Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER II: THE RELIGION OF THE CELTS 47of a solicitude for our health, it has glided into the mind,and taken the form of another medicine, more holy and moreprofound. In the second place, bearing the most seductive andflattering promises, it has enlisted the motive of Religion, thesubject on which, even at this day, mankind is most in thedark. To crown all it has had recourse to the art of Astrology;and every man is eager to know the future and convincedthat this knowledge is most certainly to be obtained from theheavens. Thus, holding the minds of men enchained in thistriple bond, it has extended its sway over many nations, andthe Kings of Kings obey it in the East.“In the East, doubtless, it was invented—in Persia and byZoroaster. 36 All the authorities agree in this. But has there [62]not been more than one Zoroaster?... I have noticed that inancient times, and indeed almost always, one finds men seekingin this science the climax of literary glory—at least Pythagoras,Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato crossed the seas, exiles,in truth, rather than travellers, to instruct themselves in this.Returning to their native land, they vaunted the claims of magicand maintained its secret doctrine.... In the Latin nations thereare early traces of it, as, for instance, in our Laws of the TwelveTables 37 and other monuments, as I have said in a former book.In fact, it was not until the year 657 after the foundation of Rome,under the consulate of Cornelius Lentulus Crassus, that it wasforbidden by a senatus consultum to sacrifice human beings; afact which proves that up to this date these horrible sacrificeswere made. The Gauls have been captivated by it, and that evendown to our own times, for it was the Emperor Tiberius who36If Pliny meant that it was here first codified and organised he may beright, but the conceptions on which magic rest are practically universal, and ofimmemorial antiquity.37 Adopted 451 B.C. Livy entitles them “the fountain of all public and privateright.” They stood in the Forum till the third century A.D., but have nowperished, except for fragments preserved in various commentaries.