0 8 CEANIA BEITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
and wliieli Diosoorides expressly says was in Iberia and Britain made from wheat, and called
mirmi, meaning, there can be little donbt, the Celtic cwrw. A fermented drink from lioney, tlie
mead so celebrated by the "Welsh bards, was no doubt also made in very early times ; Diodorus
attributing its use to the Ganls, and Pytheas to the inhabitants of Thüle, by which some of the
isles of the north of Britain,—the Shetlands or the Faroes, were, by him, probably intended*.
Divided into a multitude of separate states, ruled each by its own petty king or chief, the
Britons were continually at war with each other, for which they eagerly sought excuses, in their
desire to augment their respective territories t ;—a condition of civil disunion, which prevented
the diiïerent states from combining to avert a common danger. In battle, they were distinguished
by their fierceness and the impetiiosity and violence of their attack, wliich they commenced
with loud clamour, barbarous shouts and songs of defiancej. If defeated, they would
exMbit the profoundest rage and despair ; joining the women in loud lamentations, deserting and
setting fire to their houses, destroying themselves, and even imbruing their hands in the blood of
their wives and children, that they might not be witnesses of their misery §. When victorious,
they were conspicuous for arrogance and ferocity ; putting aU to the sword, or, taking a more
savage revenge, as various historians agree, by hanging, burning, boiling or crucifying their
captives, or impaling them on stakes, and tearing out their entraüs and biu-ning these before
their eyes II. They were probably no strangers to the barbarous custom of the Celtic tribes of
the continent, (resembling that now practised by the Dyaks of Borneo,) of cutting off the heads of
their enemies, and sirspending them to the necks of their horses on their retm-n from battle,—
nailing them to the doors of their houses as trophies, in common with the heads of beasts killed
in the chase ; or, having prepaied them with cedna (pitch of cedars), preserving them as the
chiefest of their treasures^.
* Pliny, lib. xiv. § 29 ; lib. xxii. § 82. Dioscorides, De
Medica Materia, lib. ii. c. 110. Pytheas aj). Stiabon., lib. iv.
c. 0. ^ 0. Pliny, lib. xiv. § 20. Diodorus, lib. T. C. 26. cf.^
Tacit., Germania, c. 23. A sort of cider was also made in
the northern countries, perhaps in Britain. Virg. Georg.
lib. iii. T. 380; Phny, Ub. XV. § 17, 23.
t Pomp. Mela, lib. iii. c. 6. Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 12.
Diodorus (lib. v. c. 21) is clearly in error, in stating that for
the most part they lived peaceably together, as the " continentia
bella" of Cassivellaunus with the Triuobantes and other
British states are snificient to prove. Caesar, B. G. lib. v.
c. 11, 20.
J Dion a f . Xiph. lib. Ixii. § 4. Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 33.
Compare Diodorus, lib. V. c. 29. Livy, hb. xsxviii. c. 17. "Ad
hoc cantus ineuntium prselium et ululatus et tripudia, et quatientium
scuta in patrium quendam morem horrendus annorum
crepitus: omnia de industria. composita ad terrorem:" this
refers to the battle between Maulius and the Gauls, in Asia
Minor, B.C. 189.
§ Tacitus, Yit. Agric. c. 38. Compare Strabo, lib. iv.
c. 'l. § 5 ; lib. iii. e. 4. § 17. Boadicea destroyed herself by
poison, as Tacitus relates. (Ann. hb. siv. c. 37.) Ctesar relates
two suicides of Gallic chiefs (B. G. lib. c. 31; hb. viii.
c. 44). Tacitus describes the suicides of two other Gauls, Floras
and Sacrovir, the followers of the latter of whom, having set
fire to the place where they were, perished in one general carnage
(Ann, hb. iii. c. 42, 46). The terrible desperation of
the Cimbri, after their defeat by Marius and Catulus, 101 B.C.,
is described by Plutarch (Marius). The voluntary deaths of
the Celtic "soldurii" ("silodouroi" of Athenaius, lib. vi. c. 54)
may also be referred to. Caesar, B. G. lib. iii. c, 22. Strabo,
hb. iii. c. 4. § 18.
II Tacitus, Ann. Hb. xiv. c. 33. Dion aj). Xiph. hb. Lxii.
Horace (hb. iii. Od. 4. v. 33) alludes to the Britons as dreadful,
by their savage manners, to the strangers who were thrown
among them ; and such epithets as terrible, cruel, and fierce
are commonly coupled with their name, by the poets of the
age succeeding that of Juhus : Catullus, " horribilesque ultimosque
Britannos;" Juvenal, "nee terribiles Britones
Festus Avienus, " duris Britannis; " Numatian, "ferox
Britannus." The ferocity and wildness of manners of the
Britons, Gauls, and other northern nations are, in the astrological
system of Ptolemy, curiously ascribed to their situation
under the north-west trigon of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius,
and to their being governed by the lords of that trigon, Jupiter
and Mars occidental. De Judiciis Tetrabibli, lib. ii. c. 3.
^ Posidonius a]i. Strabon., lib. iv. c. 4. § 5. Diodorus, lib. v.
c. 29. Posidonius was an eye-witness of these practices, about
110 B.C., in Gallia Narbonensis. The mummied heads which
he describes, must have closely resembled those which are
brought to the museums of Europe from the Indians of the
Amazon, who to the present day have a similar custom. For
the use of " cedria or pitch of cedar," (probably a species of
Juniper), for the purpose of embalming, see Herodotus, lib. ii.
