Part 6

The entire warp and woof of the work is obviously _historical_ and _geographical_. The satire, the political maxims, the moral sentiments, and all the rest, are merely incidental, interwoven for the sake of instruction and embellishment, inwrought because a mind so thoughtful and so acute as that of Tacitus, could not leave them out. Tacitus had long been collecting the materials for his Roman Histories. In so doing, his attention was necessarily drawn often and with special interest to a people, who, for two centuries and more, had been the most formidable enemy of the Roman State. In introducing them into his history, he would naturally wish to give some preliminary account of their origin, manners, and institutions, as he does in introducing the Jews in the Fifth Book of his Histories, which happens to be, in part, preserved. Nor would it be strange, if he should, with this view, collect a mass of materials, which he could not incorporate entire into a work of such compass, and which any slight occasion might induce him to publish in a separate form, perhaps as a sort of forerunner to his Histories. [It has even been argued by highly respectable scholars, that the Germania of Tacitus is itself only such a collection of materials, not published by the Author, and never intended for publication in that form. But it is quite too methodical, too studied, and too finished a work to admit of that supposition (cf. Prolegom. of K.).] Such an occasion now was furnished in the campaigns and victories of Trajan, who, at the time of his elevation to the imperial power, was at the head of the Roman armies in Germany, where he also remained for a year or more after his accession to the throne, till he had received the submission of the hostile tribes and wiped away the disgrace which the Germans, beyond any other nation of that age, had brought upon the Roman arms. Such a people, at such a time, could not fail to be an object of deep interest at Rome. This was the time when Tacitus published his work on Germany; and such are believed to have been the motives and the circumstances, which led to the undertaking. His grand object was not to point a satire or to compass a political end, but as he himself informs us (§ 27), to treat of the origin and manners, the geography and history, of the German Tribes.

The same candor and sincerity, the same correctness and truthfulness, which characterize the Histories, mark also the work on Germany. The author certainly aimed to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, on the subject of which he treats. Moreover, he had abundant means of knowing the truth, on all the main points, in the character and history of the Germans. It has even been argued from such expression as _vidimus_ (§ 8), that Tacitus had himself been in Germany, and could, therefore, write from personal observation. Bnt the argument proceeds on a misinterpretation of his language (cf. note in _loc. cit_.). And the use of _accepimus_ (as in § 27), shows that he derived his information from others. But the Romans had been in constant intercourse and connection, civil or military, with the Germans, for two hundred years. Germany furnished a wide theatre for their greatest commanders, and a fruitful theme for their best authors, some of whom, as Julius Caesar (to whom Tacitus particularly refers, 28), were themselves the chief actors in what they relate. These authors, some of whose contributions to the history of Germany are now lost (e.g. the elder Pliny, who wrote twenty books on the German wars), must have all been in the hands of Tacitus, and were, doubtless, consulted by him; not, however, as a servile copyist, or mere compiler (for he sometimes differs from his authorities, from Caesar even, whom he declares to be the best of them), but as a discriminating and judicious inquirer. The account of German customs and institutions may, therefore, be relied on, from the intrinsic credibility of the author. It receives confirmation, also, from its general accordance with other early accounts of the Germans, and with their better known subsequent history, as well as from its strong analogy to the well-known habits of our American aborigines, and other tribes in a like stage of civilization (cf. note, § 15). The geographical details are composed with all the accuracy which the ever-shifting positions and relations of warring and wandering tribes rendered possible in the nature of the case (cf. note, § 28). In sentiment, the treatise is surpassingly rich and instructive, like all the works of this prince of philosophical historians. In style, it is concise and nervous, yet quite rhetorical, and in parts, even poetical to a fault (see notes passim, cf. also, Monboddo's critique on the style of Tacitus). "The work," says La Bletterie, "is brief without being superficial. Within the compass of a few pages, it comprises more of ethics and politics, more fine delineations of character, more substance and pith (_suc_), than can be collected from many a ponderous volume. It is not one of those barely agreeable descriptions, which gradually diffuse their influence over the soul, and leave it in undisturbed tranquillity. It is a picture in strong light, like the subject itself, full of fire, of sentiment, of lightning-flashes, that go at once to the heart. We imagine ourselves in Germany; we become familiar with these so-called barbarians; we pardon their faults, and almost their vices, out of regard to their virtues; and in our moments of enthusiasm, we even wish we were Germans."

