rneys and marches, and believe him to have
very great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile
transactions. Next to him they worship Apollo, and Mars, and Jupiter,
and Minerva; respecting these deities they have for the most part the
same belief as other nations: that Apollo averts diseases, that Minerva
imparts the invention of manufactures, that Jupiter possesses the
sovereignty of the heavenly powers; that Mars presides over wars. To
him, when they have determined to engage in battle, they commonly vow
those things which they shall take in war. When they have conquered,
they sacrifice whatever captured animals may have survived the conflict,
and collect the other things into one place. In many States you may see
piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots; nor does it
often happen that any one, disregarding the sanctity of the case, dares
either to secrete in his house things captured, or take away those
deposited; and the most severe punishment, with torture, has been
established for such a deed.

All the Gauls assert that they are descended from the god Dis, and say
that this tradition has been handed down by the Druids. For that reason
they compute the divisions of every season, not by the number of days,
but of nights; they keep birthdays and the beginnings of months and
years in such an order that the day follows the night. Among the other
usages of their life, they differ in this from almost all other nations;
that they do not permit their children to approach them openly until
they are grown up so as to be able to bear the service of war; and they
regard it as indecorous for a son of boyish age to stand in public in
the presence of his father.

Whatever sums of money the husbands have received in the name of dowry
from their wives, making an estimate of it, they add the same amount out
of their own estates. An account is kept of all this money conjointly,
and the profits are laid by; whichever of them shall have survived the
other, to that one the portion of both reverts, together with the
profits of the previous time. Husbands have power of life and death over
their wives as well as over their children: and when the father of a
family born in a more than commonly distinguished rank has died, his
relations assemble, and if the circumstances of his death are
suspicious, hold an investigation upon the wives in the manner adopted
towards slaves; and if proof be obtained, put them to