enclosures of the gods. For in the temples and sacred enclosures consecrated in their country gold is deposited in quantities, and not one of the natives touches it owing to superstition, although the Kelts are excessively avaricious[1]." This passage seems to explain thoroughly the real nature of the treasures of Tolosa; they were doubtless ancient votive offerings under a taboo, not, as Timagenes imagined, some of the treasure of Delphi, dedicated to appease the wrath of Apollo, with additions from the private resources of the Tectosages themselves. In the same chapter Diodorus says that "there is no silver at all found in Gaul, but gold in abundance, of which the natives get supplied without mining or hardship. The currents of the rivers, which are tortuous in their course, beat against the banks formed by the adjacent mountains, and bursting away considerable hills, fill them with gold dust. This the persons who are engaged in the workings collect, and they grind or break up the lumps which contain the gold dust. Then having washed away the earthy part with water, they transfer the gold to furnaces for smelting. In this fashion heaping up quantities of gold, not only the women but likewise the men employ it for adornment. For they wear bracelets round their wrists and arms, and thick torques of solid gold round their necks and rings of remarkable size, and moreover breast-*plates of gold." The statement regarding silver is not accurate, as the more careful and trustworthy Strabo mentions silver mines in various places in Gaul. Finally, in the land of the Tarbelli, an Iberian tribe of Aquitania, who dwelt in the extreme south-west corner of Aquitania on the shore of the Bay of Biscay, there were extremely productive gold-mines. "For in spots dug only to a shallow depth are found plates of gold that sometimes require little refining, and the rest consists of dust and nuggets which involve but little working[2]."
I have purposely gone somewhat minutely into the gold-fields of ancient Gaul, and the story of the sacred treasures. For I think that no one who considers carefully the statements of Posidonius, Strabo, and Diodorus, can help regarding as wholly inaccurate the conclusion of Schrader, based on the Irish
