HKB
magistracy." A general was elected by placing him on a shield, and lifting him on the shoulders of the bystanders. The same ceremonial was observed in the election of kings.
[51] Hence Ambiorix, king of the Eburones, declare that "the nature of his authority was such, that the people had no less power over him, than he over the people."--Caesar, Bell. Gall. v. The authority of the North American chiefs almost exactly similar.
[52] The power of life and death, however, was in the hands of magistrates. Thus Caesar: "When a state engages either in an offensive or defensive war, magistrates are chosen to preside over it, and exercise power of life and death."--Bell. Gall. vi. The infliction of punishments was committed to the priests, in order to give them more solemnity, and render them less invidious.
[53] Effigiesque et signa quaedam. That effigies does not mean the images of their deities is proved by that is stated at chap. ix., viz. that they deemed it derogatory to their deities to represent them in human form; and, if in human form, we may argue, a fortiori, in the form of the lower animals. The interpretation of the passage will be best derived from Hist. iv. 22, where Tacitus says:--"Depromptae silvis lucisve ferarum imagines, ut cuique genti inire praelium mos est." It would hence appear that these effigies and signa were images of wild animals, and were national standards preserved with religious care in sacred woods and groves, whence they were brought forth when the clan or tribe was about to take the field.--White.
[54] They not only interposed to prevent the flight of their husbands and sons, but, in desperate emergencies, themselves engaged in battle. This happened on Marius's defeat of the Cimbri (hereafter to be mentioned); and Dio relates, that when Marcus Aurelius overthrew the Marcomanni, Quadi, and other German allies, the bodies of women in armor were found among the slain.
[55] Thus, in the army of Ariovistus, the women, with their hair dishevelled, and weeping, besought the soldiers not to deliver them captives to the Romans.--Caesar, Bell. Gall. i.
[56] Relative to this, perhaps, is a circumstance mentioned by Suetonius in his Life of Augustus. "From some nations he attempted to exact a new kind of hostages, women: because he observed that those of the male sex were disregarded."--Aug. xxi.
[57] See the same observation with regard to the Celtic women, in Plutarch, on the virtues of women. The North Americans pay a similar regard to their females.
[58] A remarkable instance of this is given by Caesar. "When he inquired of the captives the reason why Ariovistus did not engage, he learned, that it was because the matrons, who among the Germans are accustomed to pronounce, from their divinations, whether or not a battle will be favorable, had declared that they would not prove victorious, if they should fight before the new moon."--Bell. Gall. i. The cruel manner in which the Cimbrian women performed their divinations is thus related by Strabo: "The women who follow the Cimbri to war, are accompanied by gray-haired prophetesses, in white vestments, with canvas mantles fastened by clasps, a brazen girdle, and naked feet. These go with drawn swords through the camp, and, striking down those of the prisoners that they meet, drag them to a brazen kettle, holding about twenty amphorae. This has a kind of stage above it, ascending on which, the priestess cuts the throat of the victim, and, from the manner in which the blood flows into the vessel, judges of the future event. Others tear open the bodies of the captives thus butchered, and, from inspection of the entrails, presage victory to their own party."--Lib. vii.
[59] She was afterwards taken prisoner by Rutilius Gallicus. Statius, in his Sylvae, i. 4, refers to this event. Tacitus has more concerning her in his History, iv. 61.