408 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



to their tutelar gods. Philon fays that the Phoenicians 

 in public calamities offered in facrifice to their inhuman 

 Baal their deareft fons, and Curtius affirms that fuch fa- 

 crifices were in ufe among the Tyrians until the ruin of 

 their famous city. The fame did the Carthaginians with 

 their countrymen in honour of Saturn the trueL We 

 know that when they were vanquifhed by Agathocles, 

 king of Syracufe, with a view to appeafe their deities, 

 whom they believed incenfed, they facrificed two hun- 

 dred noble children, befides three hundred youths who 

 fpontaneoufly offered themfelves for facrifice, to fhew 

 their bravery, their piety towards the gods, and their 

 love to their country ; and, as Tertullian affirms, who 

 was an African, and lived little later than that epoch of 

 which we are fpeaking, and therefore ought to know it 

 well, facrifices were ufed in Africa until the time of the 

 emperor Tiberius, as in Gaul till the time of Claudian, 

 as Suetonius reports. 



The Pelafgians, the ancient inhabitants of Italy, facri- 

 ficed a tythe of their children, in order to comply with an 

 oracle, as is related by D. Halicarnaffeus. The Romans, 



who 



he adduces no authority to confute the teflimony of Pliny, Suetonius, Diodorus, 

 and in particular Csefar, who was well acquainted with the Gauls, and knew 

 their cuftoms. " Natio eft omnis Galiorum," he fays, " admodum dedita re- 

 " ligionibus, atque ob earn caufam qui funt affe6H gravioribus morbis, quique in 

 " praelio periculifque verfantur, aut pro vi&imis homines immolant, aut fe im- 

 " molaturos vovent, adminiftris ad ea facrificia Druidibus ; quod pro vita homi- 

 " nis, nifi vita hominis reddatur, non poffe aliter deorum immortalium numen 

 " placari arbitrantur, publiceque ejufdem generis habent inftituta facrificia. Ala 

 " immani magnitudine fimulacra habent ; quorum contexta viminibus membra. 

 M vivis hominibus complent ; quibus fuccenfis circumventi flamma exanimantur 

 " homines, Supplicia eorum qui in furto aut latrocinio aut aliqua noxa fmt 

 " comprehenfi gratiora diis immcrtalibus effe arbitrantur. Sed cum ejus gene- 

 " ris copia deficit, etiam ad innocentium fupplicia defcendunt." Lib. vi. de 

 Bello Gallico, cap. 15. From this it appears the Gauls were more cruel than 

 the Mexicans. 



