or rather (as the inhabitants
of this Ile were then called) Samotheans. This prince is commended by
Berosus to be so plentifullie indued with wisedome and learning, that
Annius taketh him to be the vndoubted author of the begining and name of
the philosophers called Druides, whome Caesar and all other ancient
Greeke and Latine writers doo affirme to haue had their begining in
Britaine, and to haue bin brought from thence into Gallia, insomuch that
when there arose any doubt in that countrie touching any point of their
discipline, they did repaire to be resolued therein into Britaine, where,
speciallie in the Ile of Anglesey (as Humfrey Llhoyd witnesseth) they
[Sidenote: _Anti. lib._ 5.
_Annius super eundem_.
_De bello Gallico_. 6.]
made their principall abode. Touching their vsages many things are
written by Aristotle, Socion, Plinie, Laertius, Bodinus, and others:
which I will gather in briefe, and set downe as followeth. They had
(as Caesar saith) the charge of common & priuate sacrifices, the
discussing of points of religion, the bringing vp of youth, the
determining of matters in variance with full power to interdict so manie
from the sacrifice of their gods and the companie of men, as disobeied
[Sidenote: _Hist. an. lib._ 1.]
their award. Polydore affirmeth, how they taught, that mens soules could
not die, but departed from one bodie to another, and that to the intent
[Sidenote: _De diui. lib._ 1.]
to make men valiant and drealesse of death. Tullie writeth, that
partlie by tokens, and partlie by surmises, they would foretell things
to come. And by the report of Hector Boetius, some of them were not
ignorant of the immortalitie of the one and euerlasting God. All these
[Sidenote: _Hist. Scoti. li._ 2.
_De migr. gen. lib._ 2.
_Marcellinus_.]
things they had written in the Greeke toong, insomuch that Wolf. Lazius
(vpon the report of Marcellinus) declareth how the Greeke letters were
first brought to Athens by Timagenes from the Druides. And herevpon it
commeth also to passe, that the British toong hath in it remaining at
this day some smacke of the Greeke. Among other abuses of the Druides,
they had (according to Diodorus) one custome to kill men, and by the
falling, bleeding, and dismembring of them, to diuine of things to come:
for the which and other wicked practises, their sect was first condemned
for abhominable (as some haue written) and dissolued in Gallia (as
Auentinus witnesseth) by Tiberius and Claudius t