[2741] These sacrifices forming the most august rite of the Magic art, as practised in Italy.
[2742] That this art was still practised in secret in the days of Pliny himself, we learn from the testimony of Tacitus (Annals, II. 69), in his account of the enquiries instituted on the death of Germanicus.
[2743] More particularly in the worship of their divinity Heu or Hesus, the god of war.
[2744] This he did officially, but not effectually, and the Druids survived as a class for many centuries both in Gaul and Britain.
[2745] He alludes to the British shores bordering on the Atlantic. See B. xix. c. 2.
[2746] It is a curious fact that the round towers of Ireland bear a strong resemblance to those, the ruins of which are still to be seen on the plains of ancient Persia.
[2747] “Ut dedisse Persis videri possit.” This might possibly mean, “That Persia might almost seem to have communicated it direct to Britain”. Ajasson enumerates the following superstitions of ancient Britain, as bearing probable marks of an Oriental origin: the worship of the stars, lakes, forests, and rivers; the ceremonials used in cutting the plants samiolus, selago, and mistletoe, and the virtues attributed to the adder’s egg.
[2748] Ajasson seems inclined to suggest that this may possibly bear reference to the Christian doctrines of redemption and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
[2749] These kinds of divination, rather than magic, were called hydromancy, sphæromancy, aëromancy, astromancy, lychnomancy, lecanomancy, and axinomancy. See Rabelais, B. iii. c. 25, where a very full account is given of the Magic Art, as practised by the ancients. Coffee-grounds, glair of eggs, and rose-leaves, are still used in France for purposes of divination by the superstitious.
[2750] Suetonius says that his body was full of foul spots.