Memoirs of the Celts or Gauls / By Joseph Ritson.

  • Ritson, Joseph, 1752-1803.
Date:
1827
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoirs of the Celts or Gauls / By Joseph Ritson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    22/392 (page 4)
    Jllyrius, and Gala, who, going out of Sicily, reigned over the people, who from them are called Celts, Illyrians and Galatians, (TocT^arcov, Illyricks, C. l). Diodorus Siculus, however, re¬ lates that Galates, the son of Hercules, by the daughter of a king of Celtica, (KE?^Ti;t>3?) when he came to mans estate and was possessed of his grandfathers kingdom, having sub¬ dued many of the neighbouring countries and performed many notable actions by his sword, called his subjects after his own name, Galatians (raAetTtavs’) and the country Galatia (B. iv. P. 210). Parthenius, who tells the same story, says the fathers name was Bretarinus, the daughters Celtina, and that of her child, by Hercules, Celtus, from whom the Celts were so deno¬ minated (C. 30). According to Amraianus Marcellinus, who professes to follow Timagines, a Greek writer, of uncertain age, who had made an express collection upon this subject, some affirmed that the people first seen in those regions were abori¬ gines, called, from the name of a beloved king, Celtce, and from that of his mother, Galatce ; for so, says he, the Greek tongue terms the Gauls. Others, that the Dorians, following the more ancient Hercules, inhabited the parts bordering on the ocean. The Drasidee (r. Drysidee or Druidee) alledged that, true it was, a part of the people was indigenous, but that others had resorted from the utmost islands and the countries beyond the Rhine; being driven from their native seats by frequent wars, and the inundation of the raging sea. Some said that a few persons, after the destruction of Troy, flying from the Greeks, every where dispersed, occupied these parts, then void ; but the inhabitants of those countries asserted, above all things (which, likewise, was to be read engraven on their monuments),, that Hercules, the son of Amphitrion, hastened to the destruc¬ tion of Geryon and Taurisc, two cruel tyrants, of whom one in¬ fested Spain, the other Gaul; and, that, both being vanquished, he lay with gentlewomen and had several children ; and, that