# Tacitus (Donne)/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
THE 'GERMANY.'
A passage in this treatise on the manners and social condition of the Germans, affords a clue to the date of its composition. "Rome," says Tacitus, "was in her 640th year, when we first heard of the Cimbrian invader in the consulship of Cæcilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo, from which time to the second consulship of the Emperor Trajan, we find to be an interval of about 210 years." Consequently it was under its author's hand at least in the year 98 A.D.
And here our positive information about the 'Germany' ends. It has been pronounced to be a geographical and ethnological essay; a chapter, or a draft of one, intended for insertion in some historical narrative, or a satire on Roman morals as well as a record of German manners. If the 'History' had come down to us unmutilated, the problem might very likely have been solved. Tacitus delighted in episodes on the character of foreign nations. We have a fragment of one in his account of the Jews; had he composed his projected life of Trajan there would possibly have been a special account of the Parthians; and we may owe this treatise on the Germans to the interest awakened in him when ​a young man by the revolt of some Teutonic races in the wars that followed Nero's death in 68 A.D.
For supposing a satirical element in the 'Germany' there is plausible ground. His praise of the German wife is a scarcely concealed reproach of the Roman matron of his time. The Germans, he tells us, made no wills; the legacy-hunters of Rome were as notorious as the informers. The Roman nobles were often deeply in debt, and money-lenders were many and troublesome; whereas the virtuous Germans, at least of the interior—for those on the eastern Rhine-bank were beginning to be civilised and corrupted—cared little for gold or silver; and, indeed, were such outer-barbarians that their chieftains held the silver cups and salvers which prætors or proconsuls had given them as cheap as those of clay! Again, they were not at all, in respect of funerals, "noble animals, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave." They did not heap garments or spices on the funeral pyre; they simply observed the custom of burning the bodies of illustrious men with certain kinds of wood. A turf mound formed their tombs; monuments, with their lofty and elaborate splendour, they rejected as oppressive to the dead. Whereas Pliny the elder says that the amount of spices consumed at Poppæa's (the wife of Nero) funeral exceeded a whole year's produce of Arabia—an exaggeration, probably, yet not an insignificant one. More instances of the contrasts between Roman and Teutonic manners might he culled from the 'Germany.' In fact, when two extremes of civilisation ​are brought into immediate contact with each other, it is difficult to avoid a semblance of satire.
Leaving now the question of the drift of Tacitus in writing his 'Germany,' we proceed to examine its contents. He closes the 27th section of it with these words: "Such, on the whole, is the account which I have received of the origin and manners of the entire German people." Evidently he had consulted either eyewitnesses of the "people," or writers on the subject, and one very voluminous author may possibly have been among his instructors. So intimate a friend of the younger Pliny can hardly have been quite unacquainted with the elder. Now Pliny the natural historian, at the age of twenty-three, served in Germany. He wrote also a history of the Germanic wars in twenty books, and, as was his laudable fashion, collected his materials for them when he was on the spot, for his nephew tells us that he commenced his work before returning from Belgium to Rome. Curious as he was on ethnological matters, he can hardly have spoken of Germanic wars without some mention of the Germanic races. But whether Tacitus were indebted to Pliny or not, the second part of this treatise is more perplexing than useful to ethnologists, although it has long been a field for much controversy about German names, places, and pedigrees. For such inquiries, indeed, with a few exceptions, the ancients were very poorly equipped. Both Greeks and Romans looked down with contempt on all languages except their own, and thus deprived themselves of one of the most valuable pass-keys to a history of nations.
