Note 1255 — Chapter V

J. Evans, Coins of the Anc. Britons, p. 98. The pentagram, which, says Professor Tylor (Ency. Brit., xv, 1883, p. 203), is ‘an interesting proof of tradition from the Pythagoreans’, has also been found on a more recently discovered British coin (J. Evans, Coins, &c.,—Suppl., p. 573); on a bucket in Carnarvonshire (Archaeol. Cambr., 6th ser., v, 1905, p. 256); on a pebble in a broch at Burrian, Orkney (ib.); and on Gallic coins of the Carnutes, Senones, Suessiones, and Remi (A. Blanchet, Traité des monn. gaul., pp. 331, 360, 378, 385-6).

M. d’Arbois de Jubainville (Études sur le droit celt., i, 1895, p. 5), referring to Mela, iii, 2, § 19 (unum ex his quae praecipiunt in vulgus effluxit, videlicet ut forent ad bella meliores, aeternas esse animas vitamque alteram ad manes. Itaque cum mortuis cremant ac defodiunt apta viventibus), asserts that the teaching of the Druids differed from that of Pythagoras: they did not inculcate metempsychosis, but merely the immortality of the soul. He also insists, quoting Valerius Maximus, ii, 6, § 10, that, in the belief of the Gauls, the life to come was analogous to life upon earth (cf. N. Fréret, Œuvres complètes, xviii, 1796, pp. 182-8). But it is not proved that Caesar, whose authority is higher than that of Mela, and whose testimony is not really contradicted by him, was misinformed when he said that the Druids taught non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios; and Valerius Maximus himself remarks that the belief of the Gauls was identical with that of Pythagoras. Many Christians, who believe in the immortality of the soul, also believe, or fancy that they believe, in the transmigration of souls. Still, as I have suggested in the text, it is quite possible that even the Druids did not preach the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, and that Caesar did not intend to convey that they did.