Woad

Extract

‘Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horribiliores sunt in pugna aspectu.’ Every schoolboy is familiar with the passage, and the general accuracy of the statement is everywhere accepted; although the hypercritical might question the omnes. For Caesar cannot be speaking from his own knowledge, since his acquaintance with the British was limited; and the use of woad being a peculiarly British institution—I know of no evidence of its use on the Continent—it would not be surprising if some at least of the tribes in the south of Britain, who had been established there for not more than two or three generations, were slow to adopt what must have seemed to them a very barbarous habit.