The following remarks of Murphy will illustrate the value of the treatise, to modern Europeans and their descendants. "It is a draught of savage manners, delineated by a masterly hand; the more interesting, as the part of the world which it describes was the seminary of the modern European nations, the VAGINA GENTIUM, as historians have emphatically called it. The work is short but, as Montesquieu observes, it is the work of a man who abridged every thing, because he knew every thing. A thorough knowledge of the transactions of barbarous ages, will throw more light than is generally imagined on the laws of modern times. Wherever the barbarians, who issued from their northern hive, settled in new habitations, they carried with them their native genius, their original manners, and the first rudiments of the political system which has prevailed in different parts of Europe. They established monarchy and liberty, subordination and freedom, the prerogative of the prince and the rights of the subject, all united in so bold a combination, that the fabric, in some places, stands to this hour the wonder of mankind. The British constitution, says Montesquieu, came out of the woods of Germany. What the state of this country (Britain) was before the arrival of our Saxon ancestors, Tacitus has shown in the life of Agricola. If we add to his account of the Germans and Britons, what has been transmitted to us, concerning them, by Julius Caesar, we shall see the origin of the Anglo-Saxon government, the great outline of that Gothic constitution under which the people enjoy their rights and liberties at this hour. Montesquieu, speaking of his own country, declares it impossible to form an adequate notion of the French monarchy, and the changes of their government, without a previous inquiry into the manners, genius, and spirit of the German nations. Much of what was incorporated with the institutions of those fierce invaders, has flowed down in the stream of time, and still mingles with our modern jurisprudence. The subject, it is conceived, is interesting to every Briton. In the manners of the Germans, the reader will see our present frame of government, as it were, in its cradle, _gentis cunabula nostrae_! in the Germans themselves, a fierce and warlike people, to whom this country owes that spirit of liberty, which, through so many centuries, has preserved our excellent form of government, and raised the glory of the British nation:

------Genus unde Latinum, Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae."

CHAP. I. _Germania_ stands first as the emphatic word, and is followed by _omnis_ for explanation. _Germania omnis_ here does not include Germania Prima and Secunda, which were Roman provinces on the left bank of the Rhine (so called because settled by Germans). It denotes _Germany proper_, as a _whole_, in distinction from the provinces just mentioned and from the several tribes, of which Tacitus treats in the latter part of the work. So Caesar (B.G. 1,1) uses _Gallia omnis_, as exclusive of the Roman provinces called Gaul and inclusive of the three _parts_, which he proceeds to specify.

_Gallis--Pannoniis_. People used for the countries. Cf. His. 5,6: _Phoenices. Gaul_, now France; _Rhaetia_, the country of the Grisons and the Tyrol, with part of Bavaria; _Pannonia_, lower Hungary and part of Austria. Germany was separated from Gaul by the Rhine; from Rhaetia and Pannonia, by the Danube.--_Rheno et Danubio_. Rhine and Rhone are probably different forms of the same root (Rh-n). Danube, in like manner, has the same root as Dnieper (Dn-p); perhaps also the same as Don and Dwina (D-n). Probably each of these roots was originally a generic name for river, water, stream. So there are several _Avons_ in England and Scotland. Cf. Latham's Germania sub voc.

_Sarmatis Dacisque_. The Slavonic Tribes were called Sarmatians by the ancients. _Sarmatia_ included the country north of the Carpathian Mountains, between the Vistula and the Don in Europe, together with the adjacent part of Asia, without any definite limits towards the north, which was terra incognita to the ancients--in short, Sarmatia was _Russia_, as far as known at that time. _Dacia_ lay between the Carpathian mountains on the north, and the Danube on the south, including Upper Hungary, Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia.

_Mutuo metu_. Rather a poetical boundary! Observe also the alliteration. At the same time, the words are not a bad description of those wide and solitary wastes, which, as Caesar informs us (B.G. 6, 23), the Germans delighted to interpose between themselves and other nations, so that it might appear that _no one dared to dwell near them.--Montibus_. The Carpathian.--_Cetera_. Ceteram Germaniae partem.

