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Sacrifice
An 18th century illustration of a wicker man, the form of execution that Caesar alleged the
druids used for human sacrifice. From the "Duncan Caesar", Tonson, Draper, and Dodsley
edition of the Commentaries of Caesar translated by William Duncan published in 1753.
Further information: Celts and human sacrifice, Threefold death and Ritual of oak and
mistletoe
Greek and Roman writers frequently made reference to the druids as practitioners of human
sacrifice, a trait they themselves reviled, believing it to be barbaric.[26] Such reports of druidic
human sacrifice are found in the works of Lucan, Julius Caesar, Suetonius and Cicero.[27]
Caesar claimed that the sacrifice was primarily of criminals, but at times innocents would
also be used, and that they would be burned alive in a large wooden effigy, now often known
as a wicker man. A differing account came from the 10th-century Commenta Bernensia,
which claimed that sacrifices to the deities Teutates, Esus and Taranis were by drowning,
hanging and burning, respectively (see threefold death).
Diodorus Siculus asserts that a sacrifice acceptable to the Celtic gods had to be attended by a
druid, for they were the intermediaries between the people and the divinities. He remarked
upon the importance of prophets in druidic ritual:
"These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the
sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power... and in very
important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest; by
observing the way his limbs convulse as he falls and the gushing of his blood, they are
able to read the future."
There is archaeological evidence from western Europe that has been widely used to back up
the idea that human sacrifice was performed by the Iron Age Celts. Mass graves found in a
ritual context dating from this period have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-
Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre in what was the region of the Belgae chiefdom. The
excavator of these sites, Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in
devotion to a war god,[28][29] although this view was criticized by another archaeologist,
Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors buried in
the sanctuary rather than sacrifices.[30] Some historians have questioned whether the GrecoRoman writers were accurate in their claims. J. Rives remarked that it was "ambiguous"
whether the druids ever performed such sacrifices, for the Romans and Greeks were known to
project what they saw as barbarian traits onto foreign peoples including not only druids but
Jews and Christians as well, thereby confirming their own "cultural superiority" in their own
minds.[31] Taking a similar opinion, Ronald Hutton summarized the evidence by stating that
"the Greek and Roman sources for Druidry are not, as we have received them, of sufficiently
good quality to make a clear and final decision on whether human sacrifice was indeed a part
of their belief system."[32] Nora Chadwick, an expert in medieval Welsh and Irish literature,
who believed the Druids to be great philosophers, has also fervently purported the idea that
they had not been involved in human sacrifice, and that such accusations were imperialist
Roman propaganda.[33] National Geographic recently revealed evidence that "[suggests] that
Druids possibly committed cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice." But Mark Horton, an
archaeologist at the University of Bristol associated with these recent findings, states that if
cannibalism was practised it was probably extremely rare; it may be evidence of increasing
hunger and desperation as Roman invaders closed in, or even the result of battle atrocities.[34]
Guy G. Stroumsa, as well as Thomas Hartwell Horne, states that these practices were
eventually halted with the introduction and spread of Christianity in Europe, as well as in the
Mediterranean region.[35][36]
One school of thought within historical scholarship has suggested that all of these accounts
are inherently unreliable, and might be entirely fictional. They have suggested that the idea of
the druid might have been a fiction created by Classical writers to reinforce the idea of the
barbaric "other" who existed beyond the civilized Greco-Roman world, thereby legitimising
the expansion of the Roman Empire into these areas.[43]
The earliest record of the druids comes from two Greek texts of c. 300 BCE: one was a
history of philosophy written by Sotion of Alexandria, and the other a study of magic that
was widely albeit incorrectly[citation needed] attributed to Aristotle. These mention the existence
of Druidas, or wise men belonging to the Keltois (Celts) and Galatias (the Galatians or the
Gauls).[44] Both texts are now lost, but were quoted in the 2nd century CE work Vitae by
Diogenes Laertius.[45]
Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar, the Roman general and later dictator, who wrote the "fullest" and "earliest original
text" to describe the druids.[44]
The first known text that describes the druids is Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello
Gallico, book VI, written in the 50s or 40s BCE. A military general who was intent on
conquering Gaul and Britain, Caesar described the druids as being concerned with "divine
worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual
questions." He claimed that they played an important part in Gaulish society, being one of the
two respected classes along with the equites (a term meaning 'horsemen' which has been
usually interpreted as referring to warriors) and that they performed the function of judges.
