Category Archives: Celts / Gauls / Galatians

Assyrian / Babylonian wisdom: Sibyl of Babylon on the superiority of the Judean people (second century BCE)

Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Celts, and others: The Cicero brothers on the nature and effectiveness of divination (mid-first century BCE)

Babylonian diasporas: Josephos and other Judeans on legends of migration from Babel (first-second centuries CE)

Barbarian peoples: Caesarius of Nazianzos’ and George the Monk’s collection of extraordinary customs (sixth / ninth centuries CE)

Barbarian peoples: Hellanikos, Nymphodoros, Nikolaos, and others with collections of “barbarian customs” (fifth century BCE on)

Barbarian wisdom: Clement of Alexandria [VI] on barbarian and Hebrew philosophy (late second century CE)

Barbarian wisdom: Cornutus on early humanity’s Stoic understanding of the cosmos (mid-first century CE)

Britons and Iernians (Irish): Julius Caesar, Pytheas, and Strabo on customs including eating human flesh (early first century CE)

Britons: Julius Caesar (mid-first century BCE)

Britons: Tacitus (late first century CE)

Carians, Galatians, Halizonians, and others: Ephoros and Apollodoros of Athens on Anatolian peoples (mid-fourth century BCE on)

Carthaginians: Plato, Aristotle, Polybios and others on their character and communal organization (fourth century BCE on)

Celtiberians, Iberians, and Lusitanians: Diodoros on their customs and military skill (mid-first century BCE)

Celtic diasporas: Galatian mercenaries settled at Alexandria in Egypt (ca. 250-200 BCE)

Celtic, Indian, and Assyrian wisdom: Polyhistor on Pythagoras’ education by wise barbarians (first century BCE)

Celts and Germans: Diodoros, Dionysios, Strabo, and Dio on distinguishing them (first centuries BCE and CE)

Celts and Germans: Plutarch’s ethnographic digressions in the Lives (early second century CE)

Celts and Ligurians: Strabo on peoples south of the Alps (early first century CE)

Celts, Ethiopians and peoples in the middle: Polybios, Poseidonios, and Strabo on climate zones (mid-second century on)

Celts, Iberians, and Libyans: Polybios on the mixed composition of Hannibal of Carthage’s army and on military equipment (second century BCE)

Celts, Persians, and Amazons: Smaller statues of fighting and dying “barbarians” associated with Attalos of Pergamon (third-second century BCE / second century CE)

Celts: Anyte and Parthenios on wife abductions during the Galatian invasion (third-first century BCE)

Celts: Appian of Alexandria on their character and on ambassadorial relations with Romans (second century CE)

Celts: Cicero on Gauls and the link between imperial conquest and negative stereotypes (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Cicero’s ethnic invective against Gauls in defending Fonteius (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Dio Cassius on spirited and untrustworthy Galatians (early third century CE)

Celts: Diodoros on Galatian origins, “savage” customs and invasions of Italy and Greece (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Ephoros (mid-fourth century BCE)

Celts: Inhabitants of Myrina with images of Galatian warriors (second century BCE)

Celts: Julius Caesar on Druids and supposed human sacrifice among Gauls (mid-first century BCE)

Celts: Kyzikos monument with Herakles clubbing a Galatian (278/277 BCE)

Celts: Livy on legends of the Gauls’ fourth century BCE migrations and an invasion of Rome (late first century BCE)

Celts: Livy on the Galatian invasion of Asia Minor and the Roman army’s subsequent victory, ca. 189 BCE (late first century BCE)

Celts: Phylarchos and Poseidonios on banqueting and violent customs (first century BCE)

Celts: Pliny the Elder on medicine, rites and Magian skill among Druids (first century CE)

Celts: Pliny the Elder on three Roman subdivisions of Gaul (first century CE)

Celts: Polybios on the Celtic encounter with Rome and on his method in dealing with distant peoples (second century BCE)

Celts: Priene inscription on Galatian “impiety” and “savagery” during the invasion (ca. 278-270 BCE)

Celts: Statues of dying Gauls / Galatians associated with Attalos I of Pergamon (late third century BCE / second century CE)

Celts: Strabo on peoples northwest of the Alps (early first century CE)

Celts: Tacitus on the revolt of Boians under Marricus (early second century CE)

