vin.] BRITISH ETHNOLOGY 171 



But the fact recorded by Suetonius, if fact it be, proves 

 nothing ; for the Germans themselves were in the habit of 

 reddening their hair. Ammianus Marcellinus 1 tells how, 

 in the year 367 A.D., the Eoman commander, Jovinus, 

 surprised a body of A]emanni near the town now called 

 Charpeigne, in the valley of the Moselle ; and how the 

 Eoman soldiers, as, concealed by the thick wood, they 

 stole upon their unsuspecting enemies, saw that some 

 were bathing and others "comas rutilantes ex more." 

 More than two centuries earlier Pliny gives indirect 

 evidence to the same effect when he says of soap : 



" Galliarum hoc iuventum rutilandis capillis . . . apud Germanos 

 majore in usu viris quam fceminis." 2 



Here we have a writer who flourished only a short time 

 after the date of the Caligula story, telling us that the 

 Gauls invented soap for the purpose of doing that which, 

 according to Suetonius, Caligula forced them to do. 

 And, further, the combined and independent testimony 

 of Pliny and Ammianus assures us that the Germans 

 were as much in the habit of reddening their hair as 

 the Gauls. As to De Belloguet's supposition that, even 

 in Caligula's time, the Gauls had become darker than 

 their ancestors were, it is directly contradicted by 

 Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew the Gauls well. 

 " Celsioris staturse et candidi poene Galli sunt omnes, et 

 ruti]i, luminumque torvitate terribiles," is his description; 

 and it would fit the Gauls who sacked Eome. 



III. In none of the invasions of Britain which have 

 taken place since the Roman dominion, has any other 

 type of man been introduced than one or other of the 

 two which existed during that dominion. 



The North Germans, who effected what is commonly 

 called the Saxon conquest of Britain, were, most 



1 Res Gestae, xxvii. 3 Historia Naturalis, xxviii. 51, 