He claimed that they recognized the authority of a single leader, who would rule until his
death, when a successor would be chosen by vote or through conflict. He also remarked that
they met annually at a sacred place in the region occupied by the Carnute tribe in Gaul, while
they viewed Britain as the centre of druidic study; and that they were not found amongst the
German tribes to the east of the Rhine. According to Caesar, many young men were trained to
be druids, during which time they had to learn all the associated lore by heart. He also
claimed their main teaching was "the souls do not perish, but after death pass from one to
another". They were also concerned with "the stars and their movements, the size of the
cosmos and the earth, the world of nature, and the powers of deities", indicating they were
involved with not only such common aspects of religion as theology and cosmology, but also
astronomy. Caesar also held that they were "administrators" during rituals of human sacrifice,
for which criminals were usually used, and that the method was through burning in a wicker
man.[21]
Although he had first-hand experience of Gaulish people, and therefore likely with druids,
Caesar's account has been widely criticized by modern historians as inaccurate. One issue
raised by such historians as Fustel de Coulanges[48] and Ronald Hutton was that while Caesar
described the druids as a significant power within Gaulish society, he did not mention them
even once in his accounts of his Gaulish conquests. Nor did Aulus Hirtius, who continued
Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars following Caesar's death. Hutton believed that Caesar
had manipulated the idea of the druids so they would appear both civilized (being learned and
pious) and barbaric (performing human sacrifice) to Roman readers, thereby representing
both "a society worth including in the Roman Empire" and one that required civilizing with
Roman rule and values, thus justifying his wars of conquest.[49] Sean Dunham suggested that
Caesar had simply taken the Roman religious functions of senators and applied them to the
druids.[50] Daphne Nash believed it "not unlikely" that he "greatly exaggerates" both the
centralized system of druidic leadership and its connection to Britain.[51]
Other historians have accepted that Caesar's account might be more accurate. Norman J.
DeWitt surmised that Caesar's description of the role of druids in Gaulish society may report
an idealized tradition, based on the society of the 2nd century BCE, before the pan-Gallic
confederation led by the Arverni was smashed in 121 BCE, followed by the invasions of
Teutones and Cimbri, rather than on the demoralized and disunited Gaul of his own time.[52]
John Creighton has speculated that in Britain, the druidic social influence was already in
decline by the mid-1st century BCE, in conflict with emergent new power structures
embodied in paramount chieftains.[53] Other scholars see the Roman conquest itself as the
main reason for the decline of druidism.[54] Archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green (2010)
asserted that Caesar offered both “our richest textual source” regarding the druids, and “one
of the most reliable.” She defended the accuracy of his accounts by highlighting that while he
may have embellished some of his accounts to justify Roman imperial conquest, it was
“inherently unlikely” that he constructed a fictional class system for Gaul and Britain,
particularly considering that he was accompanied by a number of other Roman senators who
would have also been sending reports on the conquest to Rome, and who would have
challenged his inclusion of serious falsifications.[55]
Cicero, Diodorus Sicilus, Strabo and Tacitus
Crown of the "Deal Warrior", possibly worn by druids, 200–150 BCE, British Museum[56]
It would not only be Caesar, but other Greco-Roman writers who would subsequently
comment on the druids and their practices, although none of them would go into as much
detail as he. Caesar's contemporary, Marcus Tullius Cicero, noted that he had met a Gallic
druid, Divitiacus, who was a member of the Aedui tribe. Divitiacus supposedly knew much
about the natural world and performed divination through augury.[4] Whether Diviaticus was
genuinely a druid can however be disputed, for Caesar also knew this figure, and also wrote
about him, calling him by the more Gaulish-sounding (and thereby presumably the more
authentic) Diviciacus, but never referred to him as a druid and indeed presented him as a
political and military leader.[57]
Another classical writer to take up describing the druids not too long after was Diodorus
Siculus, who published this description in his Bibliotheca historicae in 36 BCE. Alongside
the druids, or as he called them, drouidas, whom he viewed as philosophers and theologians,
he also remarked how there were poets and singers in Celtic society whom he called bardous,
or bards.[37] Such an idea was expanded on by Strabo, writing in the 20s CE, who declared
that amongst the Gauls, there were three types of honoured figures: the poets and singers
known as bardoi, the diviners and specialists in the natural world known as o'vateis, and
those who studied "moral philosophy", the druidai.[58] Nonetheless, the accuracy of these
writers has been brought into question, with Ronald Hutton stating that "All that can be
concluded is that we have absolutely no secure knowledge of the sources used by any of these
authors for their comments on Druids, and therefore of their date, their geographical
framework or their accuracy."[59]
The Roman writer Tacitus, himself a senator and a historian, described how when the Roman
army, led by Suetonius Paulinus, attacked the island of Mona (Anglesey, Ynys Môn in
Welsh), the legionaries were awestruck on landing by the appearance of a band of druids,
who, with hands uplifted to the sky, poured forth terrible imprecations on the heads of the
invaders. He states that these "terrified our soldiers who had never seen such a thing
before..." The courage of the Romans, however, soon overcame such fears, according to the
