the last; but the mythological reputation of the spot is of no modern date, for Pomponius Mela, who calls the island Sena, speaks of it as follows: 'Sena, in the Britannic Sea, opposite the coast of the Osismi, is famous for its oracle of a Gaulish god, whose priestesses, living in the holiness of perpetual virginity, are said to be nine in number. They call them Gallizenae, and they believe them to be endowed with extraordinary gifts, to rouse the sea and the wind by their incantations, to turn themselves into whatsoever animal form they may choose, to cure diseases which among others are incurable, to know what is to come and to foretell it. They are, however, devoted to the service of voyagers only who have set out on no other errand than to consult them.'[1] Mela says nothing about the divinity's temple; but all the islands on the coast of Brittany had their religious associations, and one of these spots, more to the south than Sein, was spoken of by Posidonius, a Greek who travelled in the first century B.C. Strabo and others who made use of his narrative speak of it as possessed by the women of the Namnites,[2] whose name probably survives in that of Nantes on the Loire. These Namnite women are represented as priestesses of a god whom ancient authors identified with Bacchus, on account solely, as it would seem, of the noisy and orgiastic nature of the cult to which
- ↑ De Chorographia, ed. Parthey, iij. cap. 6. The best MSS. read Gallizenas vocant, which one is tempted to emendate into Galli Senas vocant; but it is open to doubt.
- ↑ The readings of this name vary: Meineke in his edition of Strabo, iv. 4, 6, reads τὰς τῶν Σαμνιτῶν γυναῖκας; while Dionysius Periegetes, Orbis Descriptio (Müλler's Geog. Gr. Minores, ij. 140), line 571, has ἀγαυῶν Ἀμνιτάων; but it is highly probable that the people meant were those whom Caesar, iij. 9, calls Namnites.
