The Expansion of Christianity - Christianity and the Celts by Yates Timothy;

Author:Yates, Timothy;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lion Hudson

The Celts were no less animated off the battlefield, if there was such a place as off the battlefield. ‘It is their custom,’ wrote Diodorus, ‘even during the course of the meal, to seize upon any trivial matter as an occasion for keen disputation and then to challenge one another to single combat, without any regard for their lives.’ Diodorus’s source, Poseidonius (whose works are no longer available), was also quoted by Athenaeus:

They gather in arms and engage in mock battles, and fight hand-to-hand, but sometimes wounds are inflicted, and the irritation caused by this may even lead to killing unless the bystanders restrain them. And in former times, when the hindquarters were served up the bravest hero took the thigh piece, and if another man claimed it they stood up and fought in single combat to death.

‘We have no word for the man who is excessively fearless; perhaps one may call such a man mad or bereft of feeling, who fears nothing, neither earthquakes nor waves, as they say of the Celts.’

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

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