.

ACCESSORIES OF CULT.

TEMPLES.

In primitive religion the place of worship is seldom a temple made with
hands, but rather an enclosed space in which the symbol or image of the
god stands. The sacredness of the god makes the place of his cult
sacred. Often an open space in the forest is the scene of the regular
cult. There the priests perform the sacred rites; none may enter it but
themselves; and the trembling worshipper approaches it with awe lest the
god should slay him if he came too near.

The earliest temples of the Gauls were sacred groves, one of which, near
Massilia, is described by Lucan. No bird built in it, no animal lurked
near, the leaves constantly shivered when no breeze stirred them. Altars
stood in its midst, and the images of the gods were misshapen trunks of
trees. Every tree was stained with sacrificial blood. The poet then
describes marvels heard or seen in the grove--the earth groaning, dead
yews reviving, trees surrounded with flame yet not consumed, and huge
serpents twining round the oaks. The people feared to approach the
grove, and even the priest would not walk there at midday or midnight
lest he should then meet its divine guardian.[953] Dio speaks of human
sacrifices offered to Andrasta in a British grove, and in 61 A.D. the
woods of Mona, devoted to strange rites, were cut down by Roman
soldiers.[954] The sacred _Dru-nemeton_ of the Galatian Celts may have
been a grove.[955] Place-names also point to the widespread existence of
such groves, since the word _nemeton_, "grove," occurs in many of them,
showing that the places so called had been sites of a cult. In Ireland,
_fid-nemed_ stood for "sacred grove."[956] The ancient groves were still
the objects of veneration in Christian times, though fines were levied
against those who still clung to the old ways.[957]

Sacred groves were still used in Gallo-Roman times, and the Druids may
have had a preference for them, a preference which may underlie the
words of the scholiast on Lucan, that "the Druids worship the gods
without temples in woods." But probably more elaborate temples, great
tribal sanctuaries, existed side by side with these local groves,
especially in Cisalpine Gaul, where the Boii had a temple in which were
stored the spoils of war, while the Insubri had a similar temple.[958]
These were certainly buildings. The "consecrated place" in Transalpine
Gaul, which Caesar mentions, and where at fixed periods judgments were
g