it will not be necessary to say so; but if it is not the custom, he will say so. His absolute silence on this point is a proof that the Gauls did not sensibly differ from the Italians in the matter; his silence implies that they were not ignorant of private property. We must remember that the entire absence of private property would have appeared so strange to a Roman that it could not have escaped Cæsar’s notice. He observed it in Germany where he passed only eighteen days; he would certainly have discovered it in Gaul where he passed eight summers. If he does not mention community in land, it is obviously because it did not exist. But we have evidence even more convincing. Going on to speak of the Germans, he remarks that he will explain “in what they differ from the Gauls, _quo differant hae nationes inter sese_” (vi., 11); and further on: “The Germans differ much from this manner of life of the Gauls, _Germani multum ab hac consuetudine differunt_.” He then draws the following contrast between the two nations: 1, the Germans have no Druids; 2, the Germans have not the same gods as the Gauls; 3, and lastly, the Germans have not private property. Is not this remark as to the difference between the two nations almost the same thing as if Cæsar had said that the Gauls recognised private property and held their land in individual ownership? This is not all. Cæsar uses an expression in which he indirectly and almost unconsciously bears witness to the existence of property in land amongst the Gauls. In Book VI., Chapter 13, he says that the Druids act as judges in almost all suits, criminal as well as civil.[243] He then gives a list of the disputes brought before them, and amongst criminal offences he instances murder; amongst civil suits he mentions “those concerning inheritance or boundaries,” _si de hereditate, si de finibus controversia est_. If there were in Gaul suits concerning inheritance or boundaries, it must have meant that the Gauls had a system of inheritance and made use of boundaries; _i.e._, that land was private and hereditary property. Cæsar says elsewhere that the Germans have no _fines_; he says here that the Gauls have them. We cannot say whether the institution of private property in Gaul was exactly similar to that of private property in Rome; whether it had the same legal guarantees; whether its boundaries had the same inviolable character. We do not even know if property still belonged to the family or was already in the hands of individual owners. Cæsar only tells us one thing, and that is, that it existed; for “inheritance and boundaries” are unmistakable signs of private ownership, and as clearly disprove a system of corporate land-holding.[244]