The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus Part 6

[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 s.e.x." 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 ill.u.s.trated by a pa.s.sage 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 s.e.x before twenty years of age, is accounted in the highest degree scandalous."

[122] Equal not only in age and const.i.tution, but in condition. Many of the German codes of law annex penalties to those of both s.e.xes 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. x.x.xv. 19.

In the Roman law also, under the head of "those who on account of unworthiness are deprived of their inheritance," it is p.r.o.nounced, 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 quant.i.ties of food.

[132] The following article in the Salic law shows at once the frequency of these b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.sage: "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 b.u.t.ter: this is the sc.u.m 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 pa.s.sage 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 va.s.sals, 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 va.s.salage 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 a.s.sign 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.serted that Arabia did not produce such a quant.i.ty of spices in a year as Nero burned at the obsequies of his Poppaea."--x.x.xiii. 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 surpa.s.sed the Germans in bravery, and made war upon them; and, on account of their mult.i.tude 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 Noric.u.m, 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 gla.s.s 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.