The Germany described by Tacitus is bounded on the west and south by the Rhine and the Danube; ​on the east by the Dacians and Sarmatians; and on the north and north-west by the ocean. But this area is far too large if we admit into it pure German races alone. In the time of Domitian or Trajan but little was known of the population near the Elbe, still less of that between that river and the Vistula. Roman generals, indeed, had penetrated the country as far as the left bank of the Elbe; but they speedily withdrew from it, and had little leisure, whether advancing or retreating, to make themselves familiar with the inhabitants, their manners or modes of life. Such knowledge as they picked up consisted of reports given by spies or deserters, by guides who very likely purposely misinformed them—for ignorance in a Roman was security for the German—or by such adventurous hawkers and pedlars as brought to these savage or semi-savage regions the luxuries of more civilised lands. There is reason for believing Tacitus to have confounded Sclavonian with German tribes. Almost the entire region cast of the Elbe was inhabited by the former people alone—some centuries later it certainly was so; and there is neither record nor tradition of the Sclaves having expelled the Teutons between the first and ninth centuries of the Christian era.
Ancient historians, when they met with a people whose origin they could not trace, and whose manners and institutions puzzled them, generally put them down as sons of the soil—aborigines: and Tacitus is not an exception to this easy mode of meeting a difficulty. Of thy Germans he writes; "I regard them as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse." Having in mind probably the maritime Greeks and the Phœnicians, he proceeds: "In ​former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and, beside the perils of rough and unknown seas, who would leave Asia or Africa or Italy for Germany, with its wild country, its inclement skies, its sullen manners and aspect, unless it were his home?" He is nearer the truth in saying that the name Germany is modern and newly introduced. It was introduced, however, by foreigners, but not accepted by the Germans. No common collective term was used by them.
The same physical peculiarities throughout the vast population of Germany confirm him in his persuasion, that "the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of intermarriage with foreign nations—a distinct, unmixed race like none but themselves." Their common characteristics are these: "All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure them."
The debilitation of the German soldiers by heat is more than once mentioned by Roman historians. To his statement that the eyes of the Germans were grey or blue and fierce in expression, and that, compared with Italians, they were "more than common tall," there is nothing to object; but we protest against his assertion that their hair was universally red. Had he been more polite or zealous for truth, he would have limited redness and its usual accompaniment freckles to the male sex alone. The Latin poets are far more civil, and doubtless more just, than the historian on this important point. The yellow hair and blue eyes of their German female captives excited the admiration of the ​young men of Rome, and the envy of both old and young women. Some of our English readers may be surprised, and perhaps will be glad to be told that the auburn tresses of the Germans fetched a high price in the Roman market; and that the locks which belonged by birth to the wife or daughter of a Teutonic warrior or herdsman, often belonged by purchase to some dark-haired Cynthia, or Lesbia, or Clodia. Again—and surely they knew better than Tacitus could—the old German poets adorned the most beautiful of their heroines with flowing yellow tresses. So omnipotent, indeed, in Domitian's time was the fashion, that ladies who could not afford to buy a Teutonic wig dyed their natural hair auburn or yellow.
But although the Roman ladies imported the ornaments of their German sisters, they were not, it seems, equally zealous in copying their housewifely virtues. Their marriage code was strict; so, indeed, had that of Rome once been. Divorce among the Germans was very rare: and when a sentence of it was inflicted, the punishment was little inferior, if at all, to that of death. There was no occasion to call in the aid of the civil magistrate. The husband was sole judge of his wrong. The culprit was expelled from his house in the presence of her kinsfolk, her hair was shorn, her garments were torn from her back, and she was flogged through the whole village. And the divorce was once and for ever: her crime met with no indulgence: the Germans had not arrived at the age of sentimentality; "neither beauty, age, nor wealth would procure the repudiated wife a second husband." In some states the marriage law or usage was even more stern, and Tacitus considers these states the happiest. In them maidens only were given in ​marriage, and however young they might become widows, they remained widows for life. This was indeed a severe and not very intelligible restraint among a people who were always fighting either with wild beasts or with men nearly as savage. A defeat or a victory, a herd of buffaloes or of wolves, might easily decimate the population of a village, and the number of widows be more than that of wives. However, it was not the men only who were exposed to the chances of war. Women were commonly spectators of their husbands' prowess, and "tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way, have been rallied by women, who, with earnest entreaties and loud shrieks, and bared bosoms, vividly represented the horrors of captivity, which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on behalf of their women, that the strongest tie by which a state can be bound is the being required to give, among the number of hostages, maidens of noble birth."
