Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 6.13.10. The late-19th-century historian of religion Alexandre Bertrand believed that the religious institution of the druids in Gaul, described most fully among the extant Greek and Latin sources by Caesar (BG 6.13–14), had a direct influence on the reception of Christianity in Western Europe, particularly in regard to the organization of monastic communities; see La religion des Gaulois: Les druides et le druidisme (Paris, 1897), appendix 2, pp. 417–424 online. Although Bertrand's highly conjectural argument was the object of immediate and vigorous attack — see review by Gaston Boissier, Journal des Savants (1898) 574–580, especially 578ff. online — the 20th-century art historian Walter Horn drew on scientific methodologies to trace pre-Christian influences on medieval architecture in the regions formerly inhabited by Celts; see "On the Origins of the Medieval Cloister," Gesta 12 (1973) 13–52, and for discussion and major works, Academic career and scholarship. At any rate, the organization of the druids, with their oversight of religious matters, had existed in Gaul, and the medieval dioceses to which modern French departments more or less correspond were formed along pre-Roman political boundaries (see also Diocese: History) — boundary disputes (de finibus controversia) being one of the juridical functions of the druids, according to Caesar (BG 6.13.5).
Serge Lewuillon, "Histoire, société et lutte des classes en Gaule: Une féodalité à la fin de la république et au début de l'empire. Tasgétios et César," Aufstieg under Niedergang der römische Welt (1975), pp. 463–465 online.
Wilkie Collins, The Brothers of Romulus: Fraternal pietas in Roman Law, Literature, and Society (Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 67–69 online; Gloria Vivenza, "Classical Roots of Benevolence in Economic Thought," in Ancient Economic Thought (Routledge, 1997), pp. 198–199, 204–208 online; Cicero's influence on patristic views, Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1992, 2002), pp. 16–17 online, 32, and 255, note 13. It is equivalent to Greek eunoia.
Three of the possessors of virtus are the Roman officers Gaius Volusenus (BG 3.5.2), Quintus Cicero (5.48.6), and Titus Labienus (7.59.6); a fourth is the Romanized Celt Valerius Troucillus, who held Roman citizenship and acted as diplomatic envoy and interpreter for Caesar. See Myles Anthony McDonnell, Roman Manliness: virtus and the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 308 online. The centurionsVorenus and Pullo dispute each other's claim to virtus at 5.44.
Taisson is a French dialectal variant for "badger," usually blaireau; see also Italian tasso and Spanish tejon. These are often derived from late Latin taxus, but the usual word for badger in Latin is meles, maeles or melo, melonis (mil, millonis in the Gallic medical writer Marcellus Empiricus, De medicamentis 33.7), and taxus is likely a borrowing from Gaulish. The word has also been related to Basqueazkoin or asku, "badger," with loss of the initial t from a reconstructed "pre-Basque" form *(t)askone. The Gaulish is sometimes thought to have been borrowed from Germanic (modern German Dachs), but the borrowing is more likely to have gone the other way. See discussion by Victor Hehn, The Wanderings of Plants and Animals from Their First Home (John Benjamins, 1976), pp. 493–494 online.
If Moritasgus is construed as "Sea Badger," it may be a name for another animal (cf. "sea lion" in English) such as a seal or sea otter; see John T. Koch, Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia (ABC-Clio, 2006), p. 231 online.
The Epistula de taxone (also Epistola or Liber) is framed as a letter from a fictional Egyptian ruler named Idpartus (or Hidpartus) to the emperor Octavianus Augustus. See Maria Amalia D'Aronco, "Gardens on Vellum: Plants and Herbs in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts," in Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden (Boydell, 2008), p. 122 online; H.J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature from the Earliest Times to the Death of St. Augustine (Routledge, 1936, 1996), p. 429 online; sample passages in Alf Önnerfors, "Magische Formeln im Dienste römischer Medizin," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.37.1 (1993), p. 212 online. It is part of the 5th-century compilation Medicina de Quadrupedibus attributed to Sextus Placitus, and also exists in an Old English translation in an 11th-century manuscript; see R.D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Blackwell, 2003), p. 157 online.Constantinus Africanus summarizes the contents in Medici de animalibus liber, "De taxione," p. 115 (ed. Ackermann) online. Among the collections of the Science Museum (London) is a 16th-century Italian jar used to store badger fat, which may be viewed online.
