Histoire des Celtes

only those who had killed enemies were worthy of this honor, according to Herodotus. Livy referring to Book XXIII, Chapter 24 says that the Boii, having cut off the head of Posthumius, made from his skull, plated with gold, a sacred vessel for the use of their temples. The Gauls, says Strabo, original: "capita illustrium virorum cedrino inungentes peregrinis oftentant" anoint the heads of illustrious men with cedar oil and display them to strangers. If Herodotus is to be believed, there were Scythians who used the skulls of their own fathers as cups, which they had gilded. The Christian religion could not abolish this ancient custom among the Lombards in the sixth century, since Alboin their king drank one day at a feast, and made Rosamond his wife drink from the skull of Cunimond her father-in-law referring to Paul the Deacon, History of the Lombards. Furthermore, the Celts never treated any business, whether public or private, for which a feast was not the ratification.

A crowd of ancient authorities tells us that the Scythians, and consequently the Celts, according to the author, were anthropophages cannibals; that they ate not only their enemies, but also their relatives and their own fathers, whom they killed when they were old. This barbarity revolts humanity. "One should not be surprised," says Mr. Pelloutier, "that the ancient inhabitants of Europe were cannibals. Several peoples of America are still so today. In the end, it is a thousand times greater barbarity to unjustly kill a man than to eat him. A dead body is not susceptible to any outrage, properly speaking; it suffers nothing; whereas it is a very real outrage to take the life of a man... A man of the sword would shudder at the mere proposal of eating human flesh; however, he will have no scruple about killing a man against all laws of justice and humanity, when he is called to it by the maxims of a false honor. This proves that even peoples who pass for the most enlightened still preserve different ideas, which are nothing other than the reversal of reason."

After this, the author does his best to exonerate the Scythian or Celtic peoples of having been cannibals. He admits that in times of famine, in sieges, and in certain unfortunate circumstances, they may have been reduced to feeding on human flesh; that even fury could have sometimes led them to drink the blood of their defeated enemies and eat their flesh. Pausanias, Florus, and Frontinus bear witness to this. But no author says he saw this barbarity committed. However, Saint Jerome tells us referring to Against Jovinianus, Book 2 that having had occasion in his youth to make a journey to the Gauls, he saw there Scots who ate human flesh. "As one finds nothing similar in Julius Caesar," says Mr. Pelloutier, "in Tacitus, nor in any of the other historians who have spoken of the Britons and the Scots, it must be either that Saint Jerome was deceived, he being then only a child, or that these Scots were madmen who, being in despair at having been torn from their homeland, committed the violence that Saint Jerome reports." Regarding the Scythians, who are accused of being cannibals, it was Herodotus who first brought this accusation against some Scythian peoples, and he was followed by Pliny, Solinus, and Pomponius Mela. But Herodotus copied Aristeas of Proconnesus and some other equally suspect authors, who placed these cannibals under the Arctic pole, and who told a quantity of fables about the Scythians. Strabo, Plutarch, and Lucian were likewise deceived by false memoirs. Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, who say that

the Irish were cannibals, do not guarantee the fact; they say only that it is a public rumor.

Our author nevertheless admits that the Scythians sacrificed to their gods a part of the prisoners they took in war, and that these barbaric sacrifices were always accompanied by feasts where they drank from skulls. He further admits that there were those among these peoples who put their elderly to death as burdens on society, and others where the fashion was for a man of honor to voluntarily renounce life when he was no longer in a state to bear arms. Moreover, the funerals of a Scythian or a Celte lasted several days and were for the relatives and friends of the deceased a time of celebration and good cheer; which has led to the belief that they ate their dead. This is very likely.

The Celts prided themselves on great cleanliness. "All the Gauls," says Ammianus Marcellinus, "are very careful in what regards the cleanliness of the body and clothes." Diodorus Siculus says the same thing of the Celtiberians, and Tacitus of the Germans. The Celts bathed often in rivers, in winter as in summer, and they regarded the Romans as effeminate because they bathed in hot water. Most of these peoples rubbed their faces with butter; Butyro, says Pliny, Barbari omnes unguntur All barbarians anoint themselves with butter. Ladies used the foam of beer for the same purpose. Diodorus Siculus says that the Celtiberians "washed their bodies with urine and rubbed their teeth with it." Strabo assures us that this custom was common to the Spaniards and the Gauls. It must have been a composition where urine entered for something. Is it believable that peoples so careful of cleanliness would have washed their faces and teeth with urine?

It was only after the foundation of Marseille that the Gauls, previously nomadic, began to cultivate the land and build cities. Most of the Germans were still nomads in the time of the first Emperors. Some are found as late as the fourth century who had no fixed dwelling. One should not therefore be surprised at the frequent migrations of the Celtic nations, which one can well compare to swarms of bees. Nothing attached them to one country rather than another. Geographers therefore give themselves useless trouble when they want to determine exactly the ancient dwelling of the Suebi, the Vandals, the Alans, and the other barbarians. One can mark only the vast regions they were accustomed to traverse, the rivers and mountains where they limited their ordinary courses.

When these peoples had begun to cultivate the land, they waited for the harvest and stopped in a region for at least the space of a year. It was then that some built houses, or rather huts. They also dug caves under mountains to store their harvest. Grain was perfectly preserved in these types of caves, and a crowd of ancient authors attests to the fact. When they left a region, they covered these cellars so well with earth and sod that it was not possible for an enemy to discover them. This is undoubtedly the origin of those vast underground passages found in several places, such as the famous caves of Chinon. The ancient authors unanimously call these caves sir or cir. In German, fehir signifies a barn.

The Gauls, the Spaniards, and the Thracians