Celts: Thyatira inscription for a son rescued by the god Apollo out from under “the mob of Galatians” (276 BCE)

Celts: Timagenes of Alexandria and Ammianus Marcellinus on Celtic origins and customs (first century BCE / fourth century CE)

Celts: Trogus on Gallic invasions and character (first century BCE)

Colchians, Phrygians, and others: Vitruvius theorizes development from primitives to civilized peoples (first century BCE)

Eastern and northern peoples: Bardaisan of Edessa’s Book of the Laws of Countries, Pseudo-Clementines, and Origen on astrology and peoples (second-third centuries CE)

Egyptians, Taurians, and Celts: Cicero’s Philus engages in ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (mid-first century BCE)

Ethnic diversity in Egypt: Inscriptional and papyrological evidence

Gauls and Germans: Scenes from the Triumphal Arch of Orange (late first century BCE)

Gauls, Kimbrians, Numidians, Indians, and others: Valerius Maximus’ collection of “barbarian customs” (early first century CE)

Germans and Sarmatians: Josephos on impulsive and violent northerners (late first century CE)

Germans: Appian of Alexandria on large, savage and spirited Germans (second century CE)

Germans: Tacitus on the revolt of the Batavians and on Batavian character (early second century CE)

Germans: Tacitus’ Germania in full (late first century CE)

Greek diasporas and indigenous Iberians and Celts: Herodotos, Aristotle, Trogus and others on tales of Phokaian colonization (mid-fifth century BCE on)

Iberians: Appian of Alexandria (mid-second century CE)

Iberians: Artemidoros, Poseidonios, Strabo, and others (second century BCE to first century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, and Celts: Dio of Prusa critiques foreign imports and luxury (late first century CE)

Indians, Ethiopians, Celts, and Scythians: Ephoros on a four-fold division of the known world (mid-fourth century BCE)

Italic peoples: Strabo on Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Umbrians, Lucanians, and others (early first century CE)

Judeans and Celts: Various authors on Claudius’ actions against foreigners in the 40s CE (second / third centuries CE

Judeans, Syrians, Celts, Scythians and others: Plutarch on the “barbarian” origins of fearing the gods, or “superstition” (early second century CE)

Libyans, Egyptians, Iberians, and Celts: Diodoros on Herakles’ civilizing expeditions (mid-first century BCE)

Libyans, Iberians, and Celts: Cicero on controlling “savage” peoples (mid-first century BCE)

Lycians, Lydians, and Egyptians: Pseudo-Plutarch on the effeminacy of grief (third-fourth centuries CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Maximus of Tyre on images for the gods as ubiquitous among peoples (late second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Pausanias, ethnographic interests, and local traditions (mid-second century CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Polemon theorizes the meaning of physical features (second / fifth centuries CE)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 1] on defeat, capture, and subjugation (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 2] on humiliated captives kneeling or on the ground (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Roman coins [part 3] on kneeling in supplication or adoration (first century BCE on)

Mediterranean peoples: Sextus Empiricus engages with ethnographic discourses for philosophical aims (second-third centuries CE)

Parthians, Celts and Iberians or Germans: Scenes on the breastplate of the “Augustus of Prima Porta” (early first century CE)

Persian, Babylonian, and Scythian wisdom: Diogenes of Laertes refutes Magian and Chaldean origins for Greek philosophy (early third century CE)

Persian, Egyptian, Indian, and Celtic wisdom: Dio of Prusa on philosophers’ roles in leadership (late first century CE)

Persians, Celts, Thracians, and others: Polyainos on “tricky” barbarians (mid-second century CE)

Persians, Tyrrhenians and Lycians: Plutarch on brave women and effeminate men (early second century CE)

Persians: Pliny on the dissemination of Magian skill to the peoples of the world (first century CE)

Romans, Egyptians, Persians, and others: Minucius Felix’s ethnographic defence of the Christian people (early third century CE)

Romans: Livy, Pliny, Plutarch, and Dio on Roman human sacrifice of Gauls and Greeks (late first century BCE on)

Romans: Strabo on Roman superiority and conquest of peoples (early first century CE)

Scythians, Thracians, Celts, and Persians: Plato on heavy-drinking and war-like peoples (early fourth century BCE)

Thracians, Galatians, Daans, and others: Polybios on the mixed composition of the armies of Ptolemy IV and Antiochos III (second century BCE)