14.
The Druids do not go to war, nor pay tribute together with the rest;
they have an exemption from military service and a dispensation in all matters.
Induced by such great advantages, many embrace this profession of their own
accord, and [many] are sent to it by their parents and relations. They are said
there to learn by heart a great number of verses; accordingly some remain in the
course of training twenty years. Nor do they regard it lawful to commit these to
writing, though in almost all other matters, in their public and private
transactions, they use Greek characters. That practice they seem to
me to have adopted for two reasons; because they neither desire their doctrines
to be divulged among the mass of the people, nor those who learn, to devote
themselves the less to the efforts of memory, relying on writing; since it
generally occurs to most men, that, in their dependence on writing, they relax
their diligence in learning thoroughly, and their employment of the memory. They
wish to inculcate this as one of their leading tenets, that souls do not become
extinct, but pass after death from one body to another, and they think that men
by this tenet are in a great degree excited to valor, the fear of death being
disregarded. They likewise discuss and impart to the youth many things
respecting the stars and their motion, respecting the extent of the world and of
our earth, respecting the nature of things, respecting the power and the majesty
of the immortal gods.
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