HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



409 



who were as fanguinary as they were fuperftitious, did 

 not abftain from fuch kind of facrifices. All the time 

 they were under the government of their kings, they fa- 

 crificed young children to the goddefs Mania, mother of 

 the Lares, for the profperity of their houfes, to which 

 they were directed by a certain oracle of Apollo, as Ma- 

 crobius fays ; and we know from Pliny, that human fa- 

 crifices were not forbid until the year 657 of Rome (rj ; 

 but notwithstanding this prohibition, thofe examples of 

 barbarous fuperftition did not ceafe ; fmce Auguftus, as 

 authors cited by Suetonius affirm, after the taking of Pe- 

 ru ii a (j), where the conful L. Antony, had fortified him- 

 felf, facrificed in honor of his uncle Julius Caefar, who 

 was by this time deified by the Romans, three hundred 

 men, partly fenators and partly Roman knights, upon an 

 altar erected to that new deity. La&antius, who was a 

 man well inftrucled in the affairs of the Romans, who 

 flouriflied in the fourth century of the church, fays ex- 

 prefsly, that even in his time, thofe facrifices were made 

 to Jupiter Latialis (i). Nor were the Spaniards free 

 from this barbarous fuperftition. Strabo recounts, in 

 book iii. that the Lufitanians facrificed prifoners, cut off 

 their right hand to confecrate it to their gods, obferved 

 their entrails, and examined them for auguries ; that all 

 the inhabitants of the mountains ufed to facrifice prifon- 

 ers as well as horfes, offering their victims by hundreds 

 at a time to the god Mars ; and fpeaking in general, he 

 Vol. III. 3 G fays, 



(r) DCLV'II. demum anno urbis Cn. Corn. Lentuto. P. Licinio Coff. Se- 

 natus confultum faclum eft, ne homo immolaretur. Piin. Hift. Nat. lib. xxx. 

 cap. 1. 



(j) Perufia capta in plurimos animadvertit ; orare veniam, vel excufare fe 

 conantibus una voce occurrens, moriendum effe. Scribunt quidam trecentos ex 

 dedititiis eledos utriufque ordinis ad aram D. Julio exftru&am Idib. Ivlartiis 

 yidtimarum more ma&atos. Suetonius in O&aviano. 

 \jt) Ladtantius, Inftit. Divin. lib. i. cap, %l. 



