1 The Geography of Strabo, 13.2.
2 Thompson, Mystery and Lore of Monsters, p. 142.
3 Ibid., pp. 226-228.
4 Lee, Giant: The Pictorial History, p. 65.
5 Norvill, Giants: The Vanished Race, p. 12.
6 And thus became known as the Celtiberians. "Pausanias, 1.35.
7 No reference cited.
8 "The tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed warriors described by classical writers," says Celtic prehistory professor Jan Filip, "were probably a ruling caste spread thinly over indigenous populations." The tribe's biggest men no doubt were chosen as warriors. The tallest, like King Teutobokh, stood to tremendous heights. But, by comparison, some were short. The skeleton of a warrior recently dug up near the Celt-founded city of Milan, for example, measured only six feet five inches. National Geographic, May 1977, pp. 600-601.
9 "The whole race," Strabo adds, "... is madly fond of war, high-spirited and quick to battle." Quoted by Frank Delaney, The Celts (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1986), p. 32.
10 Henri Hubert, The Greatness and Decline of the Celts (London: Bracken Books, 1992), pp. 66-67.
11 Ammianus Marcellinus, 15.12.1-2. Marcellinus was a Latin historian of Greek origin.
12 Although Alexander thought so, the Celts were not being sarcastic, for, like many ancient peoples, they believed that the sky once collapsed. For documentation, see Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision (New York: Macmillan Co., 1950), pp. 70, 89-90.
13 Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander (New York: Dorset Press, 1986), pp. 48-49.
14 Diodorus, 5.28, 31.
15 And so it is explained by the ancient rabbis. See The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 1, p. 552.
16 Virgil, Mneid, 8.658-660, emphasis mine.
17 Diodorus, 5.25
18 Caesar, Commentary, 6.16.
19 Diodorus, 5.31.
20 The Scots sprang from the Celts.
21 Henri Hubert, The Rise of the Celts (London: Bracken Books, 1992), p. 28.
22 Diodorus, 5.32. Athenaeus also states that the Celts were accustomed to sleep with two boys.
23 H. W. Carless Davis, Charlemagne (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), p. 233.
24 Ibid., p. 58. Quoted from Zeller, Histoire d'Allemagne, ii.,32.
25 Ibid., pp. 57-58.
26 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, pp. 103-104.
27 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 225.
28 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 221
29
Ibid., p. 210.
30
Herm, The Celts, p. 67.
31 The Geography of Strabo, 7.1.2.
32 Quoted by Herm, The Celts, p. 19.
33 Caesar, Commentary, 1.39.
34 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (New York: The Modern Library, 1864), p. 500. "The Germans," declares Hegesippus, "are superior to other nations by the largeness of their bodies and their contempt of death." Concerning their exceeding height, Columella says: "Nature has made Germany remarkable for armies of very tall men." Vegetius moans: "What could our undersized men have done against the tall Germans?"
35Caesar, Commentary, 6.19.
36 Victor Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. n (Boston: Dana Estes and Charles E. Lauriat, publishers, 1884), Sec. Two, p. 526.
37 Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, p. 499.
38 This is Plutarch's estimate. Some historians put the number of warriors as high as 600,000. Writes Henri Hubert: "We hear of 300,000 Teutones at Aquae Sextiae and as many Cimbri. This is the fighting strength, not the whole people, including women, children, and a great many other non-combatants" [emphasis mine]. The Greatness and Decline of the Celts, p. 110.
39 Herm, The Celts, p. 63.
40 Ibid., p. 64.
41 Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, pp. 502-503.
42 Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. II, Sec. Two, p. 536.
43 Florus, 1.38.3.
44 Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. II, Sec. Two, p. 537.
45 Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, p. 508.
46 Actually thirty furlongs.
47
"Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, pp. 509-510.
48
Thompson, Mystery and Lore of Monsters, pp. 152-153.
49 Paul Pezron, The Antiquities of Nations; More Particularly of the Celtce or Gauls, Mr. D. Jones, translator (London: R. Janeway, publisher, 1706), p. 48.
50 Ibid., p. 276. Gigas, another word the Celts used to describe people of their great size, offers some indication of how they saw themselves.
51 Ibid., p. 41.
52 i.e., strait.
53 Ibid., pp. 41-42.
54 Ibid., pp. 42-43. "The Danes," he adds, "may boast, that they are the progeny of these Cimbri, at least in part, for their origin is Teutonick or German; and hence it is that we meet to this day with a great many Celtick or Gaulish words in Danish language. It's very probable that an ancient colony of these Cimbri from the Palus Maeotitis came and gave name to the Cimbrick Kersonesus, now called Jutland and subject to the Danes" (p. 43).
