E X T R A C T.

xxxvj

They had cities very early on compared to other Celts. When these peoples had settled in a country, and they had learned from civilized nations how to divide the lands and for each to have their own house, they felt the necessity to cover and fortify themselves. The Spaniards built strong cities to stop the conquests of the Phoenicians, the Phocaeans, and the Carthaginians; and the Gauls took the same precautions with regard to the Romans and the Germanic peoples. The Thracians did the same thing to prevent the Greeks, who, since the time of Darius Hystaspes, had made several settlements on the coasts of the Euxine Sea The Black Sea, from penetrating further into the country.

A certain thing, which one will perhaps have trouble believing, is that the ancient Celts, Gauls, and others, did not know the use of clothes at all, or at least the clothes they wore left the greatest part of their body uncovered. But how could naked men resist the excessive cold that formerly reigned throughout all of Celtica? For, as the author showed in Book I, Gaul and Germany were formerly much colder countries than today because of the forests with which they were covered: this is what is read in several ancient authors who speak of these countries as we speak today of Sweden and Norway. Their children did not cover their bodies before reaching the age of puberty. original: "Germani maximo frigore nudi agunt, antequam puberes ſint" The Germans live naked in the greatest cold before they are of age, says Pomponius Mela. original: "Liberi in omni domo nudi ac ſordidi" The children in every house are naked and dirty, says Tacitus. original: "Germani magnâ parte corporis nude" The Germans are naked in a large part of the body, says Caesar, who assures in another place in his Commentaries that the Germans covered only a part of the body with some skins; original: "Propter pellium exuitatem magnâ eſt corporis pars aperta" Because of the scantiness of the skins, a great part of the body is open. Seneca also says original: "Germanis inteſta corpora" The Germans have uncovered bodies. Agathias, speaking of the Franks, says, original: "Franci nudi pectora ac terga ad lumbos" The Franks are naked of breast and back to the loins. The skin with which they covered their shoulders down to the kidneys was called a Sagum a thick woolen cloak or frock. Justin says of the Scythians: original: "Scythis lane uſus ac veſtium ignotus, quamquàm continuis frigoribus urantur" The use of wool and clothing is unknown to the Scythians, although they are burned by constant cold. However, they use the skins of wild beasts or martens original: "Pellibus tamen ferinis aut Murinis utuntur". Mr. Pelloutier translated pellibus Murinis as mouse skins. Would he believe, like some people, that the mouse is the female of the rat (*)? I know that some authors have called the Sable marten "Moscow Mouse." But the translation does not give the right idea of this animal.

When the Celts began to dress, it was skins that they wore. The Germans and the Britons preserved this ancient simplicity the longest. Clothing made of linen succeeded the clothing of skins. Finally, the Spaniards and the Gauls learned from their neighbors how to make woolen fabrics. The Orientals, who established colonies on the coasts of Italy, Spain, and the Gauls, brought their arts there. Thus, most manufactures originate from the East. They are still today, in certain respects, more perfect than those of Eu-

(*) A poor joke. Who does not see that Mr. Pelloutier did not mean to speak of the mice that retreat into the holes of houses? The Scythians did not know the use of clothing; they were consequently ignorant of the art of sewing and tailoring mouse skins to make garments suitable for protecting them from the cold. They used skins which, without any help from art, could cover a part of their body. These were skins of wild beasts, or of Moscow mice, that is to say, martens. One sees, in reading Chapter VII of Book II of the History of the Celts, that such is the sense of Mr. Pelloutier's translation.

rope. The author says that the Sarmatians, besides their skins, wore long robes of black color; which caused them to be called by the Greeks Melanchlenes Black-cloaks. Herodotus says that the Greeks established in Scythia had assured him that the Scythians called Neuri were changed once a year into wolves, and that at the end of a few days, they resumed their natural form. "They have not," he says, "persuaded me of the thing, although they assert it strongly, even with an oath." Herodotus does not notice that they had played upon his credulity. The Neuri, in the great cold, covered themselves with a sagum frock made of wolf skin, and they left off this fur when the weather softened. There is also talk of certain Scythians called Panotii all-ear, who did without clothes in the midst of the most excessive cold, nature, it is said, having provided them with such large ears that they could wrap their whole body. "Some Greeks," says our author, "who had seen them dressed in a sagum, which covered the back of their head and their shoulders like a hood, had the pleasant imagination that this pelisse was an appendage of the ears, and made jests about it in their country." Such is the origin of the tale, and of most of those of this kind.

When the Celts had taken woolen garments, these garments consisted, firstly, in the sagum cloak, in the wide breeches called bracca braies, and in the doublet, tunica tunic. The sagum was a cloak shorter than the chlamys of the Greeks. The tunic descended only to the hips, and it had short sleeves. Mézeray is therefore mistaken when he says, in his History of France before Clovis, that the tunic of the Gauls was "a kind of trousers, which did not go quite to the knees, and which had no sleeves." The sleeves of the Roman tunic descended only to the elbow.

The laws of propriety did not allow the Celts to appear in public without their arms; and when they died, they were buried with them. This custom was common to all the Scythian peoples.

The first inhabitants of Greece, who descended from the Scythians, also had this custom, as did the Persians. Thucydides says that arms were formerly worn in Greece in times of peace, and that the Athenians were the first who renounced this barbaric custom. referring to Thucydides, Book 1, Chapter 6 Our author maintains with reason that however ancient this custom may be, however universal it still is today, it is a ferocious custom, unreasonable, and contrary to the laws of a good police civil order. A society cannot indeed be formed and maintained except by the engagement not to offend each other reciprocally, and to leave to the magistrate the care of punishing injustices and violence. Every man who draws the sword instead of calling the laws to his aid violates the fundamental law of civilized nations, which forbids one from taking justice into one's own hands. This custom exposes one to all the inconveniences that men wanted to prevent by renouncing the natural equality into which they are all born, to submit to magistrates. "The ancient inhabitants of Greece," says Thucydides Book 1 Chapter 5, "were brigands. This is the origin of the custom that some peoples still preserve of going everywhere with their arms." Although the Scythians had kings and judges who administered justice in the cantons, they never submitted so much to their judgments that they did not reserve the liberty of doing justice to themselves. On the other hand, the Greeks and Romans believed that the custom of carrying arms in time of peace over-