Histoire des Celtes

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fables, which authors have copied very faithfully for several centuries, instead of making use of a good number of excellent materials that I have collected, as much as has been possible for me, in this work. I hope it will fully satisfy the curious, who are not content with a general and superficial knowledge of antiquity. I even dare to flatter myself that it may be of some use to those who want to read with profit the History of France and Germany, in which one often encounters things capable of stopping a reader, or leading him astray, if he is not familiar with the usages to which the historian alludes. One will find there interesting facts and new remarks which have escaped other authors, or of which they have not made all the use they could.

The Celts will be represented naturally; barbarian and ferocious in certain respects, wise and reasonable in others. They followed a good form of government, while simultaneously corrupting it by the abuse that individuals make of liberty to render themselves independent, and to form factions which are the ruin of a state. They had a just idea of God and his perfections, but authorized at the same time a barbarian worship, with superstitions, some foolish and others pernicious. They made continuous war on all foreign nations, and yet received foreigners with a hospitality of which one no longer finds an example.

I give to authors, both ancient and modern, the justice which is due to them. I clarify them; I reconcile them, as much as is possible. I also give myself the liberty to correct them when it is evident that they have mistaken themselves for having trusted bad reports, or for having abandoned themselves to false conjectures. But the criticism is always honest and modest; it must be so, when one seeks only the truth.

The reader will easily judge that I required much time,

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much care and attention, not only to gather from so many different places the materials that compose this work, but also to discern the true from the false in the authors I was obliged to follow.

It is known, on one hand, that the Celts had no historian who undertook to make his nation known to posterity. It was not even possible for them to have one, either because the use of letters and writing was entirely unknown to them, or because they later made it a scruple and a matter of conscience to trust to paper their laws, their religion, and their history. The reasons for this will be set out at length in this work. On the other hand, most foreign historians who spoke of the Celts did so only in passing; they furthermore knew them only very imperfectly.

Strabo perceived this, a very long time ago, when he wanted to enrich his Geography with an exact description of all the countries that were occupied by Celtic peoples. And let it be said by us at present, that both Timosthenes and Eratosthenes, and those who preceded them in age, were plainly ignorant of Spanish and Gallic affairs: and in many ways more so of Germanic, British, Getic, and Bastarnic affairs: they were also endowed with great ignorance of Italian, Adriatic, Pontic, and other northern affairs in succession. Strabo, book II. page 93. "It must be admitted," he says, "that Timosthenes, Eratosthenes, and more ancient authors, knew absolutely nothing of Spain or the Gauls, even less of the Germans, the Britons These are the inhabitants of Great Britain., the Getae, and the Bastarnae. They did not know Italy any better, nor the regions neighboring the Adriatic Sea and the Euxine Sea The Black Sea, nor the northern countries." Elsewhere Since Pytheas, who reported the history of Thule, has been found to be a most mendacious man: and those who have seen British Ireland say nothing of Thule, but mention certain other small islands around Britain. Strabo, book I. page 63., speaking of Pytheas of Marseille, who boasted of having traveled That Pytheas says these things: and adds this, that having returned from there, he traversed whatever regions of Europe are toward the Ocean, from Gades even to the Tanais. Strabo, book II. page 104. through all the