FROM THE COMMENTARIES OF CESAR. 147 
The expression litfere Grece in the above 
extracts is ambiguous, and may signify either 
the Greek characters or elements, or the Greek 
language and literature; and this has rendered 
it necessary to ascertain the author’s meaning 
from collateral circumstances, and the probabi- 
lity of the case. In the result, however, the 
Commentators have failed to agree in opinion: 
some think that the Gauls and Druids wrote 
only the Greek letters, but others that they used 
the Greek language. Those who have adopted 
the latter opinion grant at the same time, that 
the knowledge of it was confined to the ingenut, 
—men of family and influence,—and te the 
Druids or priests. 
It is contended by those, who think that the 
use of the Greek language itself was meant to 
be asserted by Cesar, that the expression in 
question is rendered in the Greek metaphrasis 
by the word Eaayon, which cannot mean the 
Greek elements, but tongue. 
But the Greek translation is of so late a date 
and so indifferently executed,* as to be of little 
* Of this Davis says, in the preface to his edition—“ Quicun- 
que demum sit auctor, linguam Latinam minus calluit & a vitio- 
sis codicibus est deceptus: unde factum ut a Cesaris mente 
passim aberrarit, et sensum procuderit ineptum.” 
