|
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.
The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In
The Time Of The Emperor Decius.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II. Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III. |
The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In
The Time Of The Emperor Decius.
The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice, from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian tribes, 1001 which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of Tacitus, 1002 the first of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The subject, however various and important, has already been so frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate, of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.
1001 (return)
[ The Scythians, even according to the ancients, are not
Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to confound
them.—M. ——The Greeks, after having divided the world into Greeks and
barbarians. divided the barbarians into four great classes, the Celts,
the Scythians, the Indians, and the Ethiopians. They called Celts all
the inhabitants of Gaul. Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the
Lake Aral: the people enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between
Celtica and Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians
were placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of
Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were invented,
says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance of the Greeks,
and have no real ground; they are purely geographical divisions, without
any relation to the true affiliation of the different races. Thus all
the inhabitants of Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers;
yet Gaul contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgae, the
Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua institutis,
legibusque inter se differunt. Caesar. Com. c. i. It is thus the Turks
call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p.
289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc.
p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus constat, Ephorus, in quarto
historiarum libro, orbem terrarum inter Scythas, Indos, Aethiopas et
Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in
topographia Christiana, f. 148, conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum
locorum positus per certa capita distribuere et explicare constitueret,
insigniorum nomina gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala
fraude et successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis
habebant Graeci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error posteritate.
Igitur tot tamque diversae stirpis gentes non modo intra communem
quandam regionem definitae, unum omnes Scytharum nomen his auctoribus
subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis adpellatione in eandem nationem
sunt conflatae. Sic Cimmeriorum res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum
Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis, Tataricis commiscentur.—G.]
1002 (return)
[ The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful source of
hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have endeavored to
account for the form of the work and the views of the author. According
to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and note,) it contains the
unfinished and disarranged for a larger work. An anonymous writer,
supposed by Luden to be M. Becker, conceives that it was intended as an
episode in his larger history. According to M. Guizot, "Tacite a peint
les Germains comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces
d'humeur contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des moeurs Romaines,
l'eloquente boutade d'un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la vertu la,
ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la depravation savante
d'une vielle societe." Hist. de la Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.—M.]
Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. 1 Almost the whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion, manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula, or islands 1001a of Scandinavia.
1 (return)
[ Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from Caesar, and
more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that we can know what
was the state of ancient Germany before the wars with the Romans had
changed the positions of the tribes. Germany, as changed by these wars,
has been described by Strabo, Pliny, and Tacitus. Germany, properly so
called, was bounded on the west by the Rhine, on the east by the
Vistula, on the north by the southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and
Esthonia. On the south, the Maine and the mountains to the north of
Bohemia formed the limits. Before the time of Caesar, the country
between the Maine and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians
and other Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of
Caesar to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as
the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps, although
the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to south, a space of
nine days' journey on both banks of the Danube. "Gatterer, Versuch einer
all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte," p. 424, edit. de 1792. This vast country
was far from being inhabited by a single nation divided into different
tribes of the same origin. We may reckon three principal races, very
distinct in their language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the
east, the Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri.
3. Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so called,
the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before Julius Caesar, by
nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the Suevi.—G. On the position
of these nations, the German antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or
Sclavonians, or Wendish tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally
settled in parts of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh,
Pomerania, Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to
Gatterer, they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the
Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to Procopius and
Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The Venedi or Vandals, who
took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having expelled the Vandals,
properly so called, (a Suevian race, the conquerors of Africa,) from the
country between the Memel and the Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited
between the Dneister and the Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so
called, in the north of Dacia. During the great migration, these races
advanced into Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian
language is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the
Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy of
Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of Croatia,
Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 323, 335. II.
The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all who were not Suevi.
This race had passed the Rhine, before the time of Caesar, occupied
Belgium, and are the Belgae of Caesar and Pliny. The Cimbrians also
occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri of Wales and of Britain are of
this race. Many tribes on the right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in
Jutland, the Usipeti in Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg,
were German Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the
Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123 years
before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real Germans, extended
to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the Hercynian forest. The name of
Suevi was sometimes confined to a single tribe, as by Caesar to the
Catti. The name of the Suevi has been preserved in Suabia. These three
were the principal races which inhabited Germany; they moved from east
to west, and are the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern
Europe, according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other
races, of different origin, and speaking different languages, have
inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The German tribes
called themselves, from very remote times, by the generic name of
Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus derives from that of one of
their gods, Tuisco. It appears more probable that it means merely men,
people. Many savage nations have given themselves no other name. Thus
the Laplanders call themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz,
Nissetsch, men, &c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Caesar found
it in use in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.
Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c. 2) have
supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after Caesar's time;
but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion. The name of Germans
is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter, Iscrip. 2899, in which the
consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome 531, is said to have defeated the
Gauls, the Insubrians, and the Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See
Adelung, Aelt. Geschichte der Deutsch, p. 102.—Compressed from G.]
1001a (return)
[ The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed that the
waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular proportion, which they
have ventured to estimate at half an inch every year. Twenty centuries
ago the flat country of Scandinavia must have been covered by the
sea; while the high lands rose above the waters, as so many islands of
various forms and dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by
Mela, Pliny, and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See
in the Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of
Dalin's History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. * Note:
Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the depression of the
Baltic, as inconsistent with recent observation. The considerable
changes which have taken place on its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual
observation now decidedly attributes to the regular and uniform
elevation of the land.—Lyell's Geology, b. ii. c. 17—M.]
Some ingenious writers 2 have suspected that Europe was much colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and eternal winter, are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that severe season for their inroads, transported, without apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. 3 Modern ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in any country to the south of the Baltic. 4 In the time of Caesar the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of Germany and Poland. 5 The modern improvements sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the earth the rays of the sun. 6 The morasses have been drained, and, in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. 7
2 (return)
[ In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbe du Bos, and M.
Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]
3 (return)
[ Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel. Herodian, l.
vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the Danube, the wine, when
brought to table, was frequently frozen into great lumps, frusta vini.
Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7, 9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii.
355. The fact is confirmed by a soldier and a philosopher, who had
experienced the intense cold of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii.
p. 560, edit. Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At
Pesth the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication
between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is likewise in
many parts passable at least two years out of five. Winter campaigns are
so unusual, in modern warfare, that I recollect but one instance of an
army crossing either river on the ice. In the thirty years' war,
(1635,) Jan van Werth, an Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from
Heidelberg on the ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru's
memorable campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal
opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery attacked
the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter of unprecedented
severity.—M. 1845.]
4 (return)
[ Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]
5 (return)
[ Caesar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most inquisitive of
the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits, although some of them
had travelled in it more than sixty days' journey. * Note: The passage
of Caesar, "parvis renonum tegumentis utuntur," is obscure, observes
Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the
reindeer to have existed in Germany. It is supported however, by a
fragment of Sallust. Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.—M. It
has been suggested to me that Caesar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the
reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus a
media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque directum
(divaricatum, qu?) his quae nobis nota sunt cornibus. At ejus summo,
sicut palmae, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell. vi.—M. 1845.]
6 (return)
[ Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47) investigates
the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian wood.]
7 (return)
[ Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]
It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof, that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate climates. 8 We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the people of the South, 9 gave them a kind of strength better adapted to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired them with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves and spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy children of the North, 10 who, in their turn, were unable to resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. 11
8 (return)
[ Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often bear
ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty; but the
authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]
9 (return)
[ In hos artus, in haec corpora, quae miramur, excrescunt.
Taeit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]
10 (return)
[ Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of amusement, often
did down mountains of snow on their broad shields.]
11 (return)
[ The Romans made war in all climates, and by their
excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health and
vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which can live
and multiply in every country from the equator to the poles. The hog
seems to approach the nearest to our species in that privilege.]
There is not any where upon the globe a large tract of country, which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty. And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce those barbarians Indigence, or natives of the soil. We may allow with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a political society; 12 but that the name and nation received their existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by reason.
12 (return)
[ Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls followed
the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on Greece and Asia.
Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable tribe that retained any
traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The Gothini, who must not be
confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian tribe. In the time of Caesar many
other tribes of Gaulish origin dwelt along the course of the Danube, who
could not long resist the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who
dwelt on the borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the
Danube, had been expelled long before the time of Caesar. He mentions
also the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round the
Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest, and also
have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued in the first
century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in Noricum, were mingled
afterwards with the Lombards, and received the name of Boio Arii
(Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German dialects, appearing to mean
remains, descendants. Compare Malte B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit
1832—M.]
Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, 13 as well as the wild Tartar, 14 could point out the individual son of Japhet, from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Oaus Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. 15 Whatever is celebrated either in history or fable, this zealous patriot ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa, and Asia; and (to use the author's metaphor) the blood circulated from the extremities to the heart.
13 (return)
[ According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p. 13, 14,)
the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son of Esra, the
son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of Fathaclan, the son of Magog,
the son of Japhet, the son of Noah, landed on the coast of Munster the
14th day of May, in the year of the world one thousand nine hundred and
seventy-eight. Though he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose
behavior of his wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and
provoked him to such a degree, that he killed—her favorite greyhound.
This, as the learned historian very properly observes, was the first
instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in Ireland.]
14 (return)
[ Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahadur
Khan.]
15 (return)
[ His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.
Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des
Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]
But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply. The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the use of letters; 16 and the use of letters is the principal circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and the illiterate peasant. The former, by reading and reflection, multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found between nations than between individuals; and we may safely pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and agreeable arts of life.
16 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter ac
foeminae ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive authority,
without entering into the obscure disputes concerning the antiquity of
the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a Swede, a scholar, and a
philosopher, was of opinion, that they were nothing more than the Roman
letters, with the curves changed into straight lines for the ease of
engraving. See Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11.
Dictionnaire Diplomatique, tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest
Runic inscriptions are supposed to be of the third century, and the most
ancient writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius
Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note: The obscure
subject of the Runic characters has exercised the industry and ingenuity
of the modern scholars of the north. There are three distinct theories;
one, maintained by Schlozer, (Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who
considers their sixteen letters to be a corruption of the Roman
alphabet, post-Christian in their date, and Schlozer would attribute
their introduction into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of
Frederick Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes
that these characters were left on the coasts of the Mediterranean and
Northern Seas by the Phoenicians, preserved by the priestly castes, and
employed for purposes of magic. Their common origin from the Phoenician
would account for heir similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to
which we incline, claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for
the Runic, and supposes them to have been the original characters of the
Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among the
different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von W. C. Grimm,
1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten Nordens. Foreign
Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.—M.]
Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute. 1601 They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty, which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the appellation of virtuous simplicity. Modern Germany is said to contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. 17 In a much wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could discover no more than ninety places which he decorates with the name of cities; 18 though, according to our ideas, they would but ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods, and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion. 19 But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in his time, had no cities; 20 and that they affected to despise the works of Roman industry, as places of confinement rather than of security. 21 Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into regular villas; 22 each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in these slight habitations. 23 They were indeed no more than low huts, of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the smoke. In the most inclement winter, the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal. The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed themselves in furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind of linen. 24 The game of various sorts, with which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with food and exercise. 25 Their monstrous herds of cattle, less remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, 26 formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people, whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation, avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to lie waste and without tillage. 27
1601 (return)
[ Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen Volkes)
has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm for the virtues
and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold of the climate, and
the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as the barbarism of the
inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious Italians. M. Guizot, on the
other side, (in his Histoire de la Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,)
has drawn a curious parallel between the Germans of Tacitus and the
North American Indians.—M.]
17 (return)
[ Recherches Philosophiques sur
les Americains, tom. iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work
is, if I am not misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]
18 (return)
[ The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by the
accurate Cluverius.]
19 (return)
[ See Caesar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his History of
Manchester, vol. i.]
20 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 15.]
21 (return)
[ When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to cast
off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume their ancient
manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition of the walls of
the colony. "Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniae, munimenta servitii,
detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa teneas, virtutis
obliviscuntur." Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]
22 (return)
[ The straggling villages of Silesia are several miles in
length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]
23 (return)
[ One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few more
regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube. Herodian, l.
vii. p. 234.]
24 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 17.]
25 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 5.]
