Note 056 If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may observe that they intrusted not only their lives, but even their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, 10) quos, memoria proditum est, pecunias mutuas, quae his apud inferos redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly insinuated by Mela, 1. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy profession a character of responsibility which could scarcely be claimed by any other order of men.

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Note to Chapter 15 of DECLINE and FALL by Gibbon