The Celtic Religion in Ancient Literature, volume III

Aim of the present project is the making of the third and last volume of Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Sammlung, Übersetzung und Kommentierung. The first volume of this collection, containing the material from the start of the literary evidence up to Caesar, was already published in 2005 and very well received by international scholarship. The second volume, which treats the relevant literary testimonies from Cicero up to Florus, will be finished and prepared for printing in 2006. The projected third volume shall continue this second and contain the subsequent, yet missing literary sources from Appian up to late antiquity. Our knowledge of ancient Celtic religion 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 In this collection, which is outdated from a present-day point of view, a lot of relevant passages are missing; moreover it is a mere text-collection without any commentary.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: Due to a great amount of new texts the material basis will be significantly enlarged. For the sake of a better understanding all the greek and latin testimonies will be presented with an attached german translation. Furthermore the chronologically arranged passages should be furnished with a detailed commentary, in which these often problematic testimonies are thoroughly analysed on the basis of the latest state of research. Questions of textual criticism and Quellenkritik will be taken into consideration. The particular testimonies will be treated in the larger framework of the relevant work, the intrinsic text references and the special features of specific literary genera will be taken into account. In the following analysis the information content of the testimonies should be interpreted. For this purpose the results of various relevant scientific disciplines will be gathered together. This allows a better understanding of the literary testimonies i.e. confirmations, corrections or supplements. Due to this basic research on the original sources these important and indispensable texts should be made available also to all those scholars who are not so well acquainted with greek and latin. The scientific benefit of the planed new volume for a row of different disciplines also beyond the classical studies will by high, since it will satisfy an important desideratum of Celtic studies.

Aim of the present project was the making of the third and last volume of "Die Religion der Kelten in den antiken literarischen Zeugnissen. Sammlung, Übersetzung und Kommentierung". It was preceded by the first volume of this collection, already published in 2005, containing the material from the start of the literary evidence up to Caesar, and the second volume, published in 2008, which treats the relevant literary testimonies from Cicero up to Florus. The third volume directly continues this second and contains the subsequent, yet missing ancient literary sources about Celtic religion. The manuscript of about 600 pages is ready for press and contains 339 testimonies from 108 different authors, starting with 2nd century AD writer Arrianos up to the Italian humanist Natalis Comes (16th century AD). Starting point for the text selection was - as in the first two volumes - the material collected in 1930s by Johannes Zwicker in his "Fontes Historiae Religionis Celticae". In this collection, which is outdated from a present-day point of view, 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: Due to a great amount of new texts the material basis was significantly enlarged. For the sake of a better understanding all the Greek and Latin testimonies are presented with an attached German translation. In addition, each of the chronologically arranged passages is provided with a detailed commentary, in which these often problematic testimonies are thoroughly analysed on the basis of the latest state of research. Questions of textual criticism and "Quellenkritik" are taken into consideration; furthermore, the particular testimonies are treated in the larger framework of the relevant work, the intrinsic text references and the inherent laws of specific literary genera are taken into account. In the subsequent analysis the information content of the testimonies is interpreted. For this purpose the results of various relevant scientific disciplines were gathered together, often contributing to a better understanding of the literary testimonies i.e. confirmations, corrections or supplements. Due to this basic research on the original sources, which goes far beyond a mere collection work, these important and indispensable texts are made available also to all those scholars who are not so well acquainted with the classical languages.