26 (return)
[ Caesar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]
27 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 26. Caesar, vi. 22.]
Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony. Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 28 To a mind capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances. The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation of fire, and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism. 29
28 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 6.]
29 (return)
[ It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without the
use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress in the
arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have been strangely
magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 153, &c]
If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to constitute their general character. In a civilized state, every faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied resources. The care of the house and family, the management of the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. 30 The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their numerous and drunken assemblies. 31 Their debts of honor (for in that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist. 32
30 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 15.]
31 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]
32 (return)
[ Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play from the
Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the human species.]
Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however, (as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. 33 The intemperate thirst of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic nations, attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich fruits and delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate. 34 And in the same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into France during the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were allured by the promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of Champaigne and Burgundy. 35 Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but not the most dangerous of our vices, was sometimes capable, in a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a war, or a revolution.
33 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 14.]
34 (return)
[ Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]
35 (return)
[ Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.
193.]
The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors with the simple necessaries of life. 36 The Germans abandoned their immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in pasturage the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts, the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration of a third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. 37 The possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans, who carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that, in the age of Caesar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North were far more numerous than they are in our days. 38 A more serious inquiry into the causes of population seems to have convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of Machiavel, 39 we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and Hume. 40
36 (return)
[ The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country called
Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000 persons, (Caesar
de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of people in the Pays
de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the Leman Lake, much more
distinguished for politeness than for industry) amounts to 112,591. See
an excellent tract of M. Muret, in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]
37 (return)
[ Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and the rest
of Paul's followers, represent these emigrations too much as regular and
concerted measures.]
38 (return)
[ Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged, on this
subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]
39 (return)
[ Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist. Hispan.
l. v. c. 1]
40 (return)
[ Robertson's Charles V. Hume's Political Essays. Note: It
is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations "were not populous
in proportion to the land they occupied, but to the food they produced."
They were prolific from their pure morals and constitutions, but their
institutions were not calculated to produce food for those whom they
brought into being.—M—1845.]
A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities, letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest fetters of despotism. "Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches are held in honor. They are therefore subject to an absolute monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even below servitude; they obey a woman." 41 In the mention of these exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. 42 Some tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of men, 43 but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. 44
41 (return)
[ Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated his
supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to be very
angry with the Roman who expressed so very little reverence for Northern
queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones are the ancient inhabitants
of Scandinavia, their name may be traced in that of Sweden; they did not
belong to the race of the Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri,
whom the Suevi, in very remote times, drove back part to the west, part
to the north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among
others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the isle of
Gothland.—G]
42 (return)
[May we not suspect that superstition was
the parent of despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not
extinct till the year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden above a
thousand years. The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat of religion and
empire. In the year 1153 I find a singular law, prohibiting the use and
profession of arms to any except the king's guards. Is it not probable
that it was colored by the pretence of reviving an old institution? See
Dalin's History of Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and
xlv.]
43 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]
44 (return)
[ Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]
Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great business of peace and war, were determined by its independent voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were previously considered and prepared in a more select council of the principal chieftains. 45 The magistrates might deliberate and persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious. 46
45 (return)
[ Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus, pertractantur
into Proetractantur. The correction is equally just and ingenious.]
46 (return)
[ Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often carried a
question, not so much by the number of votes, as by that of their armed
followers.]
A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and, if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. 47 Princes were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to administer justice, or rather to compose differences, 48 in their respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much regard was shown to birth as to merit. 49 To each was assigned, by the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and the first of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of rank and honor which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment him with the regal title. 50
47 (return)
[ Caesar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]
48 (return)
[ Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression of
Caesar's.]
49 (return)
[ Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt.
Tacit Germ. 7]
50 (return)
[ Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]
The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. 51 At the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 52 A people thus jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but animated with a high sense of honor and independence.
51 (return)
[ Caesar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]
52 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 7.]
The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the authority of the magistrates. The noblest youths blushed not to be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief, to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation prevailed among the companions, to obtain the first place in the esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs, their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of their chief. To survive his fall in battle, was indelible infamy. To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and even victorious lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable board was the only pay that he could bestow, or they would accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends, supplied the materials of this munificence. 53 This institution, however it might accidentally weaken the several republics, invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.
