Cyclops Christiannus; or, an argument to disprove the supposed antiquity of the Stonehenge and other megalithic erections in England Britanny / A. Herbert.

  • Herbert, A. (Algernon), 1792-1855.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cyclops Christiannus; or, an argument to disprove the supposed antiquity of the Stonehenge and other megalithic erections in England Britanny / A. Herbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    29/260 (page 21)
    jiarative merits of these two modes of citing I am not casuist enough to decide. It has been disputed, whether the Gaulish Druids had any temples whatsoever, the evidence of it being considered slight and doubtful. The negative is strongly maintained by Dom Martin, in his Religion des Gaulois, Liv. i. c. 13, and adopted by Mr. Falconer in Strab. p. 277, not. 36. It is certain, there were sacred treasuries in many places. But (they argue) it is not said, that the treasures were kept in any building ; and they were guarded by religion alone, being merely brought in unum locum, and are described as harum rerum extructi tumuli locis consecratis. Caesar vi. 17. Their gold was chucked (eppnrTai) into sacred places (hpa kcu rzpivr]) unguarded or unenclosed, avupiva. Diod. Sic. v. c. 27. Some of their trea- sures were sunk in lakes or pools, which bestowed on them the greatest (a<ruXm) inviolability. Strabo iv. 261. But, as it is certain that the famous treasure of Thoulouse, the Aurum Tolosanum, was taken from out of the lake, (Strabo, ibid, Justin, xxxii. 3), and as Strabo says the Tolosan Tfpov pos- sessed that treasure, it is inferred that the lake itself was the only sanctuary, and was his Tepov, the Templa of A. Gellius? and Templum of Orosius. Where Suetonius states, that Csesar plundered the fana templaque Deum donis referta (Jul. c. 54), he is, and I think fairly, considered as merely asserting, in words of common use, the plunder of the sacred treasuries. And in like manner Cicero, when saying of the Gauls (pro Font. c. 10) that humanis hostiis aras ac templa funestant, was merely reviling their cruelties in con- ventional phrase, and not describing their works of art. However, upon consideration, I cannot go the whole length of those opinions. In the statement of Posidonius (ap. Strabo p. 260) that the gold was partly kept in the sacred lakes, and partly in certain places called crrjKoic, by which shrines or small temples are usually meant, the latter noun is very harshly explained by Dom Martin to mean a secret corner of the lake; and he does not consider the direct antithesis between Xfpvr) and crrjKoe. But the plainest fact on the sub- ject is one, which I do not see quoted ; that in an island near the mouth of the Loire, supposed to be Noirmoutier, there