Marymount University
20 November 2003
Philip Freeman

pfreeman @ wustl.edu

Sopater [late fourth-century BC] (via Athenaeus 4.160):

Among them is the custom,

whenever they are victorious in battle, to sacrifice their prisoners to the gods.

So I, like the Celts, have vowed to the divine powers

to burn those three false dialecticians as an offering.

Timaeus [early third century BC] (via Diodorus Siculus 4.56):

Historians point out that the Celts who live on the shore of the Ocean honor the Dioscori above other gods. For there is an ancient tradition among them that these gods came to them from the Ocean.

Eudoxus of Rhodes [late third-century BC] (via Aelian On Animals 17.19):

Eudoxus says that the Celts do the following (and if anyone thinks his account credible, let him believe it; if not, let him ignore it). When clouds of locusts invade their country and damage the crops, the Celts evoke certain prayers and offer sacrifices which charm birds-and the birds hear these prayers, come in flocks, and destroy the locusts. If however one of them should capture one of these birds, his punishment according to the laws of the country is death. If he is pardoned and released, this throws the birds into a rage, and to revenge the captured bird they do not respond if they are called on again.

Artemidorus of Ephesus [late second-century BC] (via Strabo 4.4.6):

The following story which Artemidorus has told about the crows is unbelievable. There is a certain harbor on the coast which, according to him, is named "Two Crows". In this harbor are seen two crows, with their right wings somewhat white. Men who are in dispute about certain matters come here, put a plank on an elevated place, and then each man separately throws up cakes of barley. The birds f y up and eat some of the cakes, but scatter others. The man whose cakes are scattered wins the dispute. Although this story is implausible, his report about the goddesses Demeter and Core is more credible. He says that there is an island near Britain on which sacrifices are performed like those in Samothrace for Demeter and Core.

Livy [first century AD] (23.24):

(216 BC) Postumius died there fighting with all his might not to be captured alive. The Gauls stripped him of all his spoils and the Boii took his severed head in a procession to the holiest of their temples.