The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus

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[91] This apparent contradiction is, however, perfectly agreeable to the
principles of human nature. Among people governed by impulse more than
reason, everything is in the extreme: war and peace; motion and rest; love
and hatred; none are pursued with moderation.

[92] These are the rudiments of tributes; though the contributions here
spoken of were voluntary, and without compulsion. The origin of exchequers
is pointed out above, where "part of the mulct" is said to be "paid to the
king or state." Taxation was taught the Germans by the Romans, who levied
taxes upon them.

[93] So, in after-times, when tributes were customary, 500 oxen or cows
were required annually from the Saxons by the French kings Clothaire I.
and Pepin. (See Eccard, tom. i. pp. 84, 480.) Honey, corn, and other
products of the earth, were likewise received in tribute. (Ibid. p. 392.)

[94] For the expenses of war, and other necessities of state, and
particularly the public entertainments. Hence, besides the Steora, or
annual tribute, the Osterstuopha, or Easter cup, previous to the public
assembly of the Field of March, was paid to the French kings.

[95] This was a dangerous lesson, and in the end proved ruinous to the
Roman empire. Herodian says of the Germans in his time, "They are chiefly
to be prevailed upon by bribes; being fond of money, and continually
selling peace to the Romans for gold."--Lib. vi. 139.

[96] This custom was of long duration; for there is not the mention of a
single city in Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote on the wars of the Romans
in Germany. The names of places in Ptolemy (ii. 11) are not, therefore,
those of cities, but of scattered villages. The Germans had not even what
we should call towns, notwithstanding Caesar asserts the contrary.

[97] The space surrounding the house, and fenced in by hedges, was that
celebrated Salic land, which descended to the male line, exclusively of
the female.

[98] The danger of fire was particularly urgent in time of war; for, as
Caesar informs us, these people were acquainted with a method of throwing
red-hot clay bullets from slings, and burning javelins, on the thatch of
houses. (Bell. Gall. v. 42.)

[99] Thus likewise Mela (ii. 1), concerning the Sarmatians: "On account of
the length and severity of their winters, they dwell under ground, either
in natural or artificial caverns." At the time that Germany was laid waste
by a forty years' war, Kircher saw many of the natives who, with their
flocks, herds, and other possessions, took refuge in the caverns of the
highest mountains. For many other curious particulars concerning these and
other subterranean caves, see his Mundus Subterraneus, viii. 3, p. 100. In
Hungary, at this day, corn is commonly stored in subterranean chambers.

[100] Near Newbottle, the seat of the Marquis of Lothian, are some
subterraneous apartments and passages cut out of the live rock, which had
probably served for the same purposes of winter-retreats and granaries as
those dug by the ancient Germans. Pennant's Tour in 1769, 4to, p.63.

[101] This was a kind of mantle of a square form, called also _rheno_.
Thus Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 21): "They use skins for clothing, or the
short rhenones, and leave the greatest part of the body naked." Isidore
(xix. 23) describes the rhenones as "garments covering the shoulders and
breast, as low as the navel, so rough and shaggy that they are
impenetrable to rain." Mela (iii. 3), speaking of the Germans, says, "The
men are clothed only with the sagum, or the bark of trees, even in the
depth of winter."

[102] All savages are fond of variety of colors; hence the Germans spotted
their furs with the skins of other animals, of which those here mentioned
were probably of the seal kind. This practice is still continued with
regard to the ermine, which is spotted with black lamb's-skin.

[103] The Northern Sea, and Frozen Ocean.

[104] Pliny testifies the same thing; and adds, that "the women beyond the
Rhine are not acquainted with any more elegant kind of clothing."--xix. 1.

[105] Not that rich and costly purple in which the Roman nobility shone,
but some ordinary material, such as the _vaccinium_, which Pliny says was
used by the Gauls as a purple dye for the garments of the slaves, (xvi.
18.)

[106] The chastity of the Germans, and their strict regard to the laws of
marriage, are witnessed by all their ancient codes of law. The purity of
their manners in this respect afforded a striking contrast to the
licentiousness of the Romans in the decline of the empire, and is
exhibited in this light by Salvian, in his treatise De Gubernatione Dei,
lib. vii.

[107] Thus we find in Caesar (Bell. Gall. i. 53) that Ariovistus had two
wives. Others had more. This indulgence proved more difficult to abolish,
as it was considered as a mark of opulence, and an appendage of nobility.