Whether the life of a German woman were happier in peace than in war, it is difficult to say. When not engaged in fighting or hunting, the men did nothing except eat, drink, and sleep. The management of the Teutonic household and of the land was made over to the women, the old men, and all the weakest members of a family. Their agricultural toil was probably slight enough, since they scratched rather than ploughed the ground, and the crops of wheat and rye were consequently as small as can well be imagined. Their barley crop was doubtless better, since they extracted from that grain a fermented liquor bearing a certain resemblance to wine. Of this beverage Tacitus speaks with seeming contempt, as all dwellers in a wine land are wont to do of beer or ale potations. He adds, to show ​the higher civilisation of the races on the river-bank—the Rhine—"they buy wine." Their food, he says, is of a simple kind, consisting of wild fruit, curdled milk, and fresh game. The barbarians had not arrived at the knowledge of well-kept venison, or grouse, or blackcock. Doubtless the women derived some consolations for their hard life in millinery. They wore indeed "the same dress as the men, except that they generally wrap themselves in linen garments which they embroider with purple." One female fashion has descended from the German ladies to a remote posterity. It seems that to make a sleeve for cloak or tunic passed their skill, so "the upper and lower arm is bare, and the nearest part of the bosom is also exposed." Care of their children, indeed, did not take up much of their time. "In every household, naked and filthy, they grew up with those stout frames and limbs which we so much admire." Their families were numerous, for we are told, with a well-merited reproof of Roman fathers and mothers, that "to limit the number of their children or to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted infamous." Baby-farming was reserved for the use of more civilised nations.
In one respect the Germans set the Greeks and Romans a good example, and perhaps gave a wholesome hint to more recent times. They did not go so far as to permit their wives and daughters to vote at elections, yet in some sense they admitted women's rights. "They believe," says Tacitus, "that the sex has a certain sanctity and prescience, and they do not despise their counsels, or make light of their answers. We have seen in the days of Vespasian, Veleda, who was long regarded by many as a divinity. ​In former times, too, they venerated Aurania and many other women, but not with servile flatteries and shameful deifications." This is apparently a parting compliment to the Cæsars, who, if they did not themselves adore, required their subjects to deify imperial wives. The respect which Tacitus displays for these female diviners was bestowed on their prophetic gifts alone, and did not extend to their sex generally; for in his brief account of a tribe called Sitones he says, "They are ruled by a woman, so low have they fallen, not merely from freedom, but even from slavery itself."
Tn these notes on the domestic condition of the Germans, it is hardly possible to mistake the purpose of Tacitus. In the hardy lives and warlike activity of the Germans he glances at the extravagance and luxury of the Roman nobles of his time. In their poverty, a consequence of their ignorance and indolence when at peace, in their chastity, politic because of their poverty, he saw an image, though a rude one, of those ages of Rome when consuls drove their own ploughs, or "roasted turnips on a Sabine farm." In many a German hovel might be found a counterpart of a Cato or a Siccius Dentatus, but not one of a Sejanus or a Tigellinus; in many a German swamp or forest dwelt a Cornelia and her young Gracchi, an Agrippina, a chaste and fruitful wife, but neither a Messalina nor a Poppæa.
The following sketch of a German village has led some to suppose it drawn by an eyewitness:—
"The natives of Germany have no cities; they do not even tolerate closely contiguous dwellings. They live scattered and apart, just as a spring, a meadow, or a wood has attracted them. Their villages they do not ​arrange in our fashion, with the buildings connected and joined together; but every person surrounds his dwelling with an open space, either as a precaution against the disasters of fire, or because they do not know how to build. No use is made by them of stone or tile; they employ timber for all purposes—rude masses, without ornament or attractiveness. Some parts of their buildings they stain move carefully with a clay so clear and bright that it resembles painting, or a coloured design. "They are wont also to dig out subterranean caves and pile on them great heaps of dung as a shelter from winter, and as a receptacle for the year's produce, for by such places they mitigate the rigour of the cold."
