which is generally considered to be Illyrian, and a number of statements by
Classical authors about Thracian religion.^41
Among the Italic languages Latin naturally takes pride of place. But Latin
literature is so pervasively influenced by Greek that it can only be used with
the greatest caution as a separate witness to Indo-European tradition. The
most promising sources are the earliest poets, who, while by no means
innocent of Greek influence, at any rate were the least far removed from older
native traditions; religious ritual and language, insofar as they are not based
on Greek models; and popular and subliterary material such as charms and
incantations. Outside Latin the most notable text is the series of bronze
tablets from Iguvium (Gubbio) containing the proceedings of a college of
priests, the Atiedian Brethren, with ritual prescriptions and regulations. They
date from between 200 and 50 , and constitute the principal document
of the Umbrian language. Occasional mention will be made of other Italic
dialects such as Marrucinian and Venetic.
Celtic evidence, coming as it does from the most westerly of the Indo-
European territories, is of especial interest and value as a complement to
what can be gathered from Graeco-Aryan sources. There is a gap in time
between the continental Celtic material and the insular. The first, consisting
of Lepontic, Gaulish, and Celtiberian inscriptions, comes from the Roman
period and fades out in the third century . The Gaulish inscriptions are the
most significant, giving us many names of local deities and sometimes other
things of religious interest. Further information on the Celts and their ways is
provided by Greek and Latin writers such as Diodorus, Strabo, and Caesar,
who were all indebted to the Stoic Posidonius, and some others who were
not.^42
The insular Celtic material consists mainly (apart from some primitive
Irish inscriptions in the Ogam script) of Irish and British literature, and it
begins around 600 . On the Irish side, besides a not very large quantity
of early poems and poetic fragments collected by Kuno Meyer and Enrico
Campanile, the main body of pertinent material is narrative prose (with some
embedded verse) dealing with heroic and legendary subject matter and dating
from the eighth to twelfth centuries. There are four major groups, known as
the Ulster and Fenian Cycles, the Cycle of the Kings, and the Mythological
(^41) See Clemen (1936), 83–92; Detschew (1957); Krahe (1955–64); Mayer (1957–9);
Haas (1962); C. Brixhe and A. Panayotou, ‘Le thrace’, in Françoise Bader (ed.), Langues
indo-européennes (Paris 1997), 181–205; C. de Simone and S. Marchesini, Monumenta Linguae
Messapicae (2 vols., Wiesbaden 2002).
(^42) Zwicker (1934–6); Michel Lejeune, Lepontica (Paris 1971); id. and others, Recueil des
inscriptions gauloises, i–iv (Paris 1985–2002); Meid (1994); id., Celtiberian Inscriptions (Budapest
1994); Jürgen Untermann, Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum, iv: Die tartessischen,
keltiberischen und lusitanischen Inschriften (Wiesbaden 1997); Lambert (2003).
16 Introduction