sons we
partly recognize the modern Gael, or the inhabitants of the Highlands of
Scotland: huge bodies, blue eyes, bristly hair; even their dress and
armor are those of the Highlanders, for they wore the checked and
variegated tartans; their arms consisted of the broad, unpointed
battle-sword, the same weapon as the claymore among the Highlanders.
They had a vast number of horns, which were used in the Highlands for
many centuries after, and threw themselves upon the enemy in immense
irregular masses with terrible fury, those standing behind impelling
those stationed in front, whereby they became irresistible by the
tactics of those times.

The Romans ought to have used against them their phalanx and doubled it,
until they were accustomed to this enemy and were enabled by their
greater skill to repel them. If the Romans had been able to withstand
their first shock, the Gauls would have easily been thrown into
disorder, and put to flight. The Gauls who were subsequently conquered
by the Romans were the descendants of such as were born in Italy, and
had lost much of their courage and strength. The Goths under Vitiges,
not fifty years after the immigration of Theodoric into Italy, were
cowards, and unable to resist the twenty thousand men of Belisarius:
showing how easily barbarians degenerate in such climates.

The Gauls, moreover, were terrible on account of their inhuman cruelty,
for, wherever they settled, the original towns and their inhabitants
completely disappeared from the face of the earth. In their own country
they had the feudal system and a priestly government: the Druids were
their only rulers, who avenged the oppressed people on the lords, but in
their turn became tyrants: all the people were in the condition of
serfs, a proof that the Gauls, in their own country too, were the
conquerors who had subdued an earlier population. We always find mention
of the wealth of the Gauls in gold, and yet France has no rivers that
carry gold-sand, and the Pyrenees were then no longer in their
possession: the gold must therefore have been obtained by barter. Much
may be exaggeration; and the fact of some noble individuals wearing gold
chains was probably transferred by ancient poets to the whole nation,
since popular poetry takes great liberty, especially in such
embellishments.

Pliny states that previous to the Gallic calamity the census amounted to
one hundred and fifty thousand persons, which probably refers only to