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254 MONTAIGNE'S ESSAYES
—— Sulmone creates
Quatuor hic juvenes, totidem quos educat Ufens,
Viventcs rapit, inferias qous immolet umbi is. 1
Foure young-men borne of Sulmo, and foure more
Whom Usens bred, he living over-bore,
Whom he to his dead friend
A sacrifice might send.
The Getes deeme themselves immortall, and their
death but the beginning of a journey to their God
Zamolxis. From five to five yeares they dispatch
some one among themselves toward him, to require
of him necessarie things. This deputy of theirs is
chosen by lots; and the manner to dispatch him,
after they have by word of mouth instructed him of
his charge, is that amongst those which assist his
election, three hold so many javelins upright, upon
which the others, by meere strength of armes, throw
him ; if he chance to sticke upon them in any mortall
place, and that he dye suddenly, it is to them an assured
argument of divine favour; but if he escape, they
deeme him a wicked and execrable man, and then
chuse another. Amestris, mother unto Xerxes, being
become aged, caused at one time fourteen young
striplings of the noblest houses of Persia (following the
religion of her countrie) to be buried all alive, thereby
to gratifie some God of under earth. Even at this day
the Idols of Temixitan are cemented with the bloud of
young children, and love no sacrifice but of such infant
and pure soules: Oh justice, greedy of the bloud of
innocencie.
Tantum religio portuit suadere malorum.²
Religion so much mischeefe could
Perswade, where it much better should.
The Carthaginians were wont to sacrifice their owne
children unto Saturne, and who had none was faine to
buy some: and their fathers and mothers were enforced
in their proper persons, with cheerefull and
pleasant countenance to assist that office. It was a
¹ VIRG. AEn. 1. x. 517. ² LUCR. 1. i. 102.