Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/246
victim]. They cut off the right hands of their prisoners, and consecrate them to the gods.
7. All the mountaineers are frugal, their beverage is water, they sleep on the ground, and wear a profuse quantity of long hair after the fashion of women, which they bind around the forehead when they go to battle.[1] They subsist principally on the flesh of the goat, which animal they sacrifice to Mars, as also prisoners taken in war, and horses. They likewise offer hecatombs of each kind after the manner of the Greeks, described by Pindar,
“To sacrifice a hundred of every [species].”[2]
They practise gymnastic exercises,[3] both as heavy-armed soldiers, and cavalry, also boxing, running, skirmishing, and fighting in bands. For two-thirds of the year the mountaineers feed on the acorn, which they dry, bruise, and afterwards grind and make into a kind of bread, which may be stored up for a long period. They also use beer; wine is very scarce, and what is made they speedily consume in feasting with their relatives. In place of oil they use butter. Their meals they take sitting, on seats put around the walls, and they take place on these according to their age and rank. The supper is carried round, and whilst drinking they dance to the sound to the flute and trumpet, springing up and sinking upon the knees.[4]
In Bastetania the women dance promiscuously with the men, each holding the other’s hand. They all dress in black, the majority of them in cloaks called saga, in which they sleep on beds of straw. They make use of wooden vessels like the Kelts. The women wear dresses and embroidered garments. Instead of money, those who dwell far in the interior exchange merchandise, or give pieces of silver cut off
- ↑ This reminds one of the glibs the Irish used to wear down to a recent period.
- ↑ This passage is not found in any of the odes of Pindar now remaining.
- ↑ The French translators observe, that we should probably understand this passage as follows, They exercise themselves as light-armed infantry, heavy-armed infantry, cavalry, &c.
- ↑ Xenophon describes this, or one very similar, as the Persian dance: Τέλος δὲ τὸ Περσικὸν ὠρχεῖτο, κροτῶν τὰς πέλτας καὶ ὤκλαζε, καὶ ἐξανίστατο. “Last of all he danced the Persian dance, clashing his bucklers, and in dancing fell on his knees, then sprang up again.” Xen. Anab. b. vi. c. I, 10.