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"Perhaps the fiercest barbarians were the Celts. In battle, they made a hideous spectacle, stripping themselves naked and howling like beasts. Their hair, soaked with lime, stood back on their heads like horses' manes. Their bodies were painted blue with woad. The Celts would carry back the heads of their victims dangling from their saddles, embalm them in cedar oil and hang them outside their houses or display them to guests. Sometimes the Celts used captured heads as footballs.

The peacetime habits of the Celts were hardly more congenial. According to Diodoros, they were "exceedingly addicted to the use of wine ... ad since they partake of this drink without moderation ... when they are drunken they fall into a stupor or a state of madness. "

Drunk or sober, a Celt was a dangerous companion. "It is their custom," wrote Diodoros, "even during the course of the meal, to seize upon any trivial matter as an occasion for disputation and then to challenge one another to single combat, without any regard for their lives." Celtic table manners may have been appalling, but their sex lives were more frightful still. As late as the twelfth century A.D., the kings of one Irish clan still celebrated their coronations by engaging in ritual sexual intercourse with a horse."

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