[2452] Fée remarks, that at the present day, in all savage nations in which tatooing is practised, the men display more taste and care in the operation than is shewn by the females. There is little doubt that it is the art of tatooing the body, or in other words, first puncturing it and then rubbing in various colours, that is here spoken of by Pliny.
[2453] “Inscribunt.” “Writing upon,” or “tatooing,” evidently.
[2454] Our “woad,” the Isatis tinctoria of Linnæus, which imparts a blue colour. The root of this Celtic woad is probably “glas,” “blue,” whence also our word “glass;” and it is not improbable that the name of glass was given to it from the blue tints which it presented. Julius Cæsar and Pomponius Mela translate this word “glastum,” by the Latin “vitrum,” “glass.”
[2455] “Conjuges nurusque.” Cæsar says that all the people in Britain were in the habit of staining the body with woad, to add to the horror of their appearance in battle. Pomponius Mela expresses himself as uncertain for what purpose it was done, whether it was to add to their beauty, or for some other reasons to him unknown.
[2456] “Granis.” What the ancients took to be a vegetable substance, is now known to be an insect, the kermes of the Quercus coccifera.
[2457] See B. ix. c. 63.