CREDIBILITY OF BOETHIUS. 129 



home, and at the very outside of his conquests ; 

 Boethius one then existing at Cumbernauld, in a 

 straight line only about thirty miles from Edinburgh, 

 respecting which, even if it came not — as probably it 

 did — within his personal cognisance, he had means of 

 procuring information far superior to Caesar's. And 

 the result shows the greater credibility of Boethius ; 

 for while there is no internal evidence to show any 

 exaggeration in his statements with regard to the 

 inhabitants of the Caledonian Wood, Csesar gave the 

 most absurdly fabulous account of two animals in the 

 Hyrcinian Forest, which are supposed to be the rein- 

 deer and the elk.* The first he describes as having 

 " one horn only rising from the middle of its forehead ;" 

 the other as being "broken-horned, and without joints 

 and articulations in their legs," so that " if they laid 

 or tumbled down, they never could get up again," and 

 therefore used " the trees for their beds, and took their 

 repose reclining gently against them." Primarily, 

 Csesar's account of the Hyrcinian Urus is clearly, when 

 you take into consideration the incredible statements 

 he made with regard to other animals in the same 

 forest, far less trustworthy than that of Boethius 

 respecting the Caledonian mountain bull ; but as 

 regards the Urus, Csesar's narrative was confirmed 



* "Csesar. Comment.," lib. vi., chap. xxvi. : — "Est bos cervi figura, 

 cujus a media fronte inter aures nnum cornu exsistit, excelsius magisqne 

 directum his, quae nobis nota sunt cornibus. Ab ejus summo, sicut palmae, 

 ramique late diffunduntur," &c. And chap, xxvii. : — " Sunt item quae 

 appellantur alces. Harum est consimilis capris figura et varietas pellium, 

 sed magnitudine paullo antecedunt : mutilseque sunt cornibus, et crura sine 

 nodis articulisque habent : neque quietis causa procumbunt, neque, si quo 

 afflictse casu conciderunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt 

 arbores pro cubilibus : ad eas se applicant, atque ita, paullum modo 

 reclinatse, quietem capiunt," &c. 



