Augustus and the Celtic Religion

The ban imposed by Augustus on Roman citizens to attend Druidic rites broke for the first time after almost half a century with the 'silence / assent', with which Caesar, the subsequent Roman governors and the prince himself had tolerated the Celtic religion until approximately 13/12 BC. The measures concerning Druidism and, more generally, the religious situation of Roman Gaul were some of the first measures adopted by Augustus as soon as he became pontifex maximus: a truly significant indication of the urgency, which he attributed to the need to intervene with radical measures in the complex panorama of Celtic rites and cults.