roads, and since Cæsar makes known the existence of bridges on the Aisne, the Rhine, the Loire, the Allier, and the Seine.
Their skill in agriculture appears to have astonished the Romans. While the latter were using a most primitive plough, Pliny writes of the Gauls: ' here has been invented, at a comparatively recent period, in that part of Gaul known as Rhastia (Gallia Togata), a plough with the addition of two small wheels, and known by the name of "plaumorati" (supposed to be derived from the Belgic ploum, a plough, and rat or radt, a wheel).. . . . . The Gauls have invented a method of carrying their plough on small wheels. Their ploughshare, which is flat like a shovel, ploughs very well through the soil. A pair of oxen suffice. After sowing the seed, they harrow with a kind of iron hurdle with spikes or teeth, and which is dragged over the ground.' From the various notices of Gaulish agriculture given by ancient writers, we are led to believe that this people were the most skilled in tilling the soil of all the Western nations.
They were naturally agriculturists, and we may suppose that the institution of private property existed among them, because, on the one hand, all the citizens paid the tax, except the Druids, and, on the other, the latter were
M. Varronis quarto decimo Rerum Divinarum; quo in loco Varro, quum de petorrito dixisset, esse id verbum Gallicum dixit' (Aulus Gellius, XV. 30.)—'Petoritum et Gallicum vehiculum est, et nomen ejus dictum esse existimant a numero quatuor rotarum. Alii Osce, quod hie quoque petora quatuor vocent. Alii Græce sed αἰολικῶς dictum.' (Festus, voc. Petoritum, p. 206, edit, Müller.)—'Belgica esseda, Gallicana vehiculae. Nam Belga civitas est Galliæ in qua hujusmodi vehiculi repertus est usus,' (Servius, Commentaries on the Georgics of Virgil, lib. iii. v. 204.)
