Book 15
9.8
Throughout these regions men gradually grew civilised and the study of the liberal arts flourished, initiated by the Bards, the Euhages and the Druids.The three are connected also by Strabo (iv. 4. 4), who says that the bards were poets; the euhages (οὐάτεις), diviners and natural philosophers; while the Druids studied both natural and moral philosophy. L.C.L. ii. p. 245. Now, the Bards sang to the sweet strains of the lyre the valorous deeds of famous men composed in heroic verse, but the Euhages,Properly, Vates (οὐάτεις). investigating the sublime, attempted to explain the secret laws of nature. The Druids, being loftier than the rest in intellect, and bound together in fraternal organisations, as the authority of Pythagoras determined, were elevated by their investigation of obscure and profound subjects, and scorning all things human, pronounced the soul immortal.
10.1
This country of Gaul, because of its lofty chains of mountains always covered with formidable snows, was formerly all but unknown to the inhabitants of the rest of the globe, except where it borders on the coast; and bulwarks enclose it on every side, surrounding it naturally, as if by the art of man.
