.

Roman treasury at his command; and he freely availed himself of it, as a means of convincing the Gauls.* What the result was, it is needless to say. Carthage fell soon after, never more to rise.

If we follow the Gauls into Asia, there we shall find their exploits, if possible, still more brilliant than those to which we have thus rapidly alluded. In a short time, they became masters of the whole shore of the Egean sea; they placed Nicomedus on the throne of Bythnia; in short, they forced all the principal states of Asia to pay them tribute. The terror which they inspired among the Asiatics would seem incredible, were it not fully authenticated. "Devant

la horde tictosage," says Thierry, "la population phrygienne fuyait comme un troupeau de moutons, et courait se réfugies dans les cavernes du mont Taurus; en Ionie les femme se tuaient à la seule nouvelle de l'approache des Gaulois; trois jeunnes filles de Milet prévinrent ainsi par une mort voluntaire les traitemens horrible qu'elles redoublaient.”+

They became a necessary militia, as we are told by the same author, for all the states of the East, whether warlike or peaceful, monarchical or republican. This may seem exaggeration; but Justinian is still more emphatic. Such, he says, was the terror of their name and the constant success of their arms, that no king on his throne believed himself safe, and that no deposed king hoped to be restored if they had not the strong arms of the Gauls in their favor.‡

Now, if we return to Britain for a few minutes, before closing our article, we shall see how true it is that, if the ancient Britons could speak, they might well reproach the modern Britons for their impious ingratitude in denying their kinship, as if they had been an imbecile, cowardly race; whereas, in point of fact, no race could have fought more bravely, or with nobler motives, in defence of their liberties.

Nothing pleased the Romans better than to see the Gauls withdraw in whole regiments from the Carthaginians, and they welcomed them eagerly into their own ranks. Les Romains les accueillaient avec empressement et les incorporaient à leur troupes; ce furent dit-on, les premiers étrangers admis dans les armées romaines en qualite de stipendiés. Once they had become dissatisfied with the Carthaginians, nothing could retain them in their service. Appian informs us that, after threats and bribes had alike failed, they crucified three thousand Gauls.

† Hist. des Gaulois, tome i., p. 192.

Reges Orientis sine mercenario Gallorum exercitu nulla bella gesserunt. Tantus terror gallici nominis, et armorum invicta felicitas, ut aliter neque ma jestatem suam tutam, neque amissam recuperare se posse, sine gallica virtute arbitrarentur.-Justin., lib. xxv., c. 2..

To prove this, it is almost sufficient to glance at the history of Caractacus and Boadicea, as written by their enemies. The former formed a powerful league against the Romans. In determining to give battle to the common enemy, with a force vastly inferior in discipline, if not in numbers, to the Roman legions, he ran from rank to rank proclaiming that day as one that would give liberty to the Britons, or chain them into eternal servitude. He recalled the names of the old Britons who had chased the dictator, Cæsar, and protected the honor of their wives and daughters. It was, however, an unequal contest: the Britons, although they fought bravely, were defeated and put to flight. The wife and daughters of Caractacus were captured, and his brothers surrendered at discretion; he had escaped himself, but was betrayed to his enemies. All were brought to Rome to grace grace the triumph of the conqueror. While his companions in misfortune implored pardon, the undaunted British chieftain approached the tribunal of the Emperor, and addressed him as follows, without, as Tacitus tells us, lowering his eyes, or saying a single word calculated to inspire pity (Aut vulti demisso, aut verbis misericordiam requirens): "If with my birth and my success I had observed moderation in my prosperity, I might have come here the friend of the Romans, not their captive; and you might not have disdained the alliance of a chief who is the issue of illustrious ancestors, and the commander of several nations. Now fate has humbled me as much as it has elevated you. I had horses, arms, soldiers, riches; is it strange that I wished to preserve these goods? If, Romans, your ambition wishes to give chains to all, is this a reason that all should accept them? Besides, my prompt submission had not rendered illustrious either my name, or your victory. If you condemn me to death, I shall soon be forgotten; if you spare my life, my name will eternally recall your clemency." There is, if possible, still stronger evidence of a noble soul in his exclamation, on seeing the magnificent palaces of the Mistress of the World: "What!" said he, to the Romans who accompanied him, "you possess all this splendor, and you covet our poor cabins in Britain ?”

More heroic still, if possible, was Boadicea. Contrary to her wishes, her husband, Prasutag, king of the Icenes, who possessed immense treasures, declared the Emperor Nero his heir, conjointly with his two daughters, hoping that

this friendly mark of submission would secure his kingdom and his family from insult. But all in vain. The centurions sacked his kingdom, the Roman slaves his palace. The latter being taken with all the violence of an assault, the soldiery commence their excesses by violating his two daughters, and scourging his wife, Boadicea, with rods. The queen did all that a woman could to arouse the whole island. Mounting her war chariot in preparing for battle, with her two outraged daughters by her side, she addressed the different tribes: "It was," she said, "no novelty for the Britons to march to battle under the command of their queens; but now, waiving all the rights of her ancestors, she came not to reclaim her kingdom and her power; she came as one of the least of her fellow-countrywomen, to avenge her outraged liberty-her body lacerated with scourges, her daughters dishonored. Roman insolence had reached that point that it respected neither virtue, infancy, nor old age. In fine, the gods, seconding a just vengeance, had destroyed the legion which had dared to fight. The others who had remained hidden in their camp, or who only thought of how they might escape, could not bear even the words and the cries, still less the shock and the blows of so many thousands of combatants; with such cause and army they must only conquer or perish; though a woman, such was her irrevocable resolution; as to the men, if they prefer it, they can accept life and slavery."*

