heir country was rough and
unfruitful as a whole (barley, however, was cultivated), being chiefly
used for the pasture of sheep. Its inhabitants either led a nomadic
life or occupied small villages; large towns were few. Their infantry
and cavalry were both excellent. In battle, they adopted the
wedge-shaped formation of the column. They carried double-edged swords
and short daggers for use hand to hand, the steel of which was
hardened by being buried underground; their defensive armour was a
light Gallic shield or a round wicker buckler, and greaves of felt
round their legs. They wore brazen helmets with purple crests, and
rough-haired black cloaks, in which they slept on the bare ground.
Like the Cantabri, they washed themselves with urine instead of water.
They were said to offer sacrifice to a nameless god (Strabo iii. p.
164) at the time of the full moon when all the household danced
together before the doors of the houses. Although cruel to their
enemies, they were hospitable to strangers. They ate meat of all
kinds, and drank a kind of mead. E. Hubner's article in
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, iii. (1886-1893), collects all the
ancient references, which are almost all brief. Strabo's notice (bk.
iii.), based perhaps on Poseidonius, is fullest. (F. J. H.)

CEMENT (from Lat. _caementum_, rough pieces of stone, a shortened form
of _caedimentum_, from _caedere_, to cut), apparently first used of a
mixture of broken stone, tiles, &c., with some binding material, and
hence of any material capable of adhering to, and uniting into a
coherent mass, fragments of a substance not in itself adhesive. The term
is often applied to adhesive mixtures employed to unite objects or parts
of objects (see below), but in engineering, when used without
qualification, it means Portland cement, its modifications and
congeners; these are all hydraulic cements, i.e. when set they resist
the action of water, and can, under favourable conditions, be allowed to
set under water.

_Hydraulic Cements_.--It was well known to builders in the earliest
historic times that certain limes would, when set, resist the action of
water, i.e. were hydraulic; it was also known that this property could
be conferred on ordinary lime by admixture of silicious materials such
as pozzuolana or tufa. We have here the two classes into which hydraulic
cements are divided.

Pozzuolanic cement.

When pure ch