2.
Merchants have access to them rather that they may have persons to whom they may
sell those things which they have taken in war, than because they need any
commodity to be imported to them. Moreover, even as to laboring cattle, in which
the Gauls take the greatest pleasure, and which they
procure at a great price, the Germans do not employ
such as are imported, but those poor and ill-shaped animals, which belong to
their country; these, however, they render capable of the greatest labor by
daily exercise. In cavalry actions they frequently leap from their horses and
fight on foot; and train their horses to stand still in the very spot on which
they leave them, to which they retreat with great activity when there is
occasion; nor, according to their practice, is any thing regarded as more
unseemly, or more unmanly, than to use housings. Accordingly, they have the
courage, though they be themselves but few, to advance against any number
whatever of horse mounted with housings. They on no account permit wine to be
imported to them, because they consider that men degenerate in their powers of
enduring fatigue, and are rendered effeminate by that commodity.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.