[108] The Germans purchased their wives, as appears from the following
clauses in the Saxon law concerning marriage: "A person who espouses a
wife shall pay to her parents 300 solidi (about 180_l._ sterling); but if
the marriage be without the consent of the parents, the damsel, however,
consenting, he shall pay 600 solidi. If neither the parents nor damsel
consent, that is, if she be carried off by violence, he shall pay 300
solidi to the parents, and 340 to the damsel, and restore her to her
parents."

[109] Thus in the Saxon law, concerning dowries, it is said: "The Ostfalii
and Angrarii determine, that if a woman have male issue, she is to possess
the dower she received in marriage during her life, and transmit it to her
sons."

[110] _Ergo septae pudicitia agunt_. Some editions have _septa pudicitia_.
This would imply, however, rather the result of the care and watchfulness
of their husbands; whereas it seems the object of Tacitus to show that
this their chastity was the effect of innate virtue, and this is rather
expressed by _septae pudicitia_, which is the reading of the Arundelian
MS.

[111] Seneca speaks with great force and warmth on this subject: "Nothing
is so destructive to morals as loitering at public entertainments; for
vice more easily insinuates itself into the heart when softened by
pleasure. What shall I say! I return from them more covetous ambitious,
and luxurious."--Epist. vii.

[112] The Germans had a great regard for the hair, and looked upon cutting
it off as a heavy disgrace; so that this was made a punishment for certain
crimes, and was resented as an injury if practised upon an innocent
person.

[113] From an epistle of St. Boniface, archbishop of Mentz, to Ethelbald,
king of England, we learn that among the Saxons the women themselves
inflicted the punishment for violated chastity; "In ancient Saxony (now
Westphalia), if a virgin pollute her father's house, or a married woman
prove false to her vows, sometimes she is forced to put an end to her own
life by the halter, and over the ashes of her burned body her seducer is
hanged: sometimes a troop of females assembling lead her through the
circumjacent villages, lacerating her body, stripped to the girdle, with
rods and knives; and thus, bloody and full of minute wounds, she is
continually met by new tormenters, who in their zeal for chastity do not
quit her till she is dead, or scarcely alive, in order to inspire a dread
of such offences." See Michael Alford's Annales Ecclesiae Anglo-Saxon.,
and Eccard.

[114] A passage in Valerius Maximus renders it probable that the Cimbrian
states were of this number: "The wives of the Teutones besought Marius,
after his victory, that he would deliver them as a present to the Vestal
virgins; affirming that they should henceforth, equally with themselves,
abstain from the embraces of the other sex. This request not being
granted, they all strangled themselves the ensuing night."--Lib. vi. 1.3.

[115] Among the Heruli, the wife was expected to hang herself at once at
the grave of her husband, if she would not live in perpetual infamy.

[116] This expression may signify as well the murder of young children, as
the procurement of abortion; both which crimes were severely punished by
the German laws.

[117] _Quemquam ex agnatis_. By _agnati_ generally in Roman law were meant
relations by the father's side; here it signifies children born after
there was already an heir to the name and property of the father.

[118] Justin has a similar thought concerning the Scythians: "Justice is
cultivated by the dispositions of the people, not by the laws." (ii. 2.)
How inefficacious the good laws here alluded to by Tacitus were in
preventing enormities among the Romans, appears from the frequent
complaints of the senators, and particularly of Minucius Felix; "I behold
you, exposing your babes to the wild beasts and birds, or strangling the
unhappy wretches with your own hands. Some of you, by means of drugs,
extinguish the newly-formed man within your bowels, and thus commit
parricide on your offspring before you bring them into the world."
(Octavius, c. 30.) So familiar was this practice grown at Rome, that the
virtuous Pliny apologises for it, alleging that "the great fertility of
some women may require such a licence."--xxix. 4, 37.

[119] _Nudi ac sordidi_ does not mean "in nakedness and filth," as most
translators have supposed. Personal filth is inconsistent with the daily
practice of bathing mentioned c. 22; and _nudus_ does not necessarily
imply absolute nakedness (see note 4, p. 293).

