trict which was afterward known as East Anglia. The other Gaulish nations in Cæsar's time were included in the Catuvellaunian State, a central kingdom situated to the west of Icenia and the territory of the Trinobantes, and now generally known by the name of Catyeuchlany, or Capellani. All these nations, though nearly as much civilized as their continental neighbors, are reported to have been much simpler in their ways, probably on account of their not yet having gained wealth by a conquest of the mineral districts. They had not even learned to build regular towns, though their kinsmen in Gaul had already founded cities with walls, and streets, and market-places. What they called a town, or dunum, was still no more than a refuge for times of war, a stockade on a hill-top or in the marshy thickets. When peace was restored, they returned to their open villages, built of high bee-hive huts with roofs of fern or thatch, like those which might be seen in the rural parts of Gaul. These wigwams were made of planks and wattle-work, with no external decoration except the trophies of the chase and the battle-field: for a chief's house, it seems, would be adorned with skulls of his enemies, nailed up against the porch, among the skins and horns of beasts. The practice was described by Posidonius as prevailing among northern nations, and he confessed that, though at first disgusted, he soon became accustomed to the sight. The successful warrior would sling his enemy's head at his saddle-bow; and the trophies were brought home in a triumphal procession, and were either nailed up outside, or, in special cases, were embalmed and preserved among the treasures of the family. As they had but recently settled on the island, we may suppose that in features and physique they resembled their kinsmen on the continent, and differed in many respects from the Britons of the preceding migration. All the Celts, according to a remarkable consensus of authorities, were tall, pale, and light-haired; but, as between the 1 Cæsar, De Bell. Gall., v, c. 21. 2 Strabo, iv, 297. The Museum of Aix contains bas-reliefs representing Gaulish knights carrying home the heads of their enemies; and on a coin of the Eduan Dubnorix "le chef tient à la main une tête coupée.' -Napoléon, Vie de César, ii, 36, 361. 4 See Livy, xxxviii, 17, 21; and compare the Gauls on the shield of Æneas, "golden-haired and decked with gold." Aurea cæsaries ollis atque aurea vestis, two stocks in question, we learn from Strabo that the Gauls were the shorter and the stouter of limb, and with hair of a paler color. The accuracy of the old descriptions of the Gauls, so far at least as concerns the kings and the chieftains, has been ascertained by comparing the figures that remain upon monuments and medals, and by an examination of the skeletons from Gaulish tombs in France. The women, especially, were singularly tall and handsome; and their approximation to the men in size and strength is the best evidence that the nation had advanced out of the stage of barbarism. The men and women wore the same dress, so far as we can judge from the figures on the medals of Claudius. When Britannia is represented as a woman, the head is uncovered, and the hair tied in an elegant knot upon the neck; where a male figure is introduced, the head is covered with a soft hat of a modern pattern. The costume consisted of a blouse with sleeves, confined in some cases by a belt; of trousers fitting close at the ankle, and a tartan of plaid fastened up at the shoulder with a brooch. The Gauls were expert at making cloth and linen. They wove thin stuffs for summer, and rough felts or druggets for winter-wear, which, Pliny tells us, were prepared with vinegar, and to have been so tough as to resist the stroke of a sword. We hear, moreover, of a British dress, called guanacum by Varro, which was said to be woven of divers colors, and making a gaudy show. They had learned the art of using alternate colors for the warp and woof, so as to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares. The cloth, says Diodorus, was covered with an infinite number of little squares and lines, as if it had been sprinkled with flowers, or was striped with crossing bars, which formed a chequered design. They seem to have been fond of every kind of ornament. They wore collars and torques of gold, necklaces and bracelets, and strings of brightly-colored beads, and in their style and mode of dress they were much governed by fashion. Thus in Cæsar's time a ring Strabo, iv, 273. 