Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Caledonians and Gerrnans. 14^
foldier will be apt to do for a Prince who happens
to wear an imperial Crown.
Among the Germans there was a powerful na-
tion cjiftinguifhcd by the name of Arians, of
whom we have the following account. " The
Arians are peculiarly fierce, and they fludy to
heighten their natural ferocity by the help of art,
and favourable opportunities. Their fhields are
black, their bodies are painted, and they make
choice of the darkefl nights for fighting their bat-
tles. The confequence is, that by the horrible
appearance they make, and by the dreary afpedt
of their death-like armies, their enemies muft be
greatly terrified : nor can any of thefe ftand out
againfl fuch new, and one may fay, infernal ob-
jeds ; for the eyes of men are firft of all overcome
in battles *."
It is needlei^ to fay that the Caledonians
painted their bodies like the Arians, and with the
fame defign : nor will it be denied that the Bri-
tons of the South were once addided to the fame
cuftom. Were we to admit the German extrac-
tion of the Pids, we might alfo fuppofe that this
cuftom travelled Southward from Caledonia.
It is an opinion generally received, that the firft
inhabitantsof South Britain came thither from Gaul.
The vicinity of the two countries, and that clofe
fimilarity which the Romans found in the religion,
language and charader of the refpedive inhabi-
tants of the two countries, are the arguments with
which Tacitus endeavours to eflabliih this opi-
nion ; and thefe arguments are more than plaufi-
ble. But whether the ancient inhabitants of South
Tacit, de mcr. Cv.va. cap. 43,
Britain