154 REMARKS ON FOUR EXTRACTS 
httere grece Cesar meant only the Greek letters 
or alphabet, and not the Greek language. 
In the first Extract it is only asserted, that 
the names and numbers of all, who had gone 
out on the expedition into Gaul, were written 
on tablets, in Greek letters. From this no con- 
clusive argument can be derived on either side. 
Names and numbers have not much relation to 
language. The use of the Greek language, 
even if we suppose it to have been used, in the 
mere expression of names and numbers, must 
have been exceedingly confined. Had the Hel- 
vetii, the rude inhabitants of the northern side 
of the Alps, been acquainted with the Greek 
language, (an acquisition then not general even 
among the Romans) Cesar would have proba- 
bly informed us, whence they had derived their 
knowledge of it; but the mere use of the Greek 
letters was not thought worthy of a particular 
explanation. 
In the second Extract we are told, that Cesar 
wrote to one of his lieutenants, Q. Cicero, who 
was besieged by the Gauls, a letter in Greek— 
Grecis conscriptam litteris*—by a Gallic horse- 
* The expression in the first Extract is, tabula litteris 
Grecis confecte; here in the second, Epistolam Grecis con- 