The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military service. 54 These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents; but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of obligations. 55
53 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]
54 (return)
[ Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant imagination
of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry, cold reason of the
Abbe de Mably. Observations sur l'Histoire de France, tom. i. p. 356.]
55 (return)
[ Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec acceptis
obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]
"In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the men were brave, and all the women were chaste;" and notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances. Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws. Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was seduction justified by example and fashion. 56 We may easily discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and chastity of the Germans.
56 (return)
[ The adulteress was whipped through the village. Neither
wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure her a second
husband. 18, 19.]
Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty. 57 From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side, to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity, than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a Persian haram. To this reason another may be added, of a more honorable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity, the fiercest nations of Germany. 58 The rest of the sex, without being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. 59 In their great invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. 60 Fainting armies of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy, by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own hands, from an insulting victor. 61 Heroines of such a cast may claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely, nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the stern virtues of man, they must have resigned that attractive softness, in which principally consist the charm and weakness of woman. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.
57 (return)
[ Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of places
the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the theatre as the
best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and to melt them into
tenderness and sensuality,]
58 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]
59 (return)
[ The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses, and
arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the subject.]
60 (return)
[ The change of exigere into exugere is a most excellent
correction.]
61 (return)
[ Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the wives of
the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children, they had offered
to surrender, on condition that they should be received as the slaves
of the vestal virgins.]
The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their fears, and their ignorance. 62 They adored the great visible objects and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity, whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; 63 and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to their own interest.
62 (return)
[ Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one
hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The former
discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The latter is
positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon, and the fire,
his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in unity]
63 (return)
[ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror by
Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were many of the
same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had shapeless idols,
and, when they began to build more settled habitations, they raised also
temples, such as that to the goddess Teufana, who presided over
divination. See Adelung, Hist. of Ane Germans, p 296—G]
The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The German priests, improving this favorable temper of their countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns, which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction, when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the immediate order of the god of war. 64 The defects of civil policy were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the Earth, covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed, quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and harmony. 65 The truce of God, so often and so ineffectually proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious imitation of this ancient custom. 66
64 (return)
[ Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]
65 (return)
[ Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]
66 (return)
[ See Dr. Robertson's History of Charles V. vol. i. note
10.]
But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame, than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were placed in the front of the battle; 67 and the hostile army was devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder. 68 In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced the doctrine of transmigration, 69 others imagined a gross paradise of immortal drunkenness. 70 All agreed, that a life spent in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or in another world.
67 (return)
[ Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only the heads
of wild beasts.]
68 (return)
[ See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57.]
69 (return)
[ Caesar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this doctrine
to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l. iii. c. 18)
labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox sense.]
70 (return)
[ Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the Edda,
see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book, published by M.
Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of Denmark.]
The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence paid to that important office, have been sufficiently illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive, the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast of their audience. Among a polished people, a taste for poetry is rather an amusement of the fancy, than a passion of the soul. And yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory, that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song; and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a German mind. 71 711
71 (return)
[ See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo, l. iv.
p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of Demodocus in the
Phaeacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtaeus into the fainting
Spartans. Yet there is little probability that the Greeks and the
Germans were the same people. Much learned trifling might be spared, if
our antiquarians would condescend to reflect, that similar manners will
naturally be produced by similar situations.]
711 (return)
[ Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at their
festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies of their
slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths, killed in a
battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he was borne from
the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same honor was paid to
the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According to some historians,
the Germans had songs also at their weddings; but this appears to me
inconsistent with their customs, in which marriage was no more than the
purchase of a wife. Besides, there is but one instance of this, that
of the Gothic king, Ataulph, who sang himself the nuptial hymn when
he espoused Placidia, sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius,
(Olympiodor. p. 8.) But this marriage was celebrated according to the
Roman rites, of which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p.
382.—G. Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the
ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.—M.]
Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion, their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes. And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious and enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by the intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold. But the rude tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those valuable metals, were reduced slowly to acquire, by their unassisted strength, the possession of the one as well as the other. The face of a German army displayed their poverty of iron. Swords, and the longer kind of lances, they could seldom use. Their frameoe (as they called them in their own language) were long spears headed with a sharp but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion required, they either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset. With this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented. A multitude of darts, scattered 72 with incredible force, were an additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields. Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful, swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman manege, several of the nations obtained renown by their cavalry; but, in general, the principal strength of the Germans consisted in their infantry, 73 which was drawn up in several deep columns, according to the distinction of tribes and families. Impatient of fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to battle with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by the effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the barbarians poured forth their whole souls on the first onset, they knew not how to rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total destruction. When we recollect the complete armor of the Roman soldiers, their discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified camps, and military engines, it appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked and unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to encounter, in the field, the strength of the legions, and the various troops of the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest was too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in the arts of war and of policy. Although they were admitted in small numbers and with the strictest precaution, the example of Civilis was proper to convince the Romans, that the danger was not imaginary, and that their precautions were not always sufficient. 74 During the civil wars that followed the death of Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, 75 formed a great design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his standard. He introduced an army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to embrace his cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their fortified camps, and employed against the Romans the military knowledge which he had acquired in their service. When at length, after an obstinate struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis secured himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, 76 the allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.
72 (return)
[ Missilia spargunt,
Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that historian used a vague expression, or
he meant that they were thrown at random.]
73 (return)
[ It was their
principal distinction from the Sarmatians, who generally fought on
horseback.]
74 (return)
[ The relation of this enterprise occupies a great part
of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and is more
remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry Saville has
observed several inaccuracies.]
75 (return)
[ Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]
76 (return)
[ It was contained between the two branches of the old
Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was changed by
art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 30, 37.]
II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we consider the effects that might have been produced by its united effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking, were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger of unexpected incursions. 77
77 (return)
[ Caesar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]
"The Bructeri 771 (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 78 provoked by their insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now attained the utmost verge of prosperity, 79 and have nothing left to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians." 80—These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to conciliate those nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks of distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its interest by entering into secret connections with the governors of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among the Germans was fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy and interest. 81
771 (return)
[ The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt below the
duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders of the Lippe, and
in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that the priestess Velleda
obtained her renown.—G.]
78 (return)
[ They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth centuries
by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of Franks. See Cluver.
Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]
79 (return)
[ Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense, Lipsius,
and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]
80 (return)
[ Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbe de la Bleterie is
very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was a murderer from the
beginning, &c., &c.]
81 (return)
[ Many traces of this policy may be discovered in Tacitus
and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the principles of human
nature.]
The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube. 82 It is impossible for us to determine whether this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition, of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued. The Quadi and the Marcomanni, 83 who had taken the lead in the war, were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They were commanded to retire five miles 84 from their own banks of the Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. 85 On the frequent rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league, however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving any traces behind in Germany.
82 (return)
[ Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5. Aurel.
Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich furniture of the
palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]
83 (return)
[ The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of the Rhine
occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great and formidable
monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo, l. vii. [p. 290.]
Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. * Note: The Mark-manaen, the
March-men or borderers. There seems little doubt that this was an
appellation, rather than a proper name of a part of the great Suevian or
Teutonic race.—M.]
84 (return)
[ Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the
prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious, but
not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified barrier.]
85 (return)
[ Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]
In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany, without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various tribes which filled that great country in the time of Caesar, of Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes successively present themselves in the series of this history, we shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent societies, connected among themselves by laws and government, bound to their native soil by arts and agriculture. The German tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers, almost of savages. The same territory often changed its inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire. 86
86 (return)
[ See an excellent dissertation on the origin and migrations
of nations, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii.
p. 48—71. It is seldom that the antiquarian and the philosopher are so
happily blended.]
Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these busy scenes is very different, according to the different condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations. But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil commotions, or the situation of petty republics, 87 raises almost every member of the community into action, and consequently into notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished on the most inconsiderable objects.
87 (return)
[ Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on the
number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This number,
though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong, as an average
estimate. On the subject of Athenian population, see St. Croix, Acad.
des Inscrip. xlviii. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans,
Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 381. The latter author
estimates the citizens of Sparta at 33,000—M.]