Chapter 14

The matter itself admonishes, since there is no agreement on the origin of this people, that what is said by different authors ought to be brought to some common consent.

And many say that the Lithuanian people set out from Italy, divining more from their customs than from those who think their assertions confirmed by some other argument. Those who believe them to come from the Gauls seem to conjecture more probably. For they say that at that time part of the Celts passed beyond Italy, and some of them (led by Lemonius) set off to the northern ocean with their wives and children, and first occupied the extremities of Europe and held that region. Soon Livonia, by corruption of words, was named from their leader Lemonius—which is equally to be believed. The Cimbrians afterwards mounted an expedition towards the Bosphorus, from whom it is called Cimmerian or Cimbrian. The Celts, having left their homes (which they had taken in the middle of Sarmatia), betook themselves to those places where they now obtained homes. But the native people, who were almost completely ignorant of agriculture, when they saw them much occupied in that work, called them Litifani from the fruits of the earth, generally called litifa in their language. Let it be allowed that there are those who judge that the Lithuanians are named from the shore (litus) of the ocean, from which they originate.

But no matter how the name was received, they were said by the Greeks to have been not ignorant for a long time of their true origin and their new CeltoScythian homeland, having put together their speech from ancient words, and it persisted even up to the present day. For commerce with other peoples was very rare, but on such an occasion it was necessary to stop presenting the CeltoScythian name; and that name remained, which they retained who always had communication with all human beings.

Their idiom, utterly abhorring anything from Italy, leads to another argument of Gaulish and not Roman origin. Besides, the custom and religious practice of consecrating sacred groves without any temples, according to the rite of the druids of the Gauls, is opposed to the Romans having buildings of the gods and ministries of the sacred rites.