FROM THE COMMENTARIES OF CESAR. 149 
resort there, rather than to Athens. Following 
the example of whom, and being at the same 
time not engaged in war, the Gauls devoted 
themselves to the same pursuits.” 
This passage may, at first sight, appear to 
countenance the more common interpretation; 
but when all the circumstances of the case are 
examined, it gives it no support. Strabo pub- 
lished his Geography about sixty years after 
Cesar’s wars in Gaul. In that interval a great 
improvement had taken place in the civil con- 
dition of the Gauls. through the influence of 
their subjection to the Roman sway; for by the 
judicious but rigid exercise of power, the Ro- 
mans soon changed the intellectual and moral 
condition of the barbarous nations subjugated 
by them. But during their barbarous state, 
before their subjugation by Cesar, they were 
too constantly engaged in wars and turbulence, 
foreign and domestic, to render it at all probable, 
or indeed possible, that Strabo’s description of 
the state of things could be applicable to them 
at that period; and the very words of Strabo 
sufficiently guard us against such an application. 
For if the Gauls had been acquainted with Greek 
literature before the time of Cesar’s wars, the 
expression “of late,’ or “short time before;” 