John B. Cunningham, "Tracking down St. Molaise," The Fermanagh Miscellany 2 (Enniskillen, 2008), p. 18 online.
Luc Brisson, Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity (University of California Press, 2002), pp. 136–137 online.
Catherine Rider, Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 26 online.
Alan Mac an Bhaird, "Tadhg mac Céin and the Badgers," Ériu 31 (1983) 150–155; Bernhard Maier, Die Religion der Kelten: Götter, Mythen, Weltbid (C.H. Beck, 2001), pp. 69–70 online and p. 193, note 152 on etymology. "The Adventure of Tadhg mac Céin" (Eachtra Thaidhg Mhic Céin) is an early modern Irish voyage tale from the Book of Lismore; see president's address, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 24 (1895), p. 466 online. The name (see Tadhg) is usually thought to mean "bard" or "poet," but even this meaning has been connected to "badger" as a characterization of the fierce Celtic satirist of legend; see Delamarre, Dictionnaire de langue gauloise, p. 293.
A vo penn bit pont; E. Anwyl, "The Value of the Mabinogion for the Study of Celtic Religion," Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions 2 (1908), p. 238 online.
For the significance of the bag in Celtic mythology, see W.M. Parker's note to his edition of Mabinogion 1, and American, African, and Old European Mythologies, edited by Yves Bonneoy and Wendy Doniger (University of Chicago, 1993), p. 207 online.
Bunnell Lewis, "Roman Antiquities in South Germany," Archaeological Journal 58 (1901), pp. 290–291 online. Examples of Quintus Titius's other denarii with Pegasus on the reverse may be viewed at CoinArchive.com, including the winged Victory and Mutunus Tutunus.
Lelewel, Études numismatiques, vol. 1, p. 249 online.
L. de la Saussaye, "Attribution d'une médaille en bronze à Tasget, roi des Carnutes," Revue de la numismatique françoise 2 (1837), p. 1 online.
Jean-Mary Couderc, "Un pont antique sur la Loire en Aval de Tours," in La Loire et les fleuves de la Gaule romaine et des régions voisines (Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 2001), p. 63 online.
coinarchives.com
For an example, see the gold stater of the Mediomatrici, dated 3rd–2nd century BC, at CoinArchives.com, which is more likely to be modeled after Greek staters.
Bunnell Lewis, "Roman Antiquities in South Germany," Archaeological Journal 58 (1901), pp. 290–291 online. Examples of Quintus Titius's other denarii with Pegasus on the reverse may be viewed at CoinArchive.com, including the winged Victory and Mutunus Tutunus.
This coin of the Suessiones may be viewed at CoinArchives.com, where the winged horse is described as "Celticized Pegasos flying left."
mabinogi.net
For the significance of the bag in Celtic mythology, see W.M. Parker's note to his edition of Mabinogion 1, and American, African, and Old European Mythologies, edited by Yves Bonneoy and Wendy Doniger (University of Chicago, 1993), p. 207 online.
sciencemuseum.org.uk
The Epistula de taxone (also Epistola or Liber) is framed as a letter from a fictional Egyptian ruler named Idpartus (or Hidpartus) to the emperor Octavianus Augustus. See Maria Amalia D'Aronco, "Gardens on Vellum: Plants and Herbs in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts," in Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden (Boydell, 2008), p. 122 online; H.J. Rose, A Handbook of Latin Literature from the Earliest Times to the Death of St. Augustine (Routledge, 1936, 1996), p. 429 online; sample passages in Alf Önnerfors, "Magische Formeln im Dienste römischer Medizin," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2.37.1 (1993), p. 212 online. It is part of the 5th-century compilation Medicina de Quadrupedibus attributed to Sextus Placitus, and also exists in an Old English translation in an 11th-century manuscript; see R.D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature (Blackwell, 2003), p. 157 online.Constantinus Africanus summarizes the contents in Medici de animalibus liber, "De taxione," p. 115 (ed. Ackermann) online. Among the collections of the Science Museum (London) is a 16th-century Italian jar used to store badger fat, which may be viewed online.
