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Polybius on the Celts
| Sources: Miranda J. Green, ‘The Early Celts’, in The Celtic Connection, ed. Glanville Price [Princess Grace Irish Library, 6] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992) [Chap. 2], pp.10-29; p.10. |
The Celts lived in unwalled villages, without any superfluous furniture; for as they slept on beds of leaves and fed on meat and were exclusively occupied with war and agriculture, their lives were very simple, and they had no knowledge whatever of art or science. Their possessions consisted of cattle and gold, because those were the only things they could carry with them everywhere according to circumstances and shift where they chose. They treated comradeship as of the greatest importance, those among them being the most feared and the most powerful who were thoght to have the largest number of associates. (Polybius, Histories, II, 17, 9-12.)
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