224 
was preserved for a length of time among the 
nations most advanced in civilization. The 
paintings found in the tombs of the kings at 
Thebes leave no doubt^ that these sacrifices were 
habitual among the Egyptians*. We have 
already observed, that formerly in India the 
goddess Cali required human victims, as Saturn 
exacted them at Carthage. At Rome, after the 
battle of Cannae, two Gauls, a male and female, 
were buried alive ; and the Emperor Claudius 
was obliged, to forbid by an express decree the 
sacrifice of men in the Roman empire But 
still more, in times less remote, what savage 
effects of religious intolerance do we not our- 
selves see amid the civilization of the human 
race, at the period of a general melioration of 
characters and manners? Whatever be the 
difference among nations in the progress of their 
intellectual culture, fanaticism and interest still 
hold their fatal sway. Posterity will scarcely 
conceive, that in polished Europe, under the in- 
fluence of a religion, , which, from the nature of 
its principles, favours liberty, and proclaims the 
* Voyage de Denon, p. 298, pi. 124, No. 2. Decade 
Egyptienne, tom. 3, p. 110. 
t Sueton., c. 25, (ed. Wolf., vol. 1, p. 48). Plin. Hist. 
Nat. lib. 31, c. 1 ; lib. 8, c. 22. Tertullian. Apologet. 
adversus Gentes, c. 9 (ed. Palmer, 1684, p. 41). Lactant. 
Div. Instit. lib. I, c. 21. 
