[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 which the Cimbrian women performed their divinations is thus related by Strabo: "The women who follow the Cimbri to war, are accompanied by gray-haired prophetesses, in white vestments, with canvas mantles fastened by clasps, a brazen girdle, and naked feet. These go with drawn swords through the camp, and, striking down those of the prisoners that they meet, drag them to a brazen kettle, holding about twenty amphorae. This has a kind of stage above it, ascending on which, the priestess cuts the throat of the victim, and, from the manner in which the blood flows into the vessel, judges of the future event. Others tear open the bodies of the captives thus butchered, and, from inspection of the entrails, presage victory to their own party."--Lib. vii. [59] She was afterwards taken prisoner by Rutilius Gallicus. Statius, in his Sylvae, i. 4, refers to this event. Tacitus has more concerning her in his History, iv. 61. [60] Viradesthis was a goddess of the Tungri; Harimella, another provincial deity; whose names were found by Mr. Pennant inscribed on altars at the Roman station at Burrens. These were erected by the German auxiliaries.--Vide Tour in Scotland, 1772, part ii. p. 406. [61] Ritter considers that here is a reference to the servile flattery of the senate as exhibited in the time of Nero, by the deification of Poppaea's infant daughter, and afterwards of herself. (See Ann. xv. 23, Dion. lxiii, Ann. xiv. 3.) There is no contradiction in the present passage to that found at Hist. iv. 61, where Tacitus says, "plerasque feminarum fatidicas et, augescente superstitione, arbitrantur deas;" _i.e._ they deem (_arbitrantur_) very many of their women possessed of prophetic powers, and, as their religious feeling increases, they deem (_arbitrantur_) them goddesses, _i.e._ possessed of a superhuman nature; they do not, however, make them goddesses and worship them, as the Romans did Poppaea and her infant, which is covertly implied in _facerent deas_.--_White_.