In Gaul, and to some extent in Ireland, the Druids formed a priestly corporation--a fact which helped classical observers to suppose that they lived together like the Pythagorean communities. While the words of Ammianus--_sodaliciis adstricti consortiis_--may imply no more than some kind of priestly organisation, M. Bertrand founds on them a theory that the Druids were a kind of monks living a community life, and that Irish monasticism was a transformation of this system.[1036] This is purely imaginative. Irish Druids had wives and children, and the Druid Diviciacus was a family man, while Cæsar says not a word of community life among the Druids. The hostility of Christianity to the Druids would have prevented any copying of their system, and Irish monasticism was modelled on that of the Continent. Druidic organisation probably denoted no more than that the Druids were bound by certain ties, that they were graded in different ranks or according to their functions, and that they practised a series of common cults. In Gaul one chief Druid had authority over the others, the position being an elective one.[1037] The insular Druids may have been similarly organised, since we hear of a chief Druid, _primus magus_, while the _Filid_ had an _Ard-file_, or chief, elected to his office.[1038] The priesthood was not a caste, but was open to those who showed aptitude for it. There was a long novitiate, extending even to twenty years, just as, in Ireland, the novitiate of the _File_ lasted from seven to twelve years.[1039] The Druids of Gaul assembled annually in a central spot, and there settled disputes, because they were regarded as the most just of men.[1040] Individual Druids also decided disputes or sat as judges in cases of murder. How far it was obligatory to bring causes before them is unknown, but those who did not submit to a decision were interdicted from the sacrifices, and all shunned them. In other words, they were tabued. A magico-religious sanction thus enforced the judgments of the Druids. In Galatia the twelve tetrarchs had a council of three hundred men, and met in a place called Drunemeton to try cases of murder.[1041] Whether it is philologically permissible to connect _Dru_- with the corresponding syllable in "Druid" or not, the likeness to the Gaulish assembly at a "consecrated place," perhaps a grove (_nemeton_), is obvious. We do not know that Irish Druids were judges, but the _Filid_ exercised judgments, and this may be a relic of their connection with the Druids.[1042]