_Sinus_. This word denotes any thing with a curved outline (cf. 29, also A. 23); hence bays, peninsulas, and prominent bends or borders, whether of land or water. Here _peninsulas_ (particularly that of Jutland, now Denmark), for it is to the author's purpose here to speak of land rather than water, and the ocean is more properly said to _embrace peninsulas_, than _gulfs_ and _bays_. Its association with _islands_ here favors the same interpretation. So Passow, Or., Rit. Others, with less propriety, refer it to the _gulfs_ and _bays_, which so mark the Baltic and the German Oceans.--_Oceanus_ here, includes both the Baltic Sea, and the German Ocean (Oceanus Septentrionalis).

_Insularum--spatia. Islands of vast extent_, viz. Funen, Zealand, &c. Scandinavia also (now Sweden and Norway) was regarded by the ancients as an island, cf. Plin. Nat. His. iv. 27: quarum (insularum) clarissima Scandinavia est, incompertae magnitudinis.

_Nuper--regibus_. Understand with this clause _ut compertum est_. The above mentioned features of the Northern Ocean had been _discovered_ in the prosecution of the late wars, of the Romans, among the tribes and kings previously unknown. _Nuper_ is to be taken in a general sense==recentioribus temporibus, cf. _nuper additum_, § 2, where it goes back one hundred and fifty years to the age of Julius Caesar.--_Bellum_. War in general, no particular war.--_Versus_. This word has been considered by some as an adverb, and by others as a preposition. It is better however to regard it as a participle, like _ortus_, with which it is connected, though without a conjunction expressed. Ritter omits _in_.

_Molli et clementer edito. Of gentle slope and moderate elevation_ in studied antithesis to _inaccesso ac praecipiti, lofty and steep_. In like manner, _jugo, ridge, summit_, is contrasted with _vertice, peak, height_, cf. Virg. Ecl. 9, 7: _molli clivo_; Ann. 17, 38: _colles clementer assurgentes_. The _Rhaetian_ Alps, now the mountains of the Grisons. _Alp_ is a Celtic word==hill. _Albion_ has the same root==_hilly country. Mons Abnoba_ (al. Arnoba) is the northern part of the Schwartzwald, or Black Forest.--_Erumpat_, al. erumpit. But the best MSS. and all the recent editions have _erumpat_: and Tacitus never uses the pres. ind. after _donec, until_, cf. Rup. & Rit. in loc. Whenever he uses the present after _donec, until_, he seems to have conceived the relation of the two clauses, which it connects, as that of a means to an end, or a condition to a result, and hence to have used the subj. cf. chap. 20: _separet_; 31: _absolvat_; 35: _sinuetur_; Ann. 2, 6: _misceatur_. The two examples last cited, like this, describe the course of a river and boundary line. For the general rule of the modes after _donec_, see H. 522; Z. 575. See also notes H. 1, 13. 35.--_Septimum_. According to the common understanding, the Danube had _seven_ mouths. So Strabo, Mela, Ammian, and Ovid; Pliny makes six. T. reconciles the two accounts. The _enim_ inserted after _septimum_ in most editions is not found in the best mss. and is unnecessary. Or. & Rit. omit it.

II. _Ipsos_ marks the transition from the country to the people--_the Germans themselves_. So A. 13: _Ipsi Britanni_.

_Crediderim_. Subj. attice. A modest way of expressing his opinion, like our: I should say, I am inclined to think. H. 486, I. 3; Z. 527.

_Adventibus et hospitiis. Immigrants and visitors. Adventibus_ certae sedes, _hospitiis_ preregrinationes significantur. Gün. Both abstract for concrete. Död. compares [Greek: epoikoi] and [Greek: metoikoi].

_Terra--advehebantur_. Zeugma for _terra adveniebant_, classibus advehebantur. H. 704, I. 2; Z. 775.