'See Logan's Scottish Gael, i, c. 6, for an account of the ancient Highland dress, and of the manufacture of tartan in the Hebrides. "Bark of alder was used for black; bark of willow produced flesh-color." Crotil geal," a lichen found on stone, was used to dye crimson, "and another, called Crotil dubh, of a dark color, only dies a filamot."-Ibid., 237. Diod. Sic., v, 27; "Les Gaulois portaient des colliers, des boucles d'oreilles, des bracelets, des anneaux pour les bras en or et en cuivre, suivant leur rang, des colliers en ambre," etc.-Napoléon, Vie de César, ii, 30. was worn on the middle finger; but in the next genera tion the fashion changed, and that finger was left bare, while all the rest were loaded.1 A chief dressed in the Gaulish fashion must have been a surprising sight to a traveler. His clothes were of a flaming and fantastic hue; his hair hung down like a horse's mane, or was packed forward in a thick shock, if he followed the insular fashion. The hair and mustache were dyed red with the Gallic soap, a mixture of goat's fat and the ashes of beechen logs. They decked themselves out in this guise to look more terrible in battle; but Posidonius, when he saw them first, declared that they looked for all the world like satyrs, or wild men of the woods. The equipment of the Gauls and Belgians in war has been often and minutely described. The shield was as high as a man. The helmet was ornamented with horns and a high plume, and was joined to the bronze cheekpieces, on which were carved the figures of birds and the faces of animals, in high relief. The cuirass was at first of plaited leather, and afterward was made of chain-mail or of parallel plates of bronze. For offence they wore a ponderous saber, and carried a Gaulish pike, with flamelike and undulating edges, so as to break the flesh all in pieces. Their spears or harpoons often had a double or a triple barb, and in addition to these and the bow, dart, and sling, their ordinary missile equipment, they had some other weapons, of which the use is more difficult to explain. Strabo mentions, for instance, a kind of wooden dart, used chiefly in the chase of birds, and which flew farther than any ordinary javelin, though it was thrown without the aid of the casting-thong. The mataris was another missile, of which the nature is not now clearly 1 Galliæ Brittanniæque in medio (annulum) dicuntur usæ. Hinc nunc solus excipitur; ceteri omnes onerantur, atque etiam privatim articuli minoribus aliis. Plin., Hist. Nat., xxxiii, 24. Prodest et sapo, Galliarum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis; fit ex sebo et cinere. Optimus fagino et caprino.-Plin., Hist. Nat., xxviii, 12. The same wash or dye was used by the Batavi and other Teutonic tribes.-Spuma Batava. Mart. Epig., viii, 23. Caustica Teutonicos ascendit spuma capillos.—Ibid., xiv, 26. For the Gaulish weapons, see Diod. Sic., v, 30; Strabo, iv, 197. "Le Musée de Zurich possède une cuirasse gauloise formée de longues plaques de fer. Au Louvre et au Musée de Saint-Germain il existe des cuirasses gauloises en bronze. La cotte de mailles était une invention gauloise."-Napoléon, Vie de César, ii, 34. 4 Εστι δὲ καὶ γρόσφῳ ἐοικὸς ξύλον, ἐκ χειρὸς οὐκ ἐξ ἀγκύλης ἐφιέμένον, τηλεβελώτερον καὶ βέλους, ᾧ μάλιστα καὶ πρὸς τὰς ὀρνέων χρῶνται θήρας.—Strabo, iv, 197. understood. It may be the weapon which is depicted on some Gaulish coins, where a horseman is seen throwing a lasso, to which a hammer-shaped missile is attached; and, if the supposition is correct, it will explain many obscure passages in ancient writings, where the weapon is described as returning to the hand of the person who cast it.1 The scythed chariots, or covini, should be noticed in this connection. They seem to have been low, twowheeled carts, drawn by two or four horses apiece, on which a number of foot-soldiers, or rather dragoons, could be carried within the enemy's line. The captain or driver of the chariot was in command of the party. The charioteers drove at full gallop along the enemy's front, and sought to confuse his ranks by the noise of the charge, and the danger of being run down or caught by the scythes attached to the chariots. The drivers in the mean time drew off and formed a line, behind which their men could rally in case of need. These tactics appear to have been peculiar to the British Gauls, the inland Britons being accustomed to rely upon their infantry, and the continental Gauls being fonder of the cavalry arm. The Romans were not so much impressed with the use of the bronze scythes, which they had often seen in Gaul, as with the novelty of the whole manoeuvre and the wonderful skill of the drivers. They could stop their teams at full speed on a steep incline, or turn them as they pleased at a gallop, and could run out on the pole and stand on the yoke, and get back to their place in a moment.”2 The mataris is described in the same passage of Strabo, Marapls wáλtov Teloos. Cicero mentions it as a distinctive weapon of the Gauls.-Ad Her.. iv, 32. Among the weapons which returned to the thrower were the club of Hercules, which was supposed to be attached to a lasso: see Servius on Virg., En., vii, 741, "Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateiam." In connection with the above, notice the following passage from the Origines of Isidore of Seville, which is chiefly remarkable for its omission of the lasso mentioned by Servius. "Clava est qualis fuit Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis invicem religata, et est cubito semis facta in longitudine. Hæc est cateia, quam Horatius Caiam dicit. Est genus Gallici teli ex materiâ quam maximè lentâ: quæ jactu quidem non longè, propter gravitatem evolat, sed ubi pervenit vi nimiâ perfringit. Quod si ab artifice mittatur, rursus redit ad eum qui misit. Hujus meminit Virgilius, dicens 'Teutonico ritu, etc.' Unde et eas Hispani Teutones' vocant.". Isid. Orig., xviii, c. 7. The interest of the question lies in the fact that these reflexive missiles are sometimes confused with the Australian boomerang, which, if skilfully cast, will wheel back in the air to the thrower; and several strange ethnological theories have been founded on this supposition.-See Ferguson's Essay on the Antiquity of the Boomerang. 'Cæsar, De Bell. Gall., iv, 33; Tac. Agric., c. 12; compare Lucan, Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana frenis, Et docilis rector rostrati Belga covini.”—Lucan, Pharsal., i, 425. The British Gauls appear to have been excellent farmers, skilled as well in the production of cereals as in stockraising, and the management of the dairy. Their farms were laid out in large fields, without inclosures or fences; but they had learned to make a separation of the pasture and arable land, and to apply the manures which were appropriate to each kind of field. Their stock was much the same as that which their successors used for many years afterward; their cattle were mostly of the small Welsh breed, called the "Celtic short-horn"; and their horses, or ponies as we should rather call them, were used apparently for food as well as for purposes of draught. With the aid of these details, we can form a reasonably clear idea of the life of the people, which will be further illustrated by the following lively sketch from a work in which all the descriptions are based on the authority of ancient writers. "The time of year is the end of the summer, when the oats and rye were reaped, and the lawns and meadows round the homesteads had been mown. The cattle are on the downs or in the hollows of the hills. Here and there are wide beds of fern, or breadths of gorse, and patches of wild raspberry with gleaming sheets of flowers. The swine are roaming in the woods and shady oak-glades, the nuts studding the brown-leaved bushes. On the sunny side of some cluster of trees is the herdsman's round wicker house, with its brown conical roof and blue wreaths of smoke. In the meadows and basins of the sluggish streams stand clusters of tall old elms waving with the nests of herons; the bittern, coot, and water-rail are busy among the rushes and flags of the reedy meres. Birds are churming' in the wood-girt clearings, wolves and foxes slinking to their covers, knots of maidens laughing at the water-spring, beating the white linen or flannel with their washingbats, the children play before the doors of the round straw-thatched houses of the homestead, the peaceful abode of the sons of the oaky vale. On the ridges of the downs rise the sharp cones of the barrows, some glistening in white chalk or red with the mold of a new burial, and others green with the grass of long years.' "1 About one half of what is now England belonged in The scythed chariots were common in Gaul, and their remains have not unfrequently been found in the tombs of the Gaulish chieftains. They are said to have been used in Persia, and may have been introduced by the Greeks of Marseilles. 1 Barnes, Notes on Ancient Britain, 53. |