Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/247

B. III. C. III. SPAIN. 233 from plates of that metal. Those condemned to death are executedby stoning ; parricides are put to death without the Frontiers or the "cities. They maxry according to the Qu^toms of the Greeks. 1 Their sick they expose upon the highways, in the same way as the Egyptians 2 did anciently, in .the hope that some one who has experienced the malady may be able to give them i advice. Up to the time of [the ex- pedition of] Brutus tftey made use of vessels constructed of skins for crossing the lagoons formed' by the tides } they now have them formed out of the single jrujik of a tree, but these are scarce. Their salt_is_purple, but beco^ies white by pounding. The life of the mountaineers is such as I have described, I mean those bordering the northern side of Iberia, the Gallicians, the Asturians, and the Cantabrians, 3 as far as the Vascons 4 and the Pyrenees. The mode of life amongst all these is similar. But I am reluctant to fill my page with their names, and would fain escape the disagree- able task of writing them, unless perchance the Pleutauri, the Bardyetse, the Allotriges, 5 and other names still worse and more out of the way than these might be grateful to the ear of some one. 8. The rough and savage manners of these people is not alone owing to their wars, tut likewise to their isolated posi- tion, it being a long distance to reach them, whether by sea or land. Thus the difficulty of communication has deprived 1 This is said to distinguish them from their neighbours, the inhabitants of Majorca and Minorca, whose peculiar marriage ceremonies are thus described by Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. c. 18: Hapd8oov *e TI icai Kara. TOVQ ya/iovg vouifiov Trap' OVTOIQ iariv' iv yap ralq Kara rot'f ydfjLOVQ tvioxiat^, oiKtiwv re icai tpiXaiv Kara ri)v 7/Xuciav 6 TrpuJrog dti Kal 6 dtvTtpog, icai oi onrol Kara. TO t)7, jui'cryoirai rai vvutpaig dvd /us/r>0, la%a.rov TOV vv[i<piov rvydvovroQ ravrjjQ TTJQ Tifiijg. 2 The mention of Egyptians here seems surprising, inasmuch as no writer appears to have recorded this as one of their customs. Of the Assyrians it is stated, both by Herodotus, i. 197, and also by Strabo him- self, xvi. cap. i. 746. It seems therefore most probable that Assyrians are intended, Egyptians being merely an error of the transcriber. 3 Inhabitants of Biscay. 4 People of Navarre. 5 Who the Pleutauri were, we do not know. The Bardyetae appear to be the same people whom Strabo afterwards speaks of as Bardyiti, or Bardyali, who occupied a narrow slip of land between the east of Alava and the west of Navarre. The Allotriges Casaubon supposes to be the same as the Autrigones, who occupied the coast from Laredo to the Gulf of Bilboa.