_Nec--et_. These correlatives connect the members more closely than et--et; as in Greek oute-te. The sentiment here advanced touching colonization (as by sea, rather than by land), though true of Carthage, Sicily, and most _Grecian_, colonies, is directly the reverse of the general fact; and Germany itself is now known to have received its population by land emigration, from western Asia. The Germans, as we learn from affinities of languages and occasional references of historians and geographers, belonged to the same great stock of the human family with the Goths and Scythians, and may be traced back to that hive of nations, that primitive residence of mankind, the country east and south of the Caspian Sea and in the vicinity of Mount Ararat: cf. Tur. His. Ang. Sax. B. II. C. 1; also Donaldson's New Cratylus, B. I. Chap. 4. Latham's dogmatic skepticism will hardly shake the now established faith on this subject. The science of ethnography was unknown to the ancients. Tacitus had not the remotest idea, that all mankind were sprung from a common ancestry, and diffused themselves over the world from a common centre, a fact asserted in the Scriptures, and daily receiving fresh confirmation from literature and science. Hence he speaks of the Germans as _indigenas_, which he explains below by _editum terra_, sprung from the earth, like the mutum et turpe pecus of Hor. Sat. 1. 3, 100. cf. A. 11.

_Mutare quaerebant. Quaerere_ with inf. is poet. constr., found, however, in later prose writers, and once in Cic. (de Fin. 313: quaeris scire, enclosed in brackets in Tauchnitz's edition), to avoid repetition of _cupio_. _Cupio_ or _volo mutare_ would be regular classic prose.

_Adversus_. That the author here uses _adversus_ in some unusual and recondite sense, is intimated by the clause: _ut sic dixerim_. It is understood by some, of a sea _unfriendly to navigation_. But its connexion by _que_ with _immensus ultra_, shows that it refers to _position_, and means _lying opposite_, i.e., belonging, as it were, to another hemisphere or world from ours; for so the Romans regarded the Northern Ocean and Britain itself, cf. A 12: ultra _nostri orbis_ mensuram; G. 17: _exterior_ oceanus. So Cic. (Som. Scip. 6.) says: Homines partim obliquos, partim aversos, partim etiam _adversos_, stare vobis. This interpretation is confirmed by _ab orbe nostra_ in the antithesis. On the use of _ut sic dixerim_ for _ut sic dicam_, which is peculiar to the silver age, see Z. 528.

_Asia_, sc. Minor. _Africa_, sc. the Roman Province of that name, comprising the territory of Carthage.--_Peteret_. The question implies a negative answer, cf. Z. 530. The subj. implies a protasis understood: if he could, or the like. H. 502.

_Sit_. Praesens, ut de re vera. Gün. _Nisi si_ is nearly equivalent to _nisi forte: unless perchance_; unless if we may suppose the case. Cf. Wr. note on Ann. 2, 63, and Hand's Tursellinus, 3, 240.

_Memoriae et annalium_. Properly opposed to each other as _tradition_ and _written history_, though we are not to infer that written books existed in Germany in the age of Tacitus.

_Carminibus_. _Songs, ballads_ (from cano). Songs and rude poetry have been, in all savage countries, the memorials of public transactions, e.g. the runes of the Goths, the bards of the Britons and Celts, the scalds of Scandinavia, &c.

_Tuisconem_. The god from whom Tuesday takes its name, as Wednesday from Woden, Thursday from Thor, &c., cf. Sharon Turner's His. of Ang. Sax. app. to book 2. chap. 3. Some find in the name of this god the root of the words Teutonic, Dutch (Germ. Deutsche or Teutsche &c.,) Al. Tuistonem, Tristonem, &c. More likely it has the same root as the Latin divus, dius, deus, and the Greek theios, dios, theos, cf. Grimm's _Deutsche Mythologie_, sub v.

_Terra editum==indigena_ above; and gaegenaes and autochthon in Greek.

_Originem_==auctores. It is predicate after _Mannum_.

_Ut in licentia vetustatis. As in the license of antiquity_, i.e. since such license is allowed in regard to ancient times.

_Ingaevones_. "According to some German antiquaries, the _Ingaevones_ are die _Einwohner_, those dwelling inwards towards the sea; the _Istaevones_ are die _Westwohner_, the inhabitants of the western parts; and the _Hermiones_ are the _Herumwohner_, midland inhabitants," Ky. cf. Kiessling in loc. Others, e.g. Zeuss and Grimm, