In estimating the worth of this opinion, we must first of all discount a good deal of what Julian says. His mind was saturated with Hellenic philosophy and Hellas was the passion of his life. Hence he naturally despised Roman culture, and still more the Gauls whom the Romans contemned. The Greek idea of βάρβαροι would be strong in a mind like Julian’s. He did not mingle with the provincials; by the liberality of Eusebia, he says,[312] he was constantly surrounded by Greek books, so that Gaul and Germany became for him a Μουσεῖον Ἑλληνικόν. He would therefore be distinctly prejudiced, and incapable of appreciating the qualities or the culture of the Gallic mind. Moreover, there is another and an opposite tradition. Caesar distinctly testifies to their exceptional cleverness: ‘est summae genus sollertiae atque ad omnia imitanda atque efficienda, quae a quoque traduntur, aptissimum’,[313] and Diodorus is as clear: ταῖς δὲ διανοίαις ὀξεῖς καὶ πρὸς μάθησιν οὐκ ἀφυεῖς.[314] Clement of Alexandria, in his attempt to show that the Greeks by no means had the monopoly of philosophy, even went so far as to say, with manifest exaggeration, that the Gauls preceded and instructed the Greeks in philosophy,[315] and Claudian, disagreeing at any rate with the charge of dullness, in so far as slowness of spirit is suggested, applied to Gaul the adjective _animosa_.[316] Caesar tells us that the Gallic liveliness of spirit manifested itself in a curiosity about distant lands, an eagerness to learn from travellers, whom they detained, even against their will, plying them with many questions on every subject. In the towns a crowd would gather around some newly arrived merchant and compel him to describe the countries of his travel and their affairs.[317] This is the kind of curiosity that makes for knowledge and science, and it is hard to reconcile with the characteristics of dullness and stupidity. The width and general soundness of Caesar’s observation gives to his testimony a value which the other statements lack, for they are mostly founded on hearsay or particular cases. With regard to Hilary’s statement, Jung points out that the Pictavi seem from Ausonius to have been very backward in letters. Eight epigrams are directed against Rufus, rhetor at Poitiers, jibing at his lack of culture,[318] while another Pictavian teacher, Anastasius, was not much of a success.[319] ‘Can we wonder’, he concludes, ‘that Hilary calls the Gauls unteachable in the singing of hymns, when he himself was born at Poitiers?’[320]