Book IX, 125

The brave Celts test their children in the jealous Rhine, and none regards himself as being the child’s father until he sees it washed by that venerated river. At once, when the babe has glided from its mother’s lap and sheds its first tears, the father himself lifts it up and places it on his shield, caring naught for its suffering; for he does not feel for it like a father until he sees it judged by the bath in the river, the test of conjugal fidelity. The mother, suffering new pangs added to those of childbirth, even though she knows him to be the child’s true father, awaits in fear and trembling the pronouncement of the inconstant stream.