Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/59

Rh did not sow grain, but lived on milk and flesh, and that they clothed themselves in skins. Now as we have before observed this statement must be taken as given merely on report, and it is at any rate equivalent to informing us that the people on the coasts were clothed in garments not inferior to the people of the continent. From other ancient writers it appears that in some respects the Gauls were pronounced a people of luxurious habits even by the Romans, and it can scarcely be supposed therefore that the Britons could be unacquainted with the same refinements.

But in order to set the question at a decisive issue let us revert to what Cæsar has told us of the new mode of fighting he found opposed to him in Britain which with he says his soldiers were altogether unacquainted. He then who for so many years had been waging war not only with the Gauls but with other nations also, now for the first time seems to have encountered a mode of warfare which required great practice and discipline to carry into effect and also great resources and the power of a settled government to initiate. In these respects they must have been even superior to the Gauls therefore in the arts of war and in the arts of peace, to have got together such a force to oppose Cæsar in the first place and to be so well practised in it and to have carried it to such wondrous precision in the second. The suggestions this point raises carry us still further, and deserve our fullest consideration.

Cæsar does not anywhere tell us in express terms of the number of fighting men the Britons could bring into the field, as he does so often with regard to the Gauls. But after the victory he claims to have gained over Cassivelaunus, he says this prince retreated to one of his fastnesses, dismissing all his troops but 4000 Essedarii or those who fought in chariots. Now this is what a late celebrated public character would call a great fact. He does not give us any description of the chariots which he calls Essedæ, but P. Mela who lived about 50 years after him says they were driven some with two and some with four horses. He also says they were armed with scythes, of which Cæsar makes no mention nor does Tacitus. This last writer agrees with Mela in calling them Covini which word I consider taken from the Gaelic Britons and Esseda from the Cymric Britons. Another name given to them was Petorritum which in the Cymric or Welsh language may be understood literally to mean 4 wheeled, and here again there is fresh ground for amazement.

The use of such carriages and the skill attained in the use of them betokens good roads, or at any rate something