Roman historian; the Britons were put to flight, and the sacred groves of Mona were cut
down.[60] Tacitus is also the only primary source that gives accounts of druids in Britain, but
maintains a hostile point of view, seeing them as ignorant savages.[61] Ronald Hutton
meanwhile points out that there "is no evidence that Tacitus ever used eye-witness reports"
and casts doubt upon the reliability of Tacitus's account of events.[62]
Irish and Welsh records
During the Middle Ages, after Ireland and Wales were Christianized, druids appeared in a
number of written sources, mainly tales and stories such as the Táin Bó Cúailnge, but also in
the hagiographies of various saints. These were all written by Christian monks, who,
according to Ronald Hutton, "may not merely have been hostile to the earlier paganism but
actually ignorant of it" and so would not have been particularly reliable, but at the same time
may provide clues as to the practices of druids in Ireland, and to a lesser extent, Wales.[63]
Irish literature and law codes
The Irish passages referring to druids in such vernacular sources were "more numerous than
those on the classical texts" of the Greeks and Romans, and paint a somewhat different
picture of them. The druids in Irish literature—for whom words such as drui, draoi, drua and
drai are used—are sorcerers with supernatural powers, who are respected in society,
particularly for their ability to perform divination. They can cast spells and turn people into
animals or stones, or curse peoples’ crops to be blighted. At the same time, the term druid is
sometimes used to refer to any figure who uses magic, for instance in the Fenian Cycle, both
giants and warriors are referred to as druids when they cast a spell, even though they are not
usually referred to as such; as Ronald Hutton noted, in medieval Irish literature, "the category
of Druid [is] very porous."[64]
When druids are portrayed in early Irish sagas and saints' lives set in the pre-Christian past of
the island, they are usually accorded high social status. The evidence of the law-texts, which
were first written down in the 7th and 8th centuries, suggests that with the coming of
Christianity the role of the druid in Irish society was rapidly reduced to that of a sorcerer who
could be consulted to cast spells or practise healing magic and that his standing declined
accordingly.[65] According to the early legal tract Bretha Crólige, the sick-maintenance due to
a druid, satirist and brigand (díberg) is no more than that due to a bóaire (an ordinary
freeman). Another law-text, Uraicecht Becc (‘Small primer’), gives the druid a place among
the dóer-nemed or professional classes which depend for their status on a patron, along with
wrights, blacksmiths and entertainers, as opposed to the fili, who alone enjoyed free nemedstatus.[66]
Welsh literature
While druids featured prominently in many medieval Irish sources, they were far rarer in
their Welsh counterparts. Unlike the Irish texts, the Welsh term commonly seen as referring
to the druids, dryw, was used to refer purely to prophets and not to sorcerers or pagan priests.
Historian Ronald Hutton noted that there were two explanations for the use of the term in
Wales: the first was that it was a survival from the pre-Christian era, when dryw had been
ancient priests, while the second was that the Welsh had borrowed the term from the Irish, as
had the English (who used the terms dry and drycraeft to refer to magicians and magic
respectively, most probably influenced by the Irish terms.)[67]
Archaeology
As the historian Jane Webster stated, "individual druids... are unlikely to be identified
archaeologically",[68] a view which was echoed by Ronald Hutton, who declared that "not one
single artefact or image has been unearthed that can undoubtedly be connected with the
ancient Druids."[3] A.P. Fitzpatrick, in examining what he believed to be astral symbolism on
Late Iron Age swords has expressed difficulties in relating any material culture, even the
Coligny calendar, with druidic culture.[69] Nonetheless, some archaeologists have attempted
to link certain discoveries with written accounts of the druids, for instance the archaeologist
Anne Ross linked what she believed to be evidence of human sacrifice in Celtic pagan
society—such as the Lindow Man bog body—to the Greco-Roman accounts of human
sacrifice being officiated over by the druids.[70][71]
An excavated burial in Deal, Kent discovered the "Deal warrior" a man buried around 200–
150 BCE with a sword and shield, and wearing a unique crown, too thin to be a helmet. The
crown is bronze with a broad band around the head and a thin strip crossing the top of the
head. It was worn without any padding beneath, as traces of hair were left on the metal. The
form of the crown is similar to that seen in images of Romano-British priests several
centuries later, leading to speculation among archaeologists that the man might have been a
druid.[72]
History of reception
Prohibition and decline under Roman rule
During the Gallic Wars of 58 to 51 BCE, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, conquered
the many tribal chiefdoms of Gaul, and annexed it as a part of the Roman Empire. According
to accounts produced in the following centuries, the new rulers of Roman Gaul subsequently
introduced measures to wipe out the druids from that country. According to Pliny the Elder,
writing in the 70s CE, it was the emperor Tiberius (who ruled from 14 to 37 CE), who
introduced laws banning not only druidism, but also other native soothsayers and healers, a
move which Pliny applauded, believing that it would end human sacrifice in Gaul.[73] A
somewhat different account of Roman legal attacks on druidism was made by Suetonius,
writing in the 2nd century CE, when he claimed that Rome's first emperor, Augustus (who
had ruled from 27 BCE till 14 CE), had decreed that no-one could be both a druid and a
Roman citizen, and that this was followed by a law passed by the later Emperor Claudius
(who had ruled from 41 to 54 CE) which "thoroughly suppressed" the druids by banning their
religious practices.[74]