The Roman general calls on his legions to despise the menaces of a barbarous horde, that consisted more of women than of soldiers; telling them that there could be but one result of the battle about to be fought that is, the complete overthrow of the Britons. Boadicea herself appears to have foreseen this, knowing that her undisciplined troops, which were much more a mob than an army, could have but little chance of success against the veteran legions of Rome. But the slightest hope in so noble a cause was sufficient to make a heroine of her, and she tried to infuse her own spirit into all her followers. Seeing her army cut down to the number of eighty thousand; the conqueror not sparing even the blood of the women; and scorning to grace the triumph of her enemy, she took a dose of poison which she had prepared for the occasion; so that she fell into the hands of Suetonius a lifeless corpse. The power of Rome was now

* Tacitus, Annal., lib. xiv., c. 85.

consolidated; but, sorely disheartened as they were, the Britons still continued to resist.

Because the Druids instructed the people and encouraged them not to submit to the domination of Rome, they were slaughtered like wild beasts; and, in order to justify the atrocities thus committed, the foulest calumnies were invented against the victims. Though the Druids seldom or never fought, themselves, they were the most formidable enemies that even Cæsar had encountered, for the simple reason that they were the thinkers of their time in all Celtic countries. Nor can we doubt that Cæsar had this in mind when he sketched their character. If the picture which he draws of them is not so dark as that given by Livy and Tacitus, we should remember that the latter had their chief materials from the lieutenants of Nero-from the very men who had exterminated the obnoxious priesthood. That the Druids, who were slaughtered by Suetonius, with thousands of women and children, to the great satisfaction of Nero, the most ruthless of tyrants, should have been represented as habitually guilty of the most revolting crimes, is, perhaps, no more than might be expected; but, that the same charges should be reproduced by modern historians, is a fact of a different character. But for this, too, there is a motive. We are not aware of a single instance in which the tyrant's character of the Druids has been adopted, but the writer who has adopted it is anti-Celtic. Sometimes darker tints are given to this picture than those that satisfied Nero; and then it is asked triumphantly what could be expected from a people, the ministers of whose religion were so ferocious and blood-thirsty. But even those who are most incensed against the Druids admit that they possessed some noble qualities—qualities which are certainly inconsistent with cruelty and vice. It is now almost universally acknowledged that a leading object of the Pythagorean religion, or the Metempsychosis, was, to protect the lower animals from ill-treatment. Pythagoras knew well that the most brutal mule-driver might be restrained from cruel treatment of the animal under his charge, if he was led to believe that it is perhaps the soul of one of his own ancestors that animates his body. Cæsar tells us that the Druids inculcated the same doctrine. "In particular," he says, "they desire to inculcate this: that the souls do not die, but after death pass from one body to another; and they think that

.

by this men are greatly excited to courage, the fear of death being destroyed." Maximus Tyrius informs us that the Druidical symbol of Jupiter was a tall oak (Dissert., p. 38). Indeed, there is nothing more remarkable in the religion of the Druids than their veneration for trees, especially for the oak. They not only offered their sacrifices upon them, but worshipped them. All antiquaries agree that a grove was essential to the performance of the Druidical rites; but it by no means follows from this that temples, such as we find in Celtic countries, were not erected in the groves-structures like those to be found everywhere in Ireland and Wales, and in many parts of England, Scotland, France, Spain, and Portugal. Most writers on Celtic antiquities are of opinion that Stonehenge in England is undoubtedly a Druidical temple; and, although it is now situated in a plain, where there is no grove and few trees, we are not to suppose that the situation has always been equally bare and exposed; though its present state is put forward by Mr. Pinkerton and others as an argument against its Druidical character. A similar veneration for trees prevailed among the ancient Hindoos, who were also believers in the metempsychosis.

"Man,"

says the Veda, "is like a high tree, the hair is his leaves, the skin the blood, the hard knots the bones," &c. But we have much more than this, nearer home, to show that a religious veneration for trees was not peculiar to the Druids. Perhaps all our readers are not aware that, according to the Scandinavian Edda, the whole human race are sprung from trees. “Then," says the prose Edda, Edda, "the sons of Bor (Odin, Vilè and Ve) went down to the sea shore, found two trees, took them, and formed thereof men. The first gave them breath and life; the second understanding and motion; the third gave them a fair visage (beauty of form), speech, hearing, and sight. The man they called Ash, and the woman Erla; from them descended the human race, who were assigned their abode in Midgard." Professor Adelung and several other German critics are of opinion that this idea of the creation was suggested to the Scandinavians either by the Brahmins or the Druids. Be this as it may, the latter were loved and honored by the Celts. "They" (the Druids) "are occupied, says Cæsar," with sacred things; they have charge of public and private sacrifices, and interpret religion.

*

* In primis hoc volunt persuadere non interire animas, sed ab aliis post mortem transire ad alios, &c.-De Bel. Gal., lib. vi., c. 14.