55 i.e., Asia Minor; Ibid., p. 36.
56 Strabo, Geography, 11.8.6.
57 i.e., the Halys; Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, p. 44.
58 Ibid., pp. 39-40.
59 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
60 Ibid., 45.
61 Esteemed for his Antiquity and his History of Phoenicia before the Trojan War.
62 Sanchoniathon apud Eusebius, Free. Evang., 1.10.
63 Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, p. 47.
64 Phornutus, De Natura Deorum, c.l.
65 Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, p. 50.
66 Ibid., p. 51.
67
Ibid., p. 53; Sanchoniathon apud Eusebius 1.10.
68 Ibid., pp. 56-57.
69 From Kroone, which signifies Crowned.
70 "And we find even to this very time in the Celtick or Breton language, which is the same as that of the Titans, that Di Sadorne is Saturday; from which the Romans made Dies Saturni, as of Di Lun, Di Mers, &c. they made Dies Lunce, Monday; Dies Mortis, Tuesday, and so of the rest of the planets, the Latin words for all which are certainly taken from the Celtick tongue, as I shall show in another place." Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, p. 61.
71 As related by Lactantius.
72 Ennius apud Lactantius.
73 Julius Firmicus lib. de Errore Profan. Religion.
74 Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, pp. 68-69.
75 Ibid., pp. 70-71.
76 Ibid., pp. 72-73.
77 Ibid., pp. 74-75.
78 Sophocles, in Oedipus at Colonus, 55, calls him "the fire-bearing Titan god."
79 Pezron, Antiquities of Nations, pp. 93-94. Caesar, in his Commentary, writes that all Gauls claimed descent from Dis.
80 Ibid., pp. 95-96.
81 Ibid., pp. 97-99.
82 Caesar, Commentary, 6.
83 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 151.
84 When Harald came to the throne of Norway, he introduced an autocratic rule over its unruly, independent Viking noblemen, some of whom lost their heads to his "thin-lipped axe." This wielding of absolute power earned the new king the nickname Hardraada, which means ruthless.
85 By some accounts, Harald measured three ells tall (or just over eleven feet), but Harold Godwinson's statement just before the Stamford Bridge battle would seem to place his height somewhere between seven and eight feet.
86 Howard LaFay, The Vikings (Washington, DC: National Geographic Society, 1972), p. 189.
87 Ibid., pp. 189-190.
88 Lanier, A Book of Giants, p. 306.
89 Thompson, Mystery and Lore of Monsters, p. 133.
90 Modern Belgrade in Serbia.
91 Lanier, A Book of Giants, p. 305.
92 Guglielmo Ferrero and Corrado Barbagallo, A Short History of Rome (New York: Capricorn Books, 1964), pp. 448-449.
93 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1960), p. 378.
94 Some think that the chant for Jovian, who professed being a Christian, was begun by a small group of Christians gathered near the command tent.
95 Encyclopaedia Britannica, llth edition, Vols. 15-16, p. 526.
96 Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 378.
97 Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. VIII, p. 224.
98 Ferrero and Barbagallo, Short History of Rome, p. 451.
99 Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. VIII, p. 226.
100 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, pp. 228-229.
101 Leon Poliakov, The Aryan Myth (New York: Basic Books, 1977), pp. 178-179.
102 Ibid., pp. 180-181.
103 Ibid., p. 176.
104 S. H. Steinberg, A Short History of Germany (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1945), p. 1.
105 Lanier, A Book of Giants, p. 304.
106 Friedrich Heer, The Holy Roman Empire (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, publishers, 1967), p. 123.
107 Bayard Taylor, History of Germany (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1892), pp. 318-319.
108 Charlton T. Lewis, A History of Germany (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881), p. 301.
109 Ibid.
110 Edward Crankshaw, The Fall of the House of Habsburg (New York: The Viking Press, 1963), p. 7.
184
111 Herodian, History of the Roman Empire, 6.8.2-3.
112 Ibid., 6.7.10.
113 Ibid., 6.9.1-3.
114 Duruy, History of Rome, Vol. VII, p. 149.
115 Michael Grant, The Roman Emperors (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985), p. 137.
116 The Cyclopes in Homer's Odyssey were one-eyed cannibal giants.
117 A mythical king of Egypt not found either on the monuments or in the chronological lists, but mentioned by later Greek writers. During Busiris' reign, so the story goes, Egypt was afflicted nine years with famine. Phrasius, a seer from Cyprus, arrived in Egypt and announced that the famine would not cease until the king sacrificed a foreigner every year to Zeus. Busiris commenced by sacrificing the prophet and afterward continued the custom.
118 Ivar Lissner, The Caesars (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1958), pp. 268-269.
119 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 39.
