Note (return) — Chapter XXII

Where was the world of the dead situated? M. Reinach has shown, by a careful comparison of the different uses of the word orbis, that Lucan's words do not necessarily mean "another world," but "another region," i.e. of this world.1175 If the Celts cherished so firmly the belief that the dead lived on in the grave, a belief in an underworld of the dead was bound in course of time to have been evolved as part of their creed. To it all graves and tumuli would give access. Classical observers apparently held that the Celtic future state was like their own in being an underworld region, since they speak of the dead Celts as inferi, or as going ad Manes, and Plutarch makes Camma speak of descending to her dead husband.1176 What differentiated it from their own gloomy underworld was its exuberant life and immortality. This aspect of a subterranean land presented no difficulty to the Celt, who had many tales of an underworld or under-water region more beautiful and blissful than anything on earth. Such a subterranean world must have been that of the Celtic Dispater, a god of fertility and growth, the roots of things being nourished from his kingdom. From him men had descended,1177 probably a myth of their coming forth from his subterranean kingdom, and to him they returned after death to a blissful life.