[120] This age appears at first to have been twelve years; for then a
youth became liable to the penalties of law. Thus in the Salic law it is
said, "If a child under twelve commit a fault, 'fred,' or a mulct, shall
not be required of him." Afterwards the term was fifteen years of age.
Thus in the Ripuary law, "A child under fifteen shall not be responsible."
Again, "If a man die, or be killed, and leave a son; before he have
completed his fifteenth year, he shall neither prosecute a cause, nor be
called upon to answer in a suit: but at this term, he must either answer
himself, or choose an advocate. In like manner with regard to the female
sex." The Burgundian law provides to the same effect. This then was the
term of majority, which in later times, when heavier armor was used, was
still longer delayed.

[121] This is illustrated by a passage in Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 21):
"They who are the latest in proving their virility are most commended. By
this delay they imagine the stature is increased, the strength improved,
and the nerves fortified. To have knowledge of the other sex before twenty
years of age, is accounted in the highest degree scandalous."

[122] Equal not only in age and constitution, but in condition. Many of
the German codes of law annex penalties to those of both sexes who marry
persons of inferior rank.

[123] Hence, in the history of the Merovingian kings of France, so many
instances of regard to sisters and their children appear, and so many wars
undertaken on their account.

[124] The court paid at Rome to rich persons without children, by the
Haeredipetae, or legacy-hunters, is a frequent subject of censure and
ridicule with the Roman writers.

[125] Avengers of blood are mentioned in the law of Moses, Numb. xxxv. 19.
In the Roman law also, under the head of "those who on account of
unworthiness are deprived of their inheritance," it is pronounced, that
"such heirs as are proved to have neglected revenging the testator's
death, shall be obliged to restore the entire profits."

[126] It was a wise provision, that among this fierce and warlike people,
revenge should be commuted for a payment. That this intention might not be
frustrated by the poverty of the offender, his whole family were
conjointly bound to make compensation.

[127] All uncivilized nations agree in this property, which becomes less
necessary as a nation improves in the arts of civil life.

[128] _Convictibus et hospitiis_. "Festivities and entertainments." The
former word applies to friends and fellow-countrymen; the latter, to those
not of the same tribe, and foreigners. Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 23) says,
"They think it unlawful to offer violence to their guests, who, on
whatever occasion they come to them, are protected from injury, and
considered as sacred. Every house is open to them, and provision
everywhere set before them." Mela (iii. 3) says of the Germans, "They make
right consist in force, so that they are not ashamed of robbery: they are
only kind to their guests, and merciful to suppliants. The Burgundian law
lays a fine of three solidi on every man who refuses his roof or hearth to
the coming guest." The Salic law, however, rightly forbids the exercise of
hospitality to atrocious criminals; laying a penalty on the person who
shall harbor one who has dug up or despoiled the dead? till he has made
satisfaction to the relations.

[129] The clause here put within brackets is probably misplaced; since it
does not connect well either with what goes before or what follows.[130]
The Russians are at present the most remarkable among the northern nations
for the use of warm bathing. Some of the North American tribes also have
their hypocausts, or stoves.

[131] Eating at separate tables is generally an indication of voracity.
Traces of it may be found in Homer, and other writers who have described
ancient manners. The same practice has also been observed among the people
of Otaheite; who occasionally devour vast quantities of food.

[132] The following article in the Salic law shows at once the frequency
of these bloody quarrels, and the laudable endeavors of the legislature to
restrain them;--"If at a feast where there are four or five men in
company, one of them be killed, the rest shall either convict one as the
offender, or shall jointly pay the composition for his death. And this law
shall extend to seven persons present at an entertainment."

[133] The same custom is related by Herodotus, i. p. 66, as prevailing
among the Persians.

[134] Of this liquor, beer or ale, Pliny speaks in the following passage:
"The western nations have their intoxicating liquor, made of steeped
grain. The Egyptians also invented drinks of the same kind. Thus
drunkenness is a stranger in no part of the world; for these liquors are
taken pure, and not diluted as wine is. Yet, surely, the Earth thought she
was producing corn. Oh, the wonderful sagacity of our vices! we have
discovered how to render even water intoxicating."--xiv. 22.

[135] Mela says, "Their manner of living is so rude and savage, that they
eat even raw flesh; either fresh killed, or softened by working with their
hands and feet, after it has grown stiff in the hides of tame or wild
animals." (iii. 3.) Florus relates that the ferocity of the Cimbri was
mitigated by their feeding on bread and dressed meat, and drinking wine,
in the softest tract of Italy.--iii. 3.

