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9. Of the gods, Mercury  62 is the principal object of their adoration; whom, on certain days,  63 they think it lawful to propitiate even with human victims. To Hercules and Mars  64 they offer the animals usually allotted for sacrifice.  65 Some of the Suevi also perform sacred rites to Isis. What was the cause and origin of this foreign worship, I have not been able to discover; further than that her being represented with the symbol of a galley, seems to indicate an imported religion.  66 They conceive it unworthy the grandeur of celestial beings to confine their deities within walls, or to represent them under a human similitude:  67 woods and groves are their temples; and they affix names of divinity to that secret power, which they behold with the eye of adoration alone.


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