the druids

the power of the druids

Druids are concerned with divine things,they look after public and private sacrifices,they interpret religious questions:a great number of young men flock to these to learn,and the druids are among them with great honour.For they decide about nearly all public and private disputes,and,if any crime is committed,if a murder is perpetrated,if there was a (dispute) about inheritance,about land,the druids settle the matter,and decide rewards and punishments.If anyone either private or public does not obey their decisions,they ban them from sacrifices:this punishment is the most serious among them.Those who are banned in such a way are considered in a number of impious and wicked people;all avoid them,they flee their approach and conversation,in case they receive any harm from contact with them,and no justice (is) given to them when they seek it and no honour is given.however, one is in charge of all the druids,who has the utmost authority among them.When he dies,either he who stands out from the rest succeeds him to the honour,or,if there are any equals,they compete in a vote of the druids,sometimes even with weapons,about the leadershipTheir training is believed to have been invented in Britain and then spread into Gaul,and now those,who want to find out about this matter more keenly,often set to Britain for the sake of learning.

Their Education

The druids are usually exempt from war and do not pay tributes together with the rest;they have exemption from military service and freedom from all thing.Stirred up by such rewards many of them meet even of their own accord from training and they are sent by parents and relations.There they are said to learn by heart a great number of verses in this way several remain in training for twenty years.and they do not think it right to entrust these verses to writing,although they use the Greek alphabet for nearly the rest of their matters.They seem to me to have instituted these things for two reasons,because they do not want their training to be brought to the public,and so those who learn do not trust less in memory while relying on letters.they especially want to persuade this,that their souls do not die,but they go from one to another after death,and by means of this they think that men are especially incited to courage with fears of death ignored.They discuss things besides about the stars and their movements,about the size of the earth and the lands,about the nature of things,about the force of the immortal gods and their powers,and they hand this down to their young people.