The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus Part 5

[71] This remarkable pa.s.sage, so curious in political history, is commented on by Montesquieu, in his Spirit of Laws. vi 11. That celebrated author expresses his surprise at the existence of such a balance between liberty and authority in the forests of Germany; and traces the origin of the English const.i.tution from this source. Tacitus again mentions the German form of government in his Annals, iv. 33.

[72] The high antiquity of this made of reckoning appears from the Book of Genesis. "The evening and the morning were the first day." The Gauls, we are informed by Caesar, "a.s.sert that, according to the tradition of their Druids, they are all sprung from Father Dis; on which account they reckon every period of time according to the number of nights, not of days; and observe birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such a manner, that the day seems to follow the night." (Bell. Gall. vi. 18.) The vestiges of this method of computation still appear in the English language, in the terms se'nnight and fort'night.

[73] _Ut turbae placuit_. Doederlein interprets this pa.s.sage as representing the confused way in which the people took their seats in the national a.s.sembly, without reference to order, rank, age, &c. It rather represents, however, that the people, not the chieftains, determined when the business of the council should begin.--_White_.

[74] And in an open plain. Vast heaps of stone still remaining, denote the scenes of these national councils. (See Mallet's Introduct. to Hist. of Denmark.) The English Stonehenge has been supposed a relic of this kind.

In these a.s.semblies are seen the origin of those which, under the Merovingian race of French kings, were called the Fields of March; under the Carlovingian, the Fields of May; then, the Plenary Courts of Christmas and Easter; and lastly, the States General.

[75] The speech of Civilis was received with this expression of applause.

Tacitus, Hist. iv. 15.

[76] Gibbeted alive. Heavy penalties were denounced against those who should take them down, alive or dead. These are particularized in the Salic law.

[77] By cowards and dastards, in this pa.s.sage, are probably meant those who, being summoned to war, refused or neglected to go. Caesar (Bell.

Gall. vi. 22) mentions, that those who refused to follow their chiefs to war were considered as deserters and traitors. And, afterwards, the emperor Clothaire made the following edict, preserved in the Lombard law: "Whatever freeman, summoned to the defence of his country by his Count, or his officers, shall neglect to go, and the enemy enter the country to lay it waste, or otherwise damage our liege subjects, he shall incur a capital punishment." As the crimes of cowardice, treachery, and desertion were so odious and ignominious among the Germans, we find by the Salic law, that penalties were annexed to the unjust imputation of them.

[78] These were so rare and so infamous among the Germans, that barely calling a person by a name significant of them was severely punished.

[79] Incestuous people were buried alive in bogs in Scotland. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1772; part i. p. 351; and part ii. p. 421.

[80] Among these slighter offences, however, were reckoned homicide, adultery, theft, and many others of a similar kind. This appears from the laws of the Germans, and from a subsequent pa.s.sage of Tacitus himself.

[81] These were at that time the only riches of the country, as was already observed in this treatise. Afterwards gold and silver became plentiful: hence all the mulcts required by the Salic law are pecuniary.

Money, however, still bore a fixed proportion to cattle; as appears from the Saxon law (t.i.t. xviii.): "The Solidus is of two kinds; one contains two tremisses, that is, a beeve of twelve months, or a sheep with its lamb; the other, three tremisses, or a beeve of sixteen months. Homicide is compounded for by the lesser solidus; other crimes by the greater." The Saxons had their Weregeld,--the Scotch their Cro, Galnes, and Kelchin,-- and the Welsh their Gwerth, and Gala.n.u.s, or compensations for injuries; and cattle were likewise the usual fine. Vide Pennant's Tour in Wales of 1773, pp. 273, 274.

[82] This mulct is frequently in the Salic law called "fred," that is, peace; because it was paid to the king or state, as guardians of the public peace.

[83] A brief account of the civil economy of the Germans will here be useful. They were divided into nations; of which some were under a regal government, others a republican. The former had kings, the latter chiefs.

Both in kingdoms and republics, military affairs were under the conduct of the generals. The nations were divided into cantons; each of which was superintended by a chief, or count, who administered justice in it. The cantons were divided into districts or hundreds, so called because they contained a hundred vills or towns.h.i.+ps. In each hundred was a companion, or centenary, chosen from the people, before whom small causes were tried.

Before the count, all causes, as well great as small, were amenable. The centenaries are called companions by Tacitus, after the custom of the Romans; among whom the t.i.tles of honor were, Caesar, the Legatus or Lieutenant of Caesar, and his comites, or companions. The courts of justice were held in the open air, on a rising ground, beneath the shade of an oak, elm, or some other large tree.

[84] Even judges were armed on the seat of justice. The Romans, on the contrary, never went armed but when actually engaged in military service.

[85] These are the rudiments of the famous inst.i.tution of chivalry. The sons of kings appear to have received arms from foreign princes. Hence, when Audoin, after overcoming the Gepidae, was requested by the Lombards to dine with his son Alboin, his partner in the victory, he refused; for, says he, "you know it is not customary with us for a king's son to dine with his father, until he has received arms from the king of another country."--Warnefrid, De gestis Langobardorum, i. 23.

[86] An allusion to the _toga virilis_ of the Romans. The German youth were presented with the s.h.i.+eld and spear probably at twelve or fifteen years of age. This early initiation into the business of arms gave them that warlike character for which they were so celebrated. Thus, Seneca (Epist. 46) says, "A native of Germany brandishes, while yet a boy, his slender javelin." And again (in his book on Anger, i. 11), "Who are braver than the Germans?--who more impetuous in the charge?--who fonder of arms, in the use of which they are born and nourished, which are their only care?--who more inured to hards.h.i.+ps, insomuch that for the most part they provide no covering for their bodies, no retreat against the perpetual severity of the climate?"

[87] Hence it seems that these n.o.ble lads were deemed _principes_ in rank, yet had their position among the _comites_ only. The German word _Gesell_ is peculiarly appropriated to these comrades in arms. So highly were they esteemed in Germany, that for killing or hurting them a fine was exacted treble to that for other freemen.

[88] Hence, when Chonodomarus, king of the Alamanni, was taken prisoner by the Romans, "his companions, two hundred in number, and three friends peculiarly attached to him, thinking it infamous to survive their prince, or not to die for him, surrendered themselves to be put in bonds."-- Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, xvi. 13.

[89] Hence Montesquieu (Spirit of Laws, x.x.x, 3) justly derives the origin of va.s.salage. At first, the prince gave to his n.o.bles arms and provision: as avarice advanced, money, and then lands, were required, which from benefices became at length hereditary possessions, and were called fiefs.

Hence the establishment of the feudal system.

[90] Caesar, with less precision, says, "The Germans pa.s.s their whole lives in hunting and military exercises." (Bell. Gall, vi. 21.) The picture drawn by Tacitus is more consonant to the genius of a barbarous people: besides that, hunting being the employment but of a few months of the year, a greater part must necessarily be pa.s.sed in indolence by those who had no other occupation. In this circ.u.mstance, and those afterwards related, the North American savages exactly agree with the ancient Germans.

[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 a.s.sembly 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 Ammia.n.u.s 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 a.s.serts the contrary.

[97] The s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sages 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 n.o.bility 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 chast.i.ty 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 n.o.bility.

[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 chast.i.ty 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 chast.i.ty; "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 a.s.sembling lead her through the circ.u.mjacent villages, lacerating her body, stripped to the girdle, with rods and knives; and thus, b.l.o.o.d.y and full of minute wounds, she is continually met by new tormenters, who in their zeal for chast.i.ty 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 pa.s.sage 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 s.e.x. 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.