The account of the religion of the Germans given by Tacitus differs materially from that of Cæsar; but the opportunities of the later writer may have been the better. Mercury, he says, they honoured most among deities; at certain seasons they deemed it expedient to propitiate him by the sacrifice of human victims. To Hercules and Mars they offered animals, and a portion of the Suevic nation practised the worship of Isis.
The fondness of both Greek and Roman writers for identifying their own rites and mythology with those of less civilised or imperfectly known countries throws much obscurity on the history of religion generally. It is scarcely necessary to apprise the English reader that Mercury and Hercules, Mars and Isis, were as little known to the Germans as the Syrian Astarte or the Punic Moloch. Cæsar denies the existence of a priestly caste among the Germans, ant Tacitus nowhere actually contradicts him; for the "priest of a state" ​whom he mentions is more akin to the great "medicine-man" of a tribe of American Indians, than to the colleges of the Gaulish Druids, or to the sacred corporations of India, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine. In public matters, he says, the gods are invoked by the state priest, in private by the father of the family, and each derives the divine answer through the medium of lots, or small pieces of wood cut from the bough of a fruit-bearing tree. This, however, is only the first step in the inquiry. The answer must be confirmed by augury, and birds by their song or their flight are the organs of the divine will. So far the Roman and German soothsayers were much alike, and probably the less civilised were the more pious of the two, for we do not read of the Teutonic augurs, as we do of the Roman, that when they met one another in the street they found it hard to look grave. Horses, too—and "this," he says, "is peculiar to this people"—were mediums for omens and warnings. What follows has a very oriental aspect, reminding us of the omen drawn from the neighing of King Darius's horse. "Kept at the public expense in these same woods and groves are white horses, pure from the taint of earthly labour. These are yoked to a car, and accompanied by the priest and the king or chief of the tribe, who note their neighings and snortings. No species of augury is more trusted, not only by the people and the nobility, but also by the priests, who regard themselves as the ministers of the gods, and the horses as acquainted with their will."
There is a remark by Tacitus, in a graver tone and ​in a higher mood, corresponding closely with one he makes on the religious belief of the Jews. He appears to have been struck by the purity, if not the sublimity, of the Teutonic creed. "The Germans," he says, "believe that the gods cannot be confined within walls, nor, by reason of the vastness of their nature, be represented under the similitude of any human figure." But although they built not temples nor carved images, they were not without certain places dedicated to national worship. Their shrines were sacred spots in the depth of forests, and the gloom of the shrine symbolised a grave and gloomy ritual. To these sacred recesses they gave the names of their deities, and approached them with awe as the habitation of the unseen powers whom they worshipped. Of these sanctuaries the roof was the sky, the columns were the trees; and the historian, among other contrasts between the Roman and the Teuton of his time, may have had in view the gilded roofs, the marble pillars, and the numerous statues he saw in the Pantheon of Agrippa or the fane of Jupiter in the Capitol.
