THE SCENE: Julius Caesar describes the ancient blue-skinned, hunter-gatherer, wife-swapping inhabitants of Britain, with a random shout-out to the citizens of Kent.
THE TEXT: By far the most civilized inhabitants are those living in Kent (a purely maritime district), whose way of life differs little from that of the Gauls. Most of the tribes in the interior do not grow corn but live on milk and meat, and wear skins. All the Britons dye their bodies with woad, which produces a blue colour, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and upper lip. Wives are shared between groups of ten or twelve men, especially between brothers and between fathers and sons, but the offspring of these unions are counted as the children of the man with whom a particular woman cohabited.
– The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar, 1st Century BC
