426 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTORY. [Book XXX. 



introduction of magic into Italy; in our laws of the Twelve 

 Tables for instance ; besides other convincing proofs, which I 

 have already noticed in a preceding Book. 32 At last, in the 

 year of the City 657, Cneius Cornelius Lentulus and P. Lici- 

 nius Crassus being consuls, a decree forbidding human sacri- 

 fices ^ was passed by the senate ; from which period the cele- 

 bration of these horrid rites ceased in public, and, for some a4 

 time, altogether. 



CUAP. 4. THE DRUIDS OF THE GALLIC PROVINCES. 



The Gallic provinces, too, were pervaded by the magic art/' 5 

 and that even down to a period within memory ; for it was 

 the Emperor Tiberius that put down their Druids, 36 and all that 

 tribe of wizards and physicians. Eut why make further men- 

 tion of these prohibitions, with reference to an art which has 

 now crossed the very Ocean even, and has penetrated to the 

 void 37 recesses of Mature ? At the present day, struck with 

 fascination, Britannia still cultivates this art, and that, with 

 ceremonials so august, that she might almost seem 38 to have 

 been the first to communicate them to the people of Persia. 39 

 To such a degree are nations throughout the whole world, 

 totally different as they are and quite unknown to one another, 

 in accord upon this one point ! 



32 B. xxviii. c. 4. 



33 These sacrifices forming the most august rite of the Magic art, as 

 practised in Italy. 



34 That this art was still practised in secret in the days of Pliny himself, 

 we learn from the testimony of Tacitus (Annals, II, 69), in his account of 

 the enquiries instituted on the death of Germanicus. 



35 More particularly in the worship of their divinity Heu or Hesus, the 

 god of war. 



36 This lie did officially, but not effectually, and the Druids survived as 

 a class for many centuries both in Gaul and Britain. 



37 He alludes to the British shores bordering on the Atlantic. See B. 

 xix. c. 2. 



38 It is a curious fact that the round towers of Ireland bear a strong re- 

 semblance to those, the ruins of which are still to be seen on the plains of 

 ancient Persia. 



39 " Ut dedisse Persis videri possit." This might possibly mean, " That 

 Persia might almost seem to have communicated it direct to Britain. " Ajas- 

 son enumerates the following superstitions of ancient Britain, as bearing- 

 probable marks of an Oriental origin : the worship of the stars, lakes, 

 forests, and rivers ; the ceremonials used in cutting the plants samiolus, 

 selago, and mistletoe, and the virtues attributed to the adder's egg. 



