Cæsar's sketch. the Ger mans. 2. Cæsar, after indulging in some inaccurate assertions concerning Teutonic mythology,1 begins by saying that the Germans pass their lives in hunting and in the pursuit of arms; from childhood they are inured to labor and to a hardy Chastity of habit of life." And then, after speaking of their chastity and its supposed effects upon physical development, he remarks that they do not apply themselves to agriculture, — milk, cheese, and flesh being their chief articles of food. No one has a fixed quantity of land, or boundaries that he can call Annual al- his own, but the magistrates and chiefs annually set apart to lotments of the several communities, united by the family tie or by common religious rites, for occupation during a single year, a portion of land whose amount and location is fixed according to circumstances. The next year they compel the group to remove to some other place.1 Many reasons are then given for this peculiar habit of unrest, all of which go to show that such a system was perpetuated in order to preserve the martial spirit of the people from the enervating influences which flow from fixed habitations, and from the enjoyment of personal comfort; and also from the discontent resulting from the unequal distribution of money and estates.5 land. Aversion to neighbors. The greatest prestige which the several states or tribes can possess consists in the extent of the uninhabited lands surrounding their territory, which they themselves have laid waste. They take it as a tribute to their courage that their old neighbors have abandoned their homes through fear of them, and that no one else will take their place. And this state of things adds to their safety, for the danger of sudden invasion is thereby taken away. Whenever a state engages in war, defensive or offensive, magistrates, with the power of life and death, are chosen for that particular emergency. In taigne and Rousseau the savages, in a 1 Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. 2 Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 21. 4 "Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum, qui una coierunt, quantum et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque anno post alio transire cogunt."-De Bello Gallico, vi. 22. See Laveleye, Primitive Property, pp. 102-105. 5 Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 22. • Ibid., vi. 22. mon magis peace. the war time of peace there is no common magistracy, but the chiefs No comof the several districts administer justice and discourage liti- tracy in gation. Plundering expeditions beyond the borders of one's times of own state are not considered dishonorable, but, on the contrary, they are commended as good schools in which to exercise the young men, and to diminish idleness. When a chief Fidelity to offers himself in the public assembly as the leader of such leader. an enterprise, and calls upon all who so desire to follow him, those who approve the-cause and the man promise their aid amid the applause of the multitude. If those who enter into such an engagement fail to perform it, they are regarded as deserters and traitors, and no faith is afterwards reposed in them. ity. To violate the rights of hospitality is considered a sacri- Hospitallege; strangers who come among them, from whatever cause, are considered sacred, and are protected from injury; the homes of all are open to them, and every one is ready to share his meal with them.1 There had been a time when the The Gauls. Gauls surpassed the Germans in valor; they had even sent colonies across the Rhine and pressed war upon the Germans without provocation. But the Gauls were conquered in so many battles, and gradually became so accustomed to defeat, that they ceased even to compare themselves in prowess with the Germans.2 Such is the brief initial outline which the great Roman statesman has drawn of that mighty race of which the English is a part. For an enlargement of that outline we must look to the Germania of Tacitus, and to the subsequent researches by which its meaning has been illustrated. of Tacitus. 3. During the century and a half which intervenes be- Germania tween the account of Cæsar and that of Tacitus, knowledge of the German tribes must have greatly increased at Rome. Just before the beginning of the Christian era a determined The ateffort was made under the leadership of Drusus, the step-son make Ger tempt to of Augustus, to make Germany a Roman province. The ef- many a fort of Drusus, which his sudden death interrupted, was con- province. tinued, in turn, by Tiberius, Varus, and Germanicus, until the results which followed a battle, near Minden, A. D. 16, put an end to all attempts upon the part of the Romans to conquer 2 Ibid., vi. 24. 1 Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 23. Roman Germania of manners, customs, and institutions; Germany.1 And, apart from the knowledge which must have been obtained during these frequent attempts at conquest, the contact upon the frontier was continuous. The precious accumulation of facts contained in the Germania is, however, the surest indication of just how far a knowledge of the Germans had advanced at Rome up to the time when the narrative of Tacitus was written. Leaving out of view spean abstract cial notices of particular tribes, this invaluable summary contains a brief abstract of the manners, customs, and institutions common to the German race as a whole. As Montesquieu has expressed it, it is the work of a man who has condensed everything because he knew everything.2 A narrative so broad and comprehensive in its character must necessarily its rare his be lacking in fulness of detail. But such evidence as the Germania does contain is of the rarest historic value, for it consists of the contemporary observations of a cultivated historian made upon the customs and institutions of a mighty race while yet in its childhood. If we will but picture to ourselves the historian Bancroft, in his library at Washington, making an abstract of the customs and institutions of the Indian tribes upon our frontier, we shall possess a reasonably correct idea of the relation which existed between Tacitus and the barbarians beyond the Rhine. toric value. Distinctive 4. According to the Germania the race which is now called race-traits. Teutonic was pure and indigenous, unmixed by intermarriage with any foreign stock, of the same physical type, speaking the same language, possessing a common mythology, and a common system of social, political, and military institutions, -and yet, possessing no collective name in its own language by which to describe the race as a whole, nor any form of central political organization. 