Latin Texts & Translations

The Gallic provinces, too, were pervaded by the magic art, ^[Note] and that even down to a period within memory; for it was the Emperor Tiberius that put down their Druids, ^[Note] and all that tribe of wizards and physicians. But why make further mention of these prohibitions, with reference to an art which has now crossed the very Ocean even, and has penetrated to the void ^[Note] recesses of Nature? At the present day, struck with fascination, Britannia still cultivates this art, and that, with ceremonials so august, that she might almost seem ^[Note] to have been the first to communicate them to the people of Persia. ^[Note] To such a degree are nations throughout the whole world, totally different as they are and quite unknown to one another, in accord upon this one point!

Such being the fact, then, we cannot too highly appreciate the obligation that is due to the Roman people, for having put an end to those monstrous rites, in accordance with which, to murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and to eat ^[Note] his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health.