Druids by Barry Cunliffe

Author:Barry Cunliffe [Cunliffe, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199539406
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-08-23T01:00:00+00:00

They are believed to be the most just of men and are therefore entrusted with the decision of cases affecting either individuals or the public; indeed in former times they arbitrated in war and brought to a standstill the opponents when about to draw up in line; and murder cases have been mostly entrusted to their decision.

He concludes with a general observation that they believe the souls of men to be indestructible.

Diodorus, presumably using the same Posidonian text as Strabo, offers a little more detail. The Bards, he says, are lyric poets: ‘They sing to the accompaniment of instruments resembling lyres, sometimes a eulogy and sometimes a satire.’ The second class, the Vates (whom Diodorus calls ‘seers’), are men thought to be ‘worthy of high praise’ who, ‘by their augural observances and by the sacrifice of sacrificial animals can foretell the future and they hold all the people subject to them’. Then there are the Druids, ‘philosophers and theologians who are treated with special honour’. He goes on to say that no-one would offer sacrifice without a philosopher being present since only a philosopher can communicate with the gods. The description ends with a comment about how they can intercede to stop battles, concluding ‘Thus even among the most savage barbarians anger yields to wisdom’ – a nice evocation of the ‘noble savage’.

This same tripartite division of wise men is also echoed by the late 4th-century AD writer Ammianus Marcellinus whose source was the 1st-century AD Alexandrian historian Timagenes. Timagenes, like Strabo and Diodorus, may also have derived his knowledge of the Celts from Posidonius.

The Posidonian tradition, then, makes a clear distinction between the three classes of wise men. It is a distinction that we will see later in the Irish vernacular texts, in which the three classes are named as baird, filidh, and druïdh. The distinction between the Vates and Druids is worth emphasizing. The Vates were those with powers to foretell the future through augury and whose duties included carrying out the sacrifices. They were directly equivalent to the haruspices of the Etruscans and Romans. The Druids, on the other hand, were the philosophers and the intermediaries between man and the gods, as well as being the ultimate justices and being skilled in ‘the science of nature’.

Diodorus adds further details about the Vates:

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