and paying their rent, could spare even in three years the money
and means requisite to meet the demands of such an occasion? But
the simple enunciation of the fact proves at least that the attacotts
were no slaves, but at most merely an inferior caste, deprived of
many civil rights, and compelled to pay taxes on land, contrary
to the universal custom of Celtic countries.

Caesar, it is true, pretends that real slavery existed among the
Celts in Gaul. But a close examination of that short passage in
his "Commentaries," upon which this opinion is based, will prove
to us that the slavery he mentions was a very different thing from
that existing among all other nations of antiquity.

"All over Gaul," he says, "there are two classes of men who enjoy
all the honors and social standing in the state--the Druids and
the knights. The plebeians are looked upon almost as slaves, having
no share in public affairs. Many among them, loaded with debt,
heavily taxed, or oppressed by the higher class, give themselves
in servitude to the nobility, and then, _in hos eadem omnia sunt
jura quoe dominis in servos_, the nobles lord it over them as, with
us, masters over their slaves."

It is clear from this very passage that among the Celts no such
servile class existed as among the Romans and other nations of
antiquity. The plebeians, as Caesar calls them, that is to say,
the simple clansmen, held no office in the state, were not summoned
to the councils of the nation, and, on that account, were nobodies
in the opinion of the writer. But the very name he gives them -
_plebs_ - shows that they were no more real slaves than the Roman
plebs. They exercised their functions in the state by the elections,