Author(s): FREEMAN, PHILIP

Celtic Lore

There was no reason for the Greek world to be particularly concerned about the Celts in the years before and even decades after Alexander the Great. To any Greek, the Celts were just another race of distant barbarians. Traders might bring back stories of them, and occasionally a small group of Celtic warriors might appear among the mercenaries of a hired army, but they were no threat to civilized Greek folk going about their daily business.

Sometime during his early years in Rhodes, a daring notion first entered the mind of Posidonius. He had been taught by his Stoic professors that the world and all its people were part of a divine order. What better way to understand this order than a great journey of exploration? He knew that tribes still relatively uncorrupted by civilizing influences would be an important part of such a study. To be sure, this grand excursion would be the perfect opportunity to explore other subjects- astronomy, geology, and oceanography just to name a few- as well, but it was unspoiled human culture he most wanted to examine...The best possibility lay in the last place any reasonable Greek philosopher would want to go. In the distant west, beyond even the rule of Rome, lay the unknown land of the Celts.