1 Sime, Hist. of Germany, pp. 1214, 2 Spirit of Laws, bk. xxx. ch. 2. 3 "As societies do not advance concurrently, but at different rates of progress, there have been epochs at which men trained to habits of methodical observation have really been in a position to watch and describe the infancy of mankind. Tacitus made the most of such an opportunity."- Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law, p. 116. 4 Tac., Germania, cc. 2, 4. The word German 5 is prob 5 Tacitus indicates that the name German was first applied by the Gauls to the Tungri, and finally to the whole race. Germania, c. 2. See Waitz, D. V. G., i. 24. According to Grimm (Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, p. 787) the word signifies "good shouters"; according to some other author. ities, "East-men" or neighbors. When, in after times, the German tribes had realized their unity of tongue and descent, they spoke of their language simply as the "Lingua Theotisca," the German Celtic ori gin. ably of Celtic origin, and is supposed to have been first ap- The word plied by the Gauls to a particular Teutonic tribe, and finally probably of to the whole race. The great national virtue was chastity and respect for the marriage tie. To be content with one wife and true to her was a part of the German instinct.1 The great national vices were drunkenness and gambling. To be drunk for days was a disgrace to no man, while the ruined gamester would, at last, put even his liberty at stake, and allow himself to be sold into slavery.2 The Germans Absence of had no cities, but dwelt in villages, or in homesteads near villages. Their chief property consisted of flocks and herds, in which they felt the greatest pride. Their peculiar system of agriculture will be examined hereafter. cities. and its sub 5. This homogeneous race, although possessed of a com- The state mon system of social and political institutions, was neverthe- divisions. less broken up into an endless number of states or political communities, which stood in relation to each other in a state of complete political isolation, except when united in temporary confederacies. In their general descriptions of the German people, both Cæsar and Tacitus had constantly in their minds the existence of these disconnected states into which the race, as a whole, was subdivided. In order, therefore, to grasp the full import of these descriptions, this fact must be kept constantly in view. Both writers attempted to convey a distinct idea of the form which Teutonic society assumed among a given number of the German people politically united in what each termed the civitas; with the further ex- The civitas planation, that what was true of the race in one state, was and Tacitrue of the race in all the states; excepting, perhaps, the few tus. particulars in which the monarchical states differed from the non - monarchical. The attempt will therefore be made to render the picture of Tacitus less abstract, by applying what he says of the German race, as a whole, and of the states in general, to one particular portion of the race, bound together in such a distinct political organization as he called the 2 Tac., Germ., cc. 22, 23. language of the people (theod); whence the name "Deutsch."- Max Müller, Lectures on the Science of Language, ii. 230; Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. pp. 17, 38, and notes. Tac., Germ., c. 18. 8 Ibid., c. 16. 4 Ibid., c. 5. 5 Cæsar, De Bello Gallico, vi. 23; Tac., Germ., cc. 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 25, 30, 41. of Cæsar The state as a per sonal or definite area of territory. civitas. A great many terms have been used by the English writers as equivalents of the civitas of Cæsar and Tacitus. Political community, tribe, state are, however, the terms usually employed to express the idea. But no word in our language will express the exact idea unless it be attended by special qualifications indicating the precise sense in which it is used. The primary bond which united the people in what will be called for convenience the state was a personal one; ganization the king of the state was the first among the people, the head of the race; and not the king of a particular area or region occupying a of territory. And yet, in the time of Tacitus, the states, into which the German race was broken up, were permanently occupying districts of country which were defined by definite boundaries. And so the conception of the state, although resting upon the idea of personal connection, must also have been associated with the idea of territorial possession. As the distinction has been well expressed: "The idea of the state was not merely a personal but a geographical idea, if not in theory at least in fact."1 Let us, therefore, present to our minds such a state, composed of a number of the German people, great or small, occupying a definite area of country, surrounded, perchance, by an uninhabited expanse, which the people of that particular state have themselves laid waste.2 This is the condition in which the primitive Teutonic state The largest appears when written history begins. The largest division of the state- such a state has been designated by many terms. In Latin the pagus, the word usually employed is pagus; in German, gau or gá; in Old-English, scir or shire. But all these terms finally gave way on the Continent to the word hundred, which will be employed whenever it is necessary to describe the largest division of the continental Teutonic state. These divisions or districts which will be called hundreds were, in their turn, The vici of subdivided into village-communities - the vici of Tacitus whose origin and structure will be specially considered hereafter. division of gau, or hundred. Tacitus. Having now defined the nature of the state and its sub 1 Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, p. 3 (Boston, 1876). 2 "Civitatibus maxima laus est, quam latissime circum se vastatis finibus soli tudines habere."-Cæsar, De Bello Gal lico, vi. 23. 8 Kemble, Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 72; Essays in A. S. Law, p. 5. Tac., Germ., cc. 12, 16. |