Historical Roman References

Throughout Gaul there are two classes of persons of definite account and dignity.  The common people are treated almost as slaves and are neither heard nor listened to in councils.  Most of them, in debt or under heavy tribute or by the injuries of those more powerful commit themselves in service to the nobles, who have over them all the rights which masters hold over slaves.  Of the two notable classes, one consists of druids and the other of knights.  The first concern themselves with divine affairs, managing public and private sacrifices and interpreting matters of religion.  A great number of young men gather about them to learn and hold them in great honor.  In fact, it is they who decide in almost all disputes, public and private; and if any crime has been committed, or murder done, or there is any dispute about succession or boundaries, they also decide it, determining rewards and penalties:  if any person or people does not abide by their decision, they ban such from sacrifice, which is their heaviest penalty.  Those that are so banned are reckoned as impious and criminal; all men move out of their path and shun their approach and conversation, for fear they may get some harm from their contact, and no justice is done if they seek it, no distinction falls to their share. Of all these druids one is chief, who has the highest authority among them.  At his death, either any other that is pre-eminent in position succeeds or, if there be several of equal standing, they strive for the primacy by the vote of the druids, or sometimes even with armed force.  These druids, at a certain time of the year, meet within the borders of the Carnutes, whose territory is reckoned as the center of all Gaul, and sit in conclave in a consecrated spot.  There assemble from all directions those who have disputes, and they obey the decisions and judgments of the druids.  It is believed that their rule of life was developed in Britain and from there transferred to Gaul; and today those who would study the subject more accurately journey, as a rule, to Britain to learn it. [VI:13]

The druids usually hold aloof from war, and do not pay war-taxes withthe rest; they are excused from military service and exempt from allliabilities.  Tempted by these great rewards, many young men are attractedto the training; many others are sent by parents and relatives.  Reportsays that in the schools of the druids, they learn by heart a great numberof verses, and therefore some persons remain twenty years under training. And they do not think it proper to commit these utterances to writing,although in almost all other matters, and in their public and privateaccounts, they make use of Greek letters.  I believe that they haveadopted the practice for two reasons: that they do not wish the rule tobecome common property, nor those who learn the rule to rely on writingand so neglect the cultivation of the memory; and in fact it does usuallyhappen that the assistance of writing tends to relax other diligence of thestudent and the action of the memory.  The cardinal doctrine which theyseek to teach is that souls do not die, but after death pass from one toanother; and this belief they hold to be the greatest incentive to valor, as the fear of death is thereby cast aside.  Besides this, they have manydiscussions as touching the stars and their movement, the size of theuniverse and of the earth, the order of nature, the strength and thepowers of the immortal gods, and hand down their lore to the young men. [VI:14]

[The other class are the knights, who mainly gather men and fight among each other. [VI:15]

The whole nation of the Gauls is greatly devoted to ritual observances, and for that reason those who are smitten with the more grievous maladies and who are engaged in the perils of battle eithersacrifice human victims or vow to do so, employing the druids as ministers for such sacrifices.  They believe, in effect, that, unless for a man's life a man's life be paid, the majesty of the immortal gods may not be appeased; and in public, as in private, life they observe an ordinance of sacrifices of the same kind.  Others use figures of immense size, whose limbs, woven out of twigs, they fill with living men and seton fire, and the men perish in a sheet of flame.  They believe that the execution of those who have been caught in the act of theft or robbery or some crime is more pleasing to the immortal gods; but when the supply of such fails they resort to the execution even of the innocent. [VI:16]

Among the gods, they most worship Mercury.  There are numerous images of him; they declare him to be the inventor of all arts, the guide for every road and journey, and they deem him to have the greatest influence for all money-making and traffic.  After him they set Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva.  Of these deities they have almost the same idea as all other nations:   Apollo drives away diseases, Minerva supplies the first principles of arts and crafts.  Jupiter holds the empire of heaven; Mars controls wars.  To Mars, when they have determined on a decisive battle, they dedicate as a rule whatever spoil they may take.  After a victory they sacrifice such living things as they have taken, and all the other effects they gather into one place.  In many states heaps of such objects are to be seen piled up in hallowed spots, and it has not often happened that a man, in defiance of religious scruple, has dared to conceal such spoils in his house or to remove them from their place, and the most grievous punishment, with torture, is ordained for such an offense. [VI:18]

The Gauls affirm that they are all descended from a common father, Dis[Roman god of the Underworld], and say that this is the tradition of thedruids.  For that reason they determine all periods of time by the number,not of days, but of nights, and in their observance of birthdays and thebeginnings of months and years day follows night.... [VI:18]

Those states which are supposed to conduct their public administration to greater advantage have it prescribed by law that anyone who as learnt anything of public concern from his neighbors by rumor or report must bring the information to a magistrate and not impart it to anyone else; for it is recognized that oftentimes hasty and inexperienced men are terrified by false rumors, and so are driven to crime or to decide supreme issues.  Magistrates conceal what they choose, and make known what they think proper for the public.  Speech on state questions, except by means of an assembly, is not allowed. [VI:20]

The Germans differ much from this manner of living.  They have no druids to regulate divine worship, no zeal for sacrifices.  They reckon among the gods those only whom they see and by whose offices they are openly assisted, such as the Sun, the Fire-god and the Moon.  Of the rest they have not even heard.  [VI:21]

Flat-bottomed boats were built to contend with the shifting shallows,and these took the [indigenous] infantry across.  Then came the cavalry; some utilized fords, but in deeper water the men swam beside their horses. The enemy lined the shore in a dense armed mass.  Among them wereblack-robed women with disheveled hair like Furies, brandishing torches. Close by stood Druids, raising their hands to heaven and screamingdreadful curses.

This weird spectacle awed the Roman soldiers into a sort of paralysis.  They stood still, and presented themselves as a target.  But then they urged each other (and were urged by the general) not to fear a horde of fanatical women.  Onward pressed their standards and they bore down their opponents, enveloping them in the flames of their own torches.  Suetonius garrisoned the conquered island.  The groves devoted to Mona's barbarous superstitions he demolished.  For it was their religion to drench their altars in the blood of prisoners and consult their gods by means of human entrails.

There is talk of human sacrifice in sacred groves also in Tacitus' _Germania_: (9) worship of "Mercury" by human sacrifice, "Hercules," "Isis," and "Mars" mentioned, noting that the Germans consider it "unfitting with divine majesty to confine their gods within walls or represent them resembling human features, making instead their holy places in woods and groves, calling godlike that hidden something which is seen only by the eye of piety."  This is also mentioned in (39) where the grove ceremony is opened with a human sacrifice and "reverence is paid to the grove in that no one may enter unless bound by a cord to acknowledge the power of the deity."  (40) makes reference to a belief in Nerthus, a "Mother Earth" who "takes interest in humanity and rides through their tribes.In an island of Ocean [Britain/Ireland?] stands a sacred grove" and within that a draped "holy of holies," the goddess being paraded through the people who in deference lay down arms and "lock all objects of iron away" until she is returned and washed clean in a secluded lake, after which the slave/washers who do so are drowned, to increase the mystery about her."  The Suebians are particularly marked out by Tacitus as revering women and goddesses in his _Germania_.