There were kings in many of the German tribes, but their power was not unlimited or arbitrary. The king was expected to expose his person in battle, as well as to command the army. There were two houses of Parliament. The chiefs deliberated about minor matters, the whole tribe about more important ones. The assemblies for debate, except in cases of sudden emergency, were held on certain fixed days, either at new or full moon. Like assemblies of more recent date, the Germans wasted a good deal of time before they applied in earnest to business. A century has not elapsed since members of our House of Commmons ​wore small swords in St Stephen's Chapel; and the Teutonic legislators sat on their benches of turf armed. "Silence," we are told, was proclaimed by the priests, who, like "Mr Speaker," did not take part in the debate, but had the right of keeping order. "The king or the chief, according to age, birth, distinction in war or eloquence, is heard more because he has influence to persuade than because he has power to command." Murmurs indicated the 'Noes,' brandishing of spears the 'Ayes,' in this primitive Parliament. Of their skill in husbandry Tacitus has little favourable to say. The vine was yet to be introduced into Rhineland, fruit-trees were rarely if ever planted, and there was a plausible excuse for the omission of orchards. In the first place, the German was a migratory animal; in the next, a fighting one. In either case a stranger or a foe would very likely have been the better for what he had not himself planted or grafted. For cereals the soil generally was too stiff, too sandy, or too wet: to drain the swamps, to irrigate the sand, demanded labour and cost, and the German was too indolent, too poor, and too restless, to undertake anything beyond the rudest agricultural work. He succeeded better as a grazier,—he often owned vast herds of cattle; but here again the farmer of the south far surpassed him, for his domestic kine were small in size and rough in coat, as inferior to the white breed of Umbria, or the herds that were pastured in the Abruzzi during the summer, and in Apulia during the winter months, as a German boat was to a Roman galley. The horses, like the Cossack ponies, were hardy and capable of enduring long journeys, but shaggy and low of stature. The Batavians alone among the northern nations had ​chargers fit for cavalry, and supplied the legions with excellent steeds and skilful and bold riders.
His admiration of the virtues, as he esteemed them, did not blind Tacitus to the vices of the Germans. Of these the most glaring were drunkenness and gambling. "Like all races in a state of barbarism, the German, so long as food was not at hand, endured hunger with stoical patience; but when he had it he made up for abstinence by excess. But drunkenness was his capital failing. Like the gods in Walhalla, these mortals gloried in passing whole days and nights at table; and the hospitable board was often stained with the blood of some of the company. Still, in their cups there seems to have been some discretion; for, says Tacitus,—
"It is at their feasts that they generally consult on the reconciliation of enemies, on the forming of matrimonial alliances, on the choice of chiefs, finally even on peace and war; for they think that at no time is the mind more open to simplicity of purpose or more warmed to noble aspirations. A race without either natural or acquired cunning, they disclose their hidden thoughts in the freedom of festivity. Thus, the sentiments of all having been discovered and laid bare, the discussion is renewed on the following day; and from each occasion its own peculiar advantage is derived. They deliberate when they have no power to dissemble; they resolve when error is impossible."
As to their gambling, the Germans appear to have surpassed the most civilised of mankind. It was a serious occupation even when they were sober; and so venturesome were they about gaining or losing, that 'when every other resource has failed, on the last and ​final throw they stake the freedom of their own persons. The loser goes into voluntary slavery. Though the younger and stronger, he suffers himself to be bound and sold."
Among the numerous varieties of the human race who flocked to Rome, the Germans had many representatives. They usually formed the Cæsar's guard, as the Scotch archers at first, and the Swiss mousquetaires afterwards, did that of the French kings. The cavalry was no longer composed of Roman knights or Italians, and the Batavian horse had become an almost indispensable adjunct to the legions. A brother of the Cheruscan Arminius served in the Roman army, and boasted of his services and loyalty to Augustus and Tiberius. Civilis, the Batavian chief, had been trained in a Roman barrack, and had smarted under a centurion's rod. Here, then, was at hand an ample supply of men able to enlighten an historian of the German people—an advantage, however, of which Tacitus, so far at least as ethnology is concerned, seems not to have availed himself to any great extent.
We now turn from this curious, and in part perhaps fanciful, account of the German nations. In what relation it stands to the other writings of Tacitus can never be known. It is the only one of them that has not an introductory preface. It bears some marks of not being completed; and may very possibly have been an early draft or an abandoned design of a full history of the German wars similar in kind to the one already mentioned—Pliny the elder's.
* ↑ Sir T. Browne's 'Urn Burial.'
* ↑ Herodotus, iii. 84.