CHAP. V.] HISTOEICAL ETHNOLOGY OP BEITAIN. 69
In the terrible revenge taken by Boadicea in the successful revolt against the Eomans,
cruelties the most savage were practised. The noblest of the female captives were transfixed
naked at fuU length on stakes, and their breasts being cut off, were sewed to their mouths,
that they might appear to be themselves eating them*. This express assertion of the historian
affords strong evidence of the existence, sometimes (questioned, of cannibalism amongst the
Britons and Gauls; and curiously confirms the statement of St. Jerome, as to the revolting
practices in this respect, which, about the middle of the fourth century, he had himself witnessed
in Gaul, among some Attacots from Britain t- That the manners and customs of the inhabitants
of Ireland, when they fii-st became known to the Eomans, did not differ mttch from those of
Britain, is asserted by TacitusÍ. They were clearly, however, more barbarous; and their
addiction to some forms of cannibalism rests on the testimony of several authors. Diodorus
says it was reported of the Britons who inhabited Irin, as weH as of the most northern of the
Gauls, that they eat human flesh. Strabo also describes them as more savage than the Britons,
and that, as anthropophagi, they deemed it praiseworthy to eat the dead bodies of their parents.
SoUnus, who, in common with Mela, insists on their inhospitable and savage manners, asserts
that when victorious in war, they besmeared their faces with the blood of the slain before
drinking it§. Though these and simüar inhuman customs were suppressed in Gaul, and those
parts of Britain subjected to the Eoman sway, they evidently long survived in the western island
and in the more remote parts of the north of Britain.
The Britons, like the Celts of the continent, were characterized by great laxity in all that
regards the intercourse of the sexes and the relations of married life; presentmg in this respect
a striking contrast to the strict chastity which formed so marked a feature in the character of
the ancient Germans. Ciesar describes a systematic and monstrous form of concubinage, by
' which ten or twelve men had mves in common, brothers especially among brothers, and parents
among their children; incestuous practices, which, as regards lerne, are stiU further dwelt upon
by Strabo II. In the time of Severus, the Caledonians are described as having wives in common,
and rearing the whole of their progeny ; and Eusebius, in the fourth century, aUudes to the fact
of one wife being in Britain common to many men 1". In the remote isles of the Hebrides, the
c. 87. Diodorus, hb. i. c. 91. Pliny, lib. xiii. § 11. Occasionally
the Gauls converted the skulls of their enemies into
drinking cups, having first mounted them with gold.
" At Celtic vacui capitis circumdare gaudent
Ossa (nefas) anro, et mensis ea pocula servant."
Silius, hb. xih. V. 482.
See also Livy, lib. xxiii. c. 24. " Ut mos iis est, calvum auro
cajlavere." The practice of caiTying off the heads of the
slain as trophies, is commemorated on certain Gaulish coins of
Duhnoreix, identified by De Saussaye (Dissertation on Coins of
/Edui) with the Dumnorix of Ciesar. On these coins, an armed
warrior is represented with a human head in one or in each
hand. De Lagoy, Rech. Numismat. &c., 1849, p. 17. plate 2.
no. 2. Akerman, "Coins of Hispania, Galha,"&c., 1846,p. 172.
For this Gallic custom, see also Diodorus, lib. xiv. c. 115. Livy,
lib. X. c. 26; and compare with the details (in Herodotus, lib.
iv. c. 6-1, 6.5), of similar practices among the Scythians.
* Dion (/j)!ii?Xiph. hb. Ixii. § 3.
t " Pastorura nates et foeminarum papillas solere abscindere,
et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari."—Hieron. advers.
Jovian, lib. ii.
X Tacitus, Vit. Agric. c. 24.
§ Diodorus, lib. T. c. 32. Strabo, lib. iv. c. 5. § 4. Solmus,
c. 22. Pomp. Mela, lib. iii. c. 6. For the practice among the
Massagetie and Issedones, of eating their deceased parents, see
Herodotus, hb. i. c. 216 ; lib.iv.c. 26. Phny (lib.xxx. § 4),
speaking of Britain, seems to connect the practice of eatmg
human flesh with a supposed benefit to health; and (lib.vii. § 2)
referrmg to the human sacrifices of the Gauls, and perhaps the
Britons, observes that the difference is but small between sacrificing
men and eating them.
II CiEsar, B. G. lib. v. c. 14. Strabo, lib. iv. c. v. § 4.
Boadicea (Dion apud Xiph. lib. Ixii. § 2) herself is represented
as boasting that the Britons in her time had even wives
and children in common. Diodorus (lib. v. c. 32), Strabo
(hb. iv. c. 4. § 6), and Atheniieus (lib. xiii. c. 79) describe
particularly the impurity of manners of the continental Celts,
among whom the polygamy of the privileged orders, who
appear to have possessed regular harems (Csesar, B. G. lib.vi.
c. 19), was but a mmor evil.
^ Dion apudXifh. lib. Ixxvi. § 12, 16. Eusebius, Prsep.
Evang. lib. vi. c. 10. However savage many of then: customs,
L