[136] This must not be understood to have been cheese; although Caesar
says of the Germans, "Their diet chiefly consists of milk, cheese and
flesh." (Bell. Gall. vi. 22.) Pliny, who was thoroughly acquainted with
the German manners, says more accurately, "It is surprising that the
barbarous nations who live on milk should for so many ages have been
ignorant of, or have rejected, the preparation of cheese; especially since
they thicken their milk into a pleasant tart substance, and a fat butter:
this is the scum of milk, of a thicker consistence than what is called the
whey. It must not be omitted that it has the properties of oil, and is
used as an unguent by all the barbarians, and by us for children."--xi.
41.

[137] This policy has been practised by the Europeans with regard to the
North American savages, some tribes of which have been almost totally
extirpated by it.

[138] St. Ambrose has a remarkable passage concerning this spirit of
gaming among a barbarous people:--"It is said that the Huns, who
continually make war upon other nations, are themselves subject to
usurers, with whom they run in debt at play; and that, while they live
without laws, they obey the laws of the dice alone; playing when drawn up
in line of battle; carrying dice along with their arms, and perishing more
by each others' hands than by the enemy. In the midst of victory they
submit to become captives, and suffer plunder from their own countrymen,
which they know not how to bear from the foe. On this account they never
lay aside the business of war, because, when they have lost all their
booty by the dice, they have no means of acquiring fresh supplies for
play, but by the sword. They are frequently borne away with such a
desperate ardor, that, when the loser has given up his arms, the only part
of his property which he greatly values, he sets the power over his life
at a single cast to the winner or usurer. It is a fact, that a person,
known to the Roman emperor, paid the price of a servitude which he had by
this means brought upon himself, by suffering death at the command of his
master."

[139] The condition of these slaves was the same as that of the vassals,
or serfs, who a few centuries ago made the great body of the people in
every country in Europe. The Germans, in after times, imitating the
Romans, had slaves of inferior condition, to whom the name of slave became
appropriated; while those in the state of rural vassalage were called
_lidi_.

[140] A private enemy could not be slain with impunity, since a fine was
affixed to homicide; but a man might kill his own slave without any
punishment. If, however, he killed another person's slave, he was obliged
to pay his price to the owner.

[141] The amazing height of power and insolence to which freedmen arrived
by making themselves subservient to the vices of the prince, is a striking
characteristic of the reigns of some of the worst of the Roman emperors.

[142] In Rome, on the other hand, the practice of usury was, as our author
terms it, "an ancient evil, and a perpetual source of sedition and
discord."--Annals, vi. 16.

[143] All the copies read _per vices_, "by turns," or alternately; but the
connection seems evidently to require the easy alteration of _per vicos_,
which has been approved by many learned commentators, and is therefore
adopted in this translation.

[144] Caesar has several particulars concerning this part of German
polity. "They are not studious of agriculture, the greater part of their
diet consisting of milk, cheese, and flesh; nor has any one a determinate
portion of land, his own peculiar property; but the magistrates and chiefs
allot every year to tribes and clanships forming communities, as much
land, and in such situations, as they think proper, and oblige them to
remove the succeeding year. For this practice they assign several reasons:
as, lest they should be led, by being accustomed to one spot, to exchange
the toils of war for the business of agriculture; lest they should acquire
a passion for possessing extensive domains, and the more powerful should
be tempted to dispossess the weaker; lest they should construct buildings
with more art than was necessary to protect them from the inclemencies of
the weather; lest the love of money should arise amongst them, the source
of faction and dissensions; and in order that the people, beholding their
own possessions equal to those of the most powerful, might be retained by
the bonds of equity and moderation."--Bell. Gall. vi. 21.

[145] The Germans, not planting fruit-trees, were ignorant of the proper
products of autumn. They have now all the autumnal fruits of their
climate; yet their language still retains a memorial of their ancient
deficiencies, in having no term for this season of the year, but one
denoting the gathering in of corn alone--_Herbst_, Harvest.

[146] In this respect, as well as many others, the manners of the Germans
were a direct contrast to those of the Romans. Pliny mentions a private
person, C. Caecilius Claudius Isidorus, who ordered the sum of about
10,000_l._ sterling to be expended in his funeral: and in another place he
says, "Intelligent persons asserted that Arabia did not produce such a
quantity of spices in a year as Nero burned at the obsequies of his
Poppaea."--xxxiii. 10, and xii. 18.

