Customer Reviews

The Philosopher and the Druids: A Journey Among the Ancient Celts

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

All the books and articles that I have previously read about the Celts have stressed the archaeological evidence. They have especially examined the art, culture, and daily lives of the ancient Celts, and their origins as a people. Freeman, instead, looks at how the Romans and, especially, the Greeks saw them. So, of course, there are a lot of quotes about the Celts as bloodthirsty drunken louts.

But once I got beyond that, there was a lot I hadn't learned from the books and articles I had read earlier. For example, there is more about the Celts of Iberia, Asia Minor, and Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy). The Galatians of Asia Minor seem to have been especially important as mercenaries to rulers of the Eastern Mediterranean. There is also more about Caesar's conquest of Gaul. I had previously read about this mostly from Caesar's point of view (in Latin). Freeman counters with a description of how well Vercingetorix and his people resisted Caesar, although they ultimately lost.

Posidonius, a Greek aristocrat, visited only the upper crust of Celtic society, and so we don't see much of the lives of ordinary Celts. In this he is more like a historian than like an archaeologist. He is the philosopher of the title and the unifying symbol of the whole book.

In the latter half of the book, Freeman drops the emphasis on the ferocity and barbarity of the Celts and says more about their mythology and religion, the position of women, and the social lives of the upper crust. This is very speculative and that's probably why other serious authors haven't had so much to say about it. But if you read it as a commentary on what the Celts might have been like, and how their neighbors reacted to them, it will give you a lot to think about.

So, for what Freeman says that the other writers don't say, and especially if you've read some of the other books, I recommend this one.

-- Éad

This is the most readable introduction to the Celts I've ever seen. It takes the real journey of a Greek philosopher to Celtic lands in the days before Julius Caesar and uses it as a connecting thread to tell the whole story of the ancient Celts. I liked the way it was organized around different Celtic themes, like druids, women, war, etc. And the way it ties the ancient Celts into Irish culture is great.

I read a great review of this book in Harper's Magazine, so I thought I'd give it a try. The author uses the travels of an ancient Greek philosopher that I'd never heard of to tie together a fascinating introduction to the ancient Celts. It's not really about the philosopher as much as it is a really interesting story about Gauls and others Celts (I never knew there was a difference), including druids, art, history , and everything else about them. If you want to learn about Celts in olden days, this is your book.

The "Philosopher and the Druids" attempts to develop an ethnographic account of the Gauls, focusing on the 1st century BC when they were visited by the Greek philosopher Posidonious, who had the same objective. The book achieves only modest success, through no fault of Freeman. The problem is that only small fragments of Posidonious' study are extant, and other sources are also very incomplete. To supplement first person accounts, Posidonious makes use of what we know of Celtic Ireland, even many centuries later, as well as what we know of Bronze Age Greece (think Homer). In fact Celtic culture comes out looking a lot like that of Bronze Age Greece, supplemented by their unique priestly class, the Druids. The Druids may have been primarily a civilizing influence, promoting justice and morality, but this is not entirely clear. For me it was disappointing that a culture which had already interacted with Roman and Greek culture for centuries by the first century BC did not, as far as I can tell from Freeman's book, seem to have progressed except in a material sense. Certainly, some of their craft work as shown in the book's pictures is stunning. Freeman's book is almost always interesting, if you don't mind quite a bit of political history.

I got the feeling reading this book that the original title may have been "the philosopher and the Celts", but that the publisher thought stressing the Druidic connection would sell more books. It's not bad for an introduction to Celtic interactions with Mediterranean cultures, and it's an easy read, but it necessarily deals mostly with pre-Roman Gaul, and the Druids get only one chapter. Check it out of the library, or buy it on sale, but don't expect it to make you an expert on Druids.

This book is supposedly centered on the writings of Posidonius, a Syrian-Greek philosopher who traveled widely through Celtic lands shortly before the rampages of Julius Caesar. The problem is: the writings are lost and Freeman is working from second-hand fragments. While the book is interesting, generally, I felt that it was a bit of a let-down. You buy it thinking your going to get this unique first-hand account when it's really just a synthesis of other already familiar sources. It should be titled "An Introduction to the Celts" There's very little by the "Philosopher" and even less about the Druids.

To be honest with you, I had to read it for a class and I kinda got into the story, it was easy to follow...

Wow. What an awesome book. Gets 5 stars. Philip Freeman helped me place Druidry in an authentic historical context. Am concurrently reading "The Inner Temple of Witchcraft" by Christopher Penczak. Freeman's book is accurate and Penczak's is not. Even with general inaccuracies Penczak's book is good because he assumes things we need to assume in order to move forward in creating conventions that we pictured back then. We all need to find at least imaginary roots of a science, art and sprituality we are thinking of following.

I received this book for Christmas and have been so impressed by the wonderful way it tells the story of the Celts. I had heard of the Celts before, but I never really knew who they were or what they did. I especially liked the focus on women and archaeology. I'm recommending this book to all my friends.

The chapters in this rather superficial book are only tenuously held together by Freeman's imagined journey of the Greek historian Posidonius among the Gauls of the 1st century BC. The large majority of the book rehashes second or third hand information, with little independent research, analysis or synthesis by Freeman who simply appears to have compiled easily obtainable evidence into a book with a flashy title. Unfortunately, there are only a few fragments from Posidonius splattered across the book as opposed to a lot of needless filler information.

There is almost nothing, and certainly nothing new, about the druids.