Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Sammlung, Übersetzung und Kommentierung, Band I: Von den Anfängen bis Caesar

The subject of this work is the religion of the Celts as far as depicted in the ancient literary tradition. Our knowledge of this sphere of Celtic life is, beside epigraphic monuments and archaeological findings, mainly based on the greek and latin literary testimonies. This material was for the first time collected in the thirties of the last century by Johannes Zwicker in his "Fontes Historiae Religionis Celticae". In this collection, which is not replaced till today, a lot of relevant passages are missing; moreover it is a mere text-collection without any commentary. The scope of the present research is to overcome with these deficits: For the sake of a better understanding the greek and latin testimonies are presented with an attached german translation. Furthermore the chronologically arranged passages are furnished with a detailed commentary, in which these often problematic testimonies are thoroughly analysed on the basis of the latest research stand. Questions of textual criticism and Quellenkritik are taken into consideration. The particular testimonies are treated in the larger framework of the relevant work, the intrinsic text references and the special features of specific literary genera are taken into account. In the following textual analysis the information content of the testimonies is interpreted. For this purpose the results of various relevant scientific disciplines were gathered together. This allows a better understanding of the literary testimonies i.e. confirmations, corrections or supplements. The present study, which treats the first part of the material from the start of the literary evidence up to Caesar, contains 99 passages from 25 different authors. For the remaining source material two further volumes are planed.