52 On the supposed Change 



who travelled north of Italy. Ovid, among the curios- 

 ities of Thrace, the place of his exile, describes the 

 skins and close breeches of the inhabitants. 

 " Pellibus et sutis arcent mule frigora bracchis".,..Z)e Trist, libXiiAO* 



And it is perfectly well known that this customary dress 

 of the Gauls, gave rise to a distinctive appellation of the 

 south-western part of their country, which was called by 

 the Romans Gallia hraccata. The customary light dress 

 of the Romans, which continued down to the ages of 

 wealth and luxury, and therefore cannot be supposed to 

 have been the eiFect of necessity, as it is among savage 

 nations, furnishes strong evidence of the uniform mild 

 temperature of ordinar}-- winters in Ital}^ 



Velleius Paterculus, lib. xi. ca. 105. mentions that the 

 Roman troops, in the reign of Tiberius, kept their sum- 

 mer quarters, till December, in Germany, at the head 

 of the Lippe, near the modern Paderborn, in Westpha- 

 lia, and in the 52d degree of north latitude. — This was 

 favorable to the operations of the campaign, as the author 

 remarks ; and indicates a climate as temperate as in mod- 

 ern days. Yet at that time, the historian informs us, the 

 Alps were almost impassable by reason of snow. 



Xenophon, in his Anabasis or Expedition of Cyrus, 

 has described the sufferings of the troops in their retreat 

 through Armenia, four centuries before the christian era, 

 from great quantities of snow and severe frost. The 

 snow in one place, he says, was a fathom in depth : and 

 inany horses and slaves, and some soldiers died — others ji 

 lost their limbs by the frost.... ^ooA* 4. Three days be- 

 fore the snow fell, the troops forded the Euphrates, with 

 the water to their navel.' 



The troops of Lucullus experienced inconveniences 

 from the same cause, in the same country, during the 

 war against Mithridates. Plutarch informs us, in his! 

 life of that General, that before the winter equinox, the 

 weather grew tempestuous and great quantities of snow 

 fell ; that the soldiers, marching in the woods, were wet 

 by snow which fell from the trees — but at the same tim6, 



* This line is repeated, lib, 5. vii. with the change of sum to laxis, 

 loose breeches, or trowscrs. 



.i :.1 



