Studies on Celtic Law

FIRST PART. CHAP. I.

before Jesus Christ, imagined he found the doctrine of Pythagoras there. Alexander Polyhistor A Greek scholar of the 1st century BCE who wrote extensively on the history and geography of various nations., a contemporary of Sulla A Roman general and statesman (138–78 BCE) who became dictator. who died in the year 78 before Jesus Christ, undoubtedly had Posidonius's book before his eyes when he placed the Galatians A Celtic people who migrated to central Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). among the disciples of Pythagoras (1).

Diodorus of Sicily, in his Library written in Greek around the year 40 before our era, also repeats, following Posidonius, this hypothesis flattering to the self-esteem of the Greeks: "The Celts," he says, "count the end of life as nothing, for among them the teaching of Pythagoras is accepted, that souls are immortal, and that after a determined number of years they live again by entering into a new body (2)." In these words, we likely have an abbreviated reproduction of a passage from Posidonius’s book. Caesar, a few years earlier, had provided a Latin adaptation of Posidonius's text, which attributed to the druids the honor of having introduced among the Celts the belief in the immortality of the soul. "The druids," he recounts, "seek above all to persuade that souls do not perish, and

(1) "Alexander... wishes to say that Pythagoras had, in addition to these, heard the teachings of the Galatians and the Brahmans" original: "Ἀλέξανδρος... ἀκηκοέναι τε πρὸς τούτοις Γαλατῶν καὶ Βραχμάνων τὸν Πυθαγόραν βούλεται" (Fragments of Greek Historians, Vol. III, p. 239, fr. 138).

(2) "Setting the end of life at nothing [the Galatians]. For the word of Pythagoras prevails among them, that it happens that the souls of men are immortal, and that through defined years they live again, the soul entering into another body" original: "Παρ' οὐδὲν τιθέμενοι [Γαλάται] τὴν τοῦ βίου τελευτήν. Ἐνισχύει γὰρ παρ' αὐτοῖς ὁ Πυθαγόρου λόγος, ὅτι τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀθανάτους εἶναι συμβέβηκε, καὶ δι' ἐτῶν ὡρισμένων πάλιν βιοῦν, εἰς ἕτερον σῶμα τῆς ψυχῆς εἰσδυομένης" (Diodorus, Book V, ch. 28, § 5, 6; Didot edition, Vol. I, p. 271, l. 13-18).