Gessates

a people of whom Polybius speaks in his history of the ancient Gauls, and who inhabited the countries lying adjacent to the alps, and to the river Rhone. According to some writers, they were so called because they constantly wore geses. The gese is said to have been a dart which the ancient Gauls exclusively used, and which some authors since confounded with the pertuisane or partisan, a sort of halbert, called by others a javelin. This word was used in Provence, as late as the year 1300; for in the inventory which was taken of the goods, furniture, . appertaining to the Templars, we find ge us or gesus particularly specified in the list of weapons and iron instruments, which was understood to mean gese, and under that appellation was deposited in the king’s archives at Aix. See Boucher, Hist. Prov. Liv. ii. c. 4. p. 82. This same author further a erts, that the Gési, and the Ge ates took their names from that weapon. He quotes Julius Cæsar’s account of the word gesi in confirmation of his own opinion. Many authors have mentioned the same term: among others, Justus, Lipsus, Hugo, Cheves, Vo ius, .