national standards preserved with religious care in sacred woods and
groves, whence they were brought forth when the clan or tribe was about to
take the field.--_White_.

[54] They not only interposed to prevent the flight of their husbands and
sons, but, in desperate emergencies, themselves engaged in battle. This
happened on Marius's defeat of the Cimbri (hereafter to be mentioned); and
Dio relates, that when Marcus Aurelius overthrew the Marcomanni, Quadi,
and other German allies, the bodies of women in armor were found among the
slain.

[55] Thus, in the army of Ariovistus, the women, with their hair
dishevelled, and weeping, besought the soldiers not to deliver them
captives to the Romans.--Caesar, Bell. Gall. i.

[56] Relative to this, perhaps, is a circumstance mentioned by Suetonius
in his Life of Augustus. "From some nations he attempted to exact a new
kind of hostages, women: because he observed that those of the male sex
were disregarded."--Aug. xxi.

[57] See the same observation with regard to the Celtic women, in
Plutarch, on the virtues of women. The North Americans pay a similar
regard to their females.

[58] A remarkable instance of this is given by Caesar. "When he inquired
of the captives the reason why Ariovistus did not engage, he learned, that
it was because the matrons, who among the Germans are accustomed to
pronounce, from their divinations, whether or not a battle will be
favorable, had declared that they would not prove victorious, if they
should fight before the new moon."--Bell. Gall. i. The cruel manner in