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Hello, the earliest known case of religious persecution in these islands took place

two thousand years ago in the first century AD. The oppressors were the occupying forces of

the Roman Empire, and their victims were the Druids, an ancient religious order which was

ruthlessly eliminated from Roman Britain. The Druids were active in Britain, Ireland and

Gaul and Flourish for many centuries. They were reasonably well chronicled by ancient authors,

including Julius Caesar and Posidonius. Much later, thanks to a revival of interest in the

17th century, they inspired a wealth of literature and art. But because the Druids were on oral

culture and left no written records of their own, comparatively little is known about their

beliefs and practices. And the reinvestions of the Druidical traditions by romantic writers

have resulted in much misconception and myth. With me to discuss the ancient Druids are

Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas at Royal Holloway, University of

London, Barry Cunliffe, Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford,

and Miranda Oldhouse Green, Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University, just in champion

who were the Druids and where did they live? The Druids really, I think, flourished between

the late 4th century BC and the end of the 2nd century AD. They're predominantly map onto the

late Iron Age culture called Latin. They're very eminent in England, in Britain, in Wales,

and in Britain, in Gaul. So they cover that period. The problem we have is that the

sources, the literary sources that expose their traditions are very, very fragmentary,

their palimpses written over earlier traditions. We know Druids existed in this culture because

we can look at place names, we can look at the spread of Celtic language, but actually identifying

...