Note (return) — Chapter XVI

Cæsar says that those afflicted with disease or engaged in battle or danger offer human victims or vow to do so, because unless man's life be given for man's life, the divinity of the gods cannot be appeased.790 The theory appears to have been that the gods sent disease or ills when they desired a human life, but that any life would do; hence one in danger might escape by offering another in his stead. In some cases the victims may have been offered to disease demons or diseases personified, such as Celtic imagination still believes in,791 rather than to gods, or, again, they may have been offered to native gods of healing. Coming danger could also be averted on the same principle, and though the victims were usually slaves, in times of great peril wives and children were sacrificed.792 After a defeat, which showed that the gods were still implacable, the wounded and feeble were slain, or a great leader would offer himself.793 Or in such a case the Celts would turn their weapons against themselves, making of suicide a kind of sacrifice, hoping to bring victory to the survivors.794