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Cosmas' Forefather Boemus Was No Celt: Some Notes on Whether the Eldest Czech Chronicler Could Have Been Inspired by Livy

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020

Abstract

In the paper the thesis spread by some amateur historians that the Czech chronicler Cosmas of Prague knew Livy's description of the (legendary) beginnings of Celtic migration, and thus in his own description of arrival of the forefather Boemus and his train in their new home country Livy's figure of Segovesus is transformed into this forefather, is proved completely unsubstantiated. The general possibility that Cosmas knew the first decade of Livy is, however, further tested, because, somewhat surprisingly, some of the manuscripts preserved today theoretically could have been within Cosmas' reach sometimes during his lifetime when he went abroad.

The possibility, however, that he indeed read Livy (and thus became an exception to the rule for his times) cannot be supported in any way, some observations even effectively discredit it.