[147] The following lines of Lucan, describing the last honors paid by
Cornelia to the body of Pompey the Great, happily illustrate the customs
here referred to:--

Collegit vestes, miserique insignia Magni.
Armaque, et impressas auro, quas gesserat olim
Exuvias, pictasque togas, velamina summo
Ter conspecta Jovi, funestoque intulit igni.--Lib. ix. 175.

"There shone his arms, with antique gold inlaid,
There the rich robes which she herself had made,
Robes to imperial Jove in triumph thrice display'd:
The relics of his past victorious days,
Now this his latest trophy serve to raise,
And in one common flame together blaze."--ROWE.

[148] Thus in the tomb of Childeric, king of the Franks, were found his
spear and sword, and also his horse's head, with a shoe, and gold buckles
and housings. A human skull was likewise discovered, which, perhaps, was
that of his groom.

[149] Caesar's account is as follows:--"There was formerly a time when the
Gauls surpassed the Germans in bravery, and made war upon them; and, on
account of their multitude of people and scarcity of land, sent colonies
beyond the Rhine. The most fertile parts of Germany, adjoining to the
Hercynian forest, (which, I observe, was known by report to Eratosthenes
and others of the Greeks, and called by them Orcinia,) were accordingly
occupied by the Volcae and Tectosages, who settled there. These people
still continue in the same settlements, and have a high character as well
for the administration of justice as military prowess: and they now remain
in the same state of penury and content as the Germans, whose manner of
life they have adopted."--Bell. Gall. vi. 24.

[150] The inhabitants of Switzerland, then extending further than at
present, towards Lyons.

[151] A nation of Gauls, bordering on the Helvetii, as appears from Strabo
and Caesar. After being conquered by Caesar, the Aedui gave them a
settlement in the country now called the Bourbonnois. The name of their
German colony, Boiemum, is still extant in Bohemia. The aera at which the
Helvetii and Boii penetrated into Germany is not ascertained. It seems
probable, however, that it was in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus; for at
that time, as we are told by Livy, Ambigatus, king of the Bituriges
(people of Berry), sent his sister's son Sigovesus into the Hercynian
forest, with a colony, in order to exonerate his kingdom which was
overpeopled. (Livy, v. 33; _et seq._)

[152] In the time of Augustus, the Boii, driven from Boiemum by the
Marcomanni, retired to Noricum, which from them was called Boioaria, now
Bavaria.

[153] This people inhabited that part of Lower Hungary now called the
Palatinate of Pilis.

[154] Towards the end of this treatise, Tacitus seems himself to decide
this point, observing that their use of the Pannonian language, and
acquiescence in paying tribute, prove the Osi not to be a German nation.
They were settled beyond the Marcomanni and Quadi, and occupied the
northern part of Transdanubian Hungary; perhaps extending to Silesia,
where is a place called Ossen in the duchy of Oels, famous for salt and
glass works. The learned Pelloutier, however, contends that the Osi were
Germans; but with less probability.

[155] The inhabitants of the modern diocese of Treves.

[156] Those of Cambresis and Hainault.

[157] Those of the dioceses of Worms, Strasburg, and Spires.

[158] Those of the diocese of Cologne. The Ubii, migrating from Germany to
Gaul, on account of the enmity of the Catti, and their own attachment to
the Roman interest, were received under the protection of Marcus Agrippa,
in the year of Rome 717. (Strabo, iv. p. 194.) Agrippina, the wife of
Claudius and mother of Nero, who was born among them, obtained the
settlement of a colony there, which was called after her name.

[159] Now the Betuwe, part of the provinces of Holland and Guelderland.

[160] Hence the Batavi are termed, in an ancient inscription, "the
brothers and friends of the Roman people."

[161] This nation inhabited part of the countries now called the Weteraw,
Hesse, Isenburg and Fulda. In this territory was Mattium, now Marpurg, and
the Fontes Mattiaci, now Wisbaden, near Mentz.

[162] The several people of Germany had their respective borders, called
marks or marches, which they defended by preserving them in a desert and
uncultivated state. Thus Caesar, Bell. Gall. iv 3:--"They think it the
greatest honor to a nation, to have as wide an extent of vacant land
around their dominions as possible; by which it is indicated, that a great
number of neighboring communities are unable to withstand them. On this
account, the Suevi are said to have, on one side, a tract of 600 (some
learned men think we should read 60) miles desert for their boundaries."
In another place Caesar mentions, as an additional reason for this policy,
that they think themselves thereby rendered secure from the danger of
sudden incursions. (Bell. Gall. vi. 13.)

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