the knights. The former are engaged in things sacred, conduct
the public and the private sacrifices, and interpret all matters of
religion. To these a large number of the young men resort for the
purpose of instruction, and they [the Druids] are in great honor among
them. For they determine respecting almost all controversies, public and
private; and if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been
committed, if there be any dispute about an inheritance, if any about
boundaries, these same persons decide it; they decree rewards and
punishments; if any one, either in a private or public capacity, has not
submitted to their decision, they interdict him from the sacrifices.
This among them is the most heavy punishment. Those who have been thus
interdicted are esteemed in the number of the impious and criminal: all
shun them, and avoid their society and conversation, lest they receive
some evil from their contact; nor is justice administered to them when
seeking it, nor is any dignity bestowed on them. Over all these Druids
one presides, who possesses supreme authority among them. Upon his
death, if any individual among the rest is pre-eminent in dignity, he
succeeds; but if there are many equal, the election is made by the
suffrages of the Druids; sometimes they even contend for the presidency
with arms. These assemble at a fixed period of the year in a consecrated
place in the territories of the Carnutes, which is reckoned the central
region of the whole of Gaul. Hither all who have disputes assemble from
every part and submit to their decrees and determinations. This
institution is supposed to have been devised in Britain, and to have
been brought over from it into Gaul; and now those who desire to gain a
more accurate knowledge of that system generally proceed thither for the
purpose of studying it.

The Druids do not go to war, nor pay tribute together with the rest;
they have an exemption from military service and a dispensation in all
matters. Induced by such great advantages, many embrace this profession
of their own accord, and many are sent to it by their parents and
relations. They are said there to learn by heart a great number of
verses; accordingly some remain in the course of training twenty years.
Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to writing, though in
almost all other matters, in their public and private transactions, they
use Greek characters. That practice they seem to me to have adopted fo