After reading my earlier post on this subject, I am once again reminded that I shouldn't post when I so tired I can't hold my eyes open. LOL...because I make no sense.

When reading de Bello Gallico, we do always need to keep in mind that Caesar was writing for a Republican Roman audience so he described Gaul using terms that your average Roman audience would understand. We must never forget that when looking to him for any answers. That said, does it discredit his account or make any less authentic? No, in my opinion it doesn't. It cannot be ignored as a source of important information of Iron Age Gaul.

Caesar was a contemporary and wrote a first hand account, one of the few and probably the most extensive we have. It is in book vi that we find most of the ethnographic material concerning the Gauls and Germans and actual Gallic terms, such as druides which is etymologically derived from terms denoting wisdom and truth (Partridge 1983). The concept of druids was not unknown to Caesar's peers.

Through Caesar and Poseidonnius (of which we have scant fragments) we can get a glimpse of the late La Tene culture of Gaul. Both men were in Gaul within about a generation of each other (Poseidonnius first) and there are a good many similarities between the two works. Which is not surprising since they both observed and knew about events and institutions which were an integral part of this culture.

And Caesar's treatment of the Druids shows a man who understood their importance to the culture of the late La Tene culture.

And thank you, Verditius, for stirring up my old grey cells!