It is significant, therefore, that human sacrifices
by fire are known, on unquestionable evidence, to have been
systematically practised by the Celts. The earliest description of
these sacrifices has been bequeathed to us by Julius Caesar. As
conqueror of the hitherto independent Celts of Gaul, Caesar had
ample opportunity of observing the national Celtic religion and
manners, while these were still fresh and crisp from the native mint
and had not yet been fused in the melting-pot of Roman civilisation.
With his own notes Caesar appears to have incorporated the
observations of a Greek explorer, by name Posidonius, who travelled
in Gaul about fifty years before Caesar carried the Roman arms to
the English Channel. The Greek geographer Strabo and the historian
Diodorus seem also to have derived their descriptions of the Celtic
sacrifices from the work of Posidonius, but independently of each
other, and of Caesar, for each of the three derivative accounts
contain some details which are not to be found in either of the
others.
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