool of mercenaries and in the case that interest us, particularly in southern Italy and Sicily : Gallic/Galatic recruits from beyond the Alps or from Cisalpine Gaul, recruited by Greeks, Etruscans, Italic peoples and Carthaginian alike ending up either settling in the southern territories or coming back to their homes with their salaries and loot.
Dionysius of Syracyse was the first Greek ruler to recruit them on a noticeable scale (along with Iberians and Thracians) ca. 370 BCE (Xenophon; 7, 1, 20-22) to garrison outposts on the Adriatic shore, serve as military specialists (notably to train Syracusean and Hellenic troops) or even being sent to support Lacademonians in Greece; but likely used in Sicily itself even before even if it remains speculative.Likely imitated by other Italo-Greek and Sicilian cities, La Tenian mercenariate soon became a staple of the Sicily Wars that opposed Carthage and Syracuse for the domination of the island between the Vth and the IIInd century, especially as Carthage continued to use them as well : although employing mercenaries and raising auxiliaries was rather common in Hellenistic warfare, Carthage made itself a speciality to raise them efficiently and regularly (How did Carthage raise an army? If they near-solely used mercenaries, did they ever actually raise forces of their own?; u/Jollydevil6)
As such, Carthaginians voted a budget to allow their xenologoi to recruit "Iberians, Celts and Ligurians" (Diodorus Siculus; XVI, 73,3) against Timoleon ca. 342 BCE and Agathoclès' expedition in Africa in 307 BCE involved thousand of Galatian mercenaries.Although most of the Galatian mercenariate would shift in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea by the IIIrd century, it did not disappeared from its western part : during the First Punic War, Carthaginian made again an important employment of "Ibers, Celts, some Ligurians [both of them being understood likely as population form southern Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul], Balearics and half-Greeks" (Polybus, Historia, I-67) that were stationed in Africa (as it was probably the case already in the previous conflicts) before being sent or re-sent in Sicily and, after the Punic defeat, rebelled, allied themselves with local cities, and were themselves crushed in the War of the Mercenaries.Organized as "cultural" units, although likely not on ethnic lines, these mercenaries would be integrated into their employers' chain of command, their chieftains expected and able to understand orders, to negotiate on their unit behalf, to work out with other mercenaries, auxiliaries and citizen units, in a few words to speak the languages of western Mediterranean warfare in the IVth to IIIrd centuries : Greek and Phoenician as we know Autaritos, one of the leader of the Mercenary Wars, was. (Polybus, Historia, I-77)Carthage even made coins with Siculo-Greek imagery that could plausibly interpreted as a pun on their name( u/EnclavedMicrostate) that would rely on their mercenaries and auxiliaries in Sicily fluent enough with Greek to identify.
How strange would it be that these men, whose military prowess would have been brought with the ransom of valour (rather than for its monetary value strictly speaking), in a prestigious warring function (that was the quintessential mark of the freeman, wealthy and respected, in the LaTenian world), equipped with weapons made in Syracusean and Carthaginian arsenals in imitation of their own, would have not paid attention to who employed them, who they were fighting or to not take care about the broad geopolitical situation when it meant a lot for their employment, switching sides or their survival.
Carthage history with mercenaries from one hand and Gauls from the other didn't stop there and even culminated with Hannibal's crossing of the Alps. One of his motivations and the means doing so among others ( u/UndercoverClassicist; u/XenophonTheAthenian) being to recruit auxiliaries and mercenaries along the way, especially in Cisalpine Gaul whose peoples had been under great duress of the Roman expansionism : promising them alliance and support against Romans, which they accepted (Polybius; III-34).While he had hoped to do the same on the other side of the Alps (Eutrope; Roman History; III-8), populations there were less than thrilled : although every Roman embassy send at them were met with open disdain if not laughter (Livy; XXI-20) and while they maintained a trade with Ibero-Punic traders and found generational employment at its service, an invading army, that recently conquered Spain and stormed the strongholds of north-eastern Iberic peoples before crossing the Pyrenees (idem; III-35), passing trough their lands was maybe a bit too much to ask, but was dealt by paying tolls or taking other in Carthaginian employ after due negotiation, repeated in 207 BCE when Asdrubal similarly passed trough Gaul with the same peoples (plus the Arverns, probably holding primacy in the region already), whereas Hannibal had to fight an indigenous army in Massalia's employ (and there again, it is hard to believe they had no real idea who they were fighting against) before finally crossing the Alps and joining with Cisalpine Gaul who ended forming half of his numbers in his early Italian campaigns.
More than 300 years of military service, even more of distant trading between Carthaginian and 'Gauls' in the broadest sense is certainly something to take into consideration.
It is near impossible to ascribe an origin to most of these mercenaries, but in broad lines of being 'Celts' (that is southern Gaul and Cisalpine Gaul) and 'Galatians' (which could arguably be anywhere else) it would be surprising if at the very least existence of a wealthy city further in the South would have been ignored, critically from the intellectual elite of La Tenian society Druids were, as philosophers and almost necessary intermediaries in diplomatic negotiations.
Would this knowledge have made its way from Italy and Southern Gaul to the Danubian forests and highlands? It is unfortunately impossible to answer definitely to this : considering the genealogical and commercial ties between northern Italy and Danubian peoples that settled there in the IVth century (evidenced by the presence of Boii both along the Danube and in Italy for instance), however, and the diffusion of Mediterranean-influenced features (for instance weaponry) as far as modern Hungary or Germany, there's a distinct possibility that if only some people knew about it there, it would be Druids at the very least.
Would it be enough to justify a gameplay mechanic, where international trade would have been anachronistically an international diplomacy matter however, is another story...