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[8] Throughout these regions men gradually grew civilised and the study of the liberal arts flourished, initiated by the Bards, the Euhages and the Druids. 1 Now, the Bards sang to the sweet strains of the lyre the valorous deeds of famous men composed in heroic [p. 181] verse, but the Euhages, 2 investigating the sublime, attempted to explain the secret laws of nature. The Druids, being loftier than the rest in intellect, and bound together in fraternal organisations, as the authority of Pythagoras determined, were elevated by their investigation of obscure and profound subjects, and scorning all things human, pronounced the soul immortal.

1 The three are connected also by Strabo (iv. 4. 4), who says that the bards were poets; the euhages (οὐάτεις), diviners and natural philosophers; while the Druids studied both natural and moral philosophy. L.C.L. ii. p. 245.

2 Properly, Vates (οὐάτεις).

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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