A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

Gallic Society 445
heritance or about boundaries, these same persons decide
it. They decree rewards and punishments; and if any one
either publicly or privately refuses to submit to their decision,
they interdict him from the sacrifices. This among
them is the heaviest punishment. Those who have been
thus interdicted are esteemed impious and criminal: all
shun them and avoid their society and conversation, lest
they receive some e\-il from the contact; neither is justi'ce
administered to them when they seek it, nor is any dignity
bestowed on them.
Over all these druids one presides, who possesses supreme Their organ-
... ization.
authority among them. On his death any indi\idual who
is preeminent in dignity succeeds; but if many are equal,
the election is made by the votes of the druids; sometimes
they even contend in arms for the presidency.
The members
of the class gather at a fixed period of the year in a
consecrated place in the territory of the Carnutes, which
is considered the central region of the whole of Gaul.
Hither all who have disputes assemble from every quarter,
and submit to their decrees and decisions. This institution
is supposed to have been devised in Britain, and to have
been brought over from there to Gaul ; and now those who
wish to gain a more accurate knowledge of that system go
thither for the purpose of studying it.
The family,
Whatever sums of money the husbands have received as
dowry with their wives, they estimate, and add the same Caesar
• 1 r 1
amount from their own estates. An account is kept of this vi. ig.
whole sum and the profits are laid by; so that the one who
survives the other may receive the portion of both, together
with the profits. Husbands have power of life and
death over their wives as well as over their children.
When
the father of a family of uncommonly high rank has died,
his kinsmen assemble; and if the circumstances of his death
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