[1271] M. G. Dottin (La rel. des Celtes, p. 41), remarking that Druids were also politicians, and that the Druid, Diviciacus, led a life which differed little from that of his brother Dumnorix, who was not a Druid, concludes that ‘il ne s’agit donc pas d’une classe sacerdotale, à plus forte raison, comme on l’a dit, d’un clergé gaulois’. Were there then no clergy in England in the days of Becket, or of Wolsey, or in France when Richelieu and Mazarin were supreme?
[1272] See H. d’A. de Jubainville, Les Druides, pp. 60, 64, which has come into my hands since I wrote this chapter.
[1273] The question may be asked, If there were Druids in South-Eastern Britain, why does Caesar not tell us what part they took, or whether they took any part, in the campaign of Cassivellaunus? As all readers of his memoirs have remarked, he is equally silent in regard to the political activity or the political apathy of the Druids of Gaul. ‘A singularly powerful priesthood,’ says Prof. Haverfield (Eng. Hist. Rev., xviii, 1903, p. 336), ‘numbering political leaders, like Divitiacus, among its ranks, might be expected in a national crisis to take some definite line, requiring notice in the Commentaries. Yet omit two chapters, and so far as the Commentaries go, the Druids might never have existed.’ M. Camille Jullian (Vercingétorix, 1902, pp. 107-11) argues that they did take an active part in the rebellion of Vercingetorix, but that Caesar chose to ignore the fact: Caesar ‘a laïcisé à outrance l’esprit et l’histoire de la Gaule.... Nul ne croira que la Gaule n’ait pas appelé prêtres et dieux à son secours’. Prof. Haverfield, who naturally asks ‘What motive had Caesar for this?’ suggests that an analogy ‘to these powerful non-political priests ... is provided by various priestly collegia at Rome, which include political leaders, but which in their augural or other capacity take no political action’, and maintains that the Druids, ‘as Druids, uttered no word against Caesar or for him’. But if so, why, at a time when their power had certainly diminished, did they aid and abet the insurrection of Civilis (Tacitus, Hist., iv, 54)? I would suggest that Caesar may have bought over the Arch-Druid (B. G., vi, 13, § 8)—and his use of secret-service money is one of the matters which he did not mention—and that if individual Druids did take part in a crusade, he may not have thought their action sufficiently important (if he was aware of it) to be worth recording.
[1274] B. G., v, 14, § 1.
[1275] Archaeol. Oxon., 1892-5 (1895), p. 159.
[1276] The word Britanniae (B. G., ii, 4, § 7) is of course used loosely.
[1277] J. Evans, Coins of the Anc. Britons, p. 83; Suppl., p. 483. See also pp. 51, 63, 65, 90, and 94 of the earlier volume.
[1278] Professor Rhys (The Welsh People, 1902, pp. 88-90) remarks that ‘since no hint as to a revolution is vouchsafed [in Caesar’s narrative (B. G., ii, 4, § 7)], the probability is that the empire of Diviciacos in this country subsisted under his successors in Caesar’s time. But,’ he continues, ‘Diviciacos’s people were the Suessiones and the Remi; so we should expect to find both of them represented in Britain, though their names have not been detected. Now we know from a couple of inscriptions that a god of the Remi was Camulos.’ The professor goes on to observe that Camulodunum ‘was near Colchester, in the country of the Trinovantes, in whom we are accordingly prepared to find the Remi we are seeking’; and, he says, ‘The next neighbours of the Trinovantes were the Catuvellauni, in whom we probably have our insular Suessiones. At any rate the name of the Catuvellauni was also that which, shortened into Catelauni ... eventually became ... Chalons, the name of a town ... in a district usually assigned to the Remi ... the Catuvellauni and the Trinovantes between them may be regarded as the upholders of the empire of Diviciacos,’ &c. But in Caesar’s time the Catuvellauni were the bitter enemies of the Trinovantes: Camulos was worshipped by many other tribes besides the Remi; and although it is probable that the Gallic Catuvellauni were clients of the Remi in the time of Caesar (Rice Holmes, Caesar’s Conquest of Gaul, 1899, pp. 476-7), it is not unlikely that they were one of the tribes which placed themselves under the protection of the Remi in consequence of the favour shown to the latter by Caesar (B. G., vi, 12, § 7). The passage in which Caesar mentions Diviciacus leaves upon my mind the impression that his empire, like that of Celtillus, the father of Vercingetorix, was short-lived. At all events there is no evidence for asserting its continuance.
[1279] Exigua parte aestatis reliqua Caesar, etsi in his locis, quod omnis Gallia ad septentriones vergit, maturae sunt hiemes, tamen in Britanniam proficisci contendit, quod omnibus fere Gallicis bellis hostibus nostris inde subministrata auxilia intellegebat, &c. B. G., iv, 20, § 1.
[1280] ... Οὐενετοὶ μὲν εἰσιν οἱ ναυμαχήσαντες πρὸς Καίσαρα· ἕτοιμοι γὰρ ἦσαν κωλύειν τὸν εἰς τὴν Βρεττανικὴν πλοῦν, χρώμενοι τῷ ἐμπορίῳ (Geogr., iv, 4, § 1)