120 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 132.
121
Ibid.,pp. 150-151.
122 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 117.
123 Robert B. Asprey, Frederick the Great: The Magnificent Enigma (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1986), p. 11.
124 Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Vol. II (New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1901), p. 10. The king apparently was unable to fill all his ranks with giants. But he organized his three battalions so that all who stood near seven feet tall and above were assigned to the first ranks. Some of the Potsdam giants actually towered above eight feet. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (llth edition, 1910), for instance, reports the "authentically recorded" height of a Scottish member of the Grenadiers at eight feet three inches. A Prussian giant must also have been about this height, for it was said of him that no ordinary man could reach the top of his head. Concerning the hugeness of some of the men, Voltaire writes: "I remember that they accompanied the old state coach which preceded the Marquis de Beauvau, who came to compliment the king, in the month of November 1740. The late king, Frederick William, who had formerly sold all the magnificent furniture left by his father, never could find a pur-chaser for that enormous engilded coach. The Heiduques, who walked on each side to support it in case it should fall, shook hands with each other over the roof." Lanier, Mystery and Lore of Monsters, p. 313.
125 Nancy Mitford, Frederick the Great (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 21. Massie writes that another Irishman, a seven-foot-two-inch giant, reportedly cost over 6,000 pounds.
126 Asprey, Frederick the Great, p. 94.
127 Mitford, Frederick the Great, p. 21.
128 Asprey, Frederick the Great, p. 94.
129 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, pp. 132-133.
130 Carlyle, as we saw earlier, puts the number at one hundred, and perhaps in some years Peter delivered that many.
131 Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), p. 577.
132 Constance Wright, A Royal Affinity (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1965), p. 182.
133 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 133.
134 Lanier, A Book of Giants, pp. 312-313.
135 Massie, Peter the Great, p. 576.
136 John S. C. Abbott, History of Frederick the Great (New York: Harper & Bros., 1871), footnote, p. 192.
137 Massie, Peter the Great, p. 577.
138 Ibid.
139 Polybius, The Histories, 2.17.
140 Livy, 5.36.
141 Ibid.
142
Diodorus, V.30. A cubit measures about eighteen inches.
143 Ibid. The ancient javelin was a long-shafted combat weapon tipped with metal and used for thrusting.
144 Hubert, The Rise of the Celts, pp. 89-90. Hubert notes that between Valence and Avignon, tumuli cemeteries on both banks of the Rhone have yielded large bronze swords. "In the Cote-d'Or," he says, "the great iron sword was used" (pp. 135-136).
145 Diodorus, 5.29.
146 Gerhard Herm, The Celts, p. 1 1.
147 Herodotus, The Histories, 4.65. In the same place, the Greek historian reports that after a battle it was the custom, at least among the Scythian Celts, "for every man to drink the blood of the first man he kills."
148
Ibid.
149 Livy, 23.24.
150 A maniple was a subdivision of the Roman legion and usually consisted of one hundred and twenty men.
151 Livy, 5.43.
152 Ibid., 5.47.
153 Ferrero and Barbagallo, Short History of Rome, pp. 50-54. Instead of a "bushel," some historians say a thousand pounds of gold.
154 Livy, 5.58.
155 Herm, The Celts, p. 13.
156 Donald R. Dudley, The Romans: 850 B.C.-337 A.D. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), p. 23.
157 Caesar, Commentary, 2.30.
158 Dudley, The Romans, p. 23.
159 Herm, The Celts, p. 25.
160 Caesar, Commentary, 1.50.
161 Polybius, The Histories, 2.30.
162 In his report on an invasion of Greece by another, later Brennus, the Greek historian Pausanias wondered at the Celts' great show of fury once the battle turned against them. When their shields failed to protect them from a rain of Greek javelins and arrows, he writes, they "rushed at their adversaries like wild beasts, full of rage and temperament, with no kind of reasoning at all; they were chopped down with axes and swords but the blind fury never left them while there was breath in their bodies; even with arrows and javelins sticking through them they were carried on by sheer spirit while their life lasted. Some of them even pulled the spears they were hit by out of their wounds and threw them or stabbed with them." Pausanias 10.4.
163 Thompson, Mystery and Lore of Monsters, p. 158.
164 Wood, Giants and Dwarfs, p. 132.
165 Floras, 1.38.3.
166 Hubert, Greatness and Decline of the Celts, pp. 110, 112, 115.
167
Ibid., p. 119.
168 Ibid., pp. 155-156.
169 Durant, Caesar and Christ, p. 473.
170 Hubert, Greatness and Decline of the Celts, pp. 165-166, 180-184.
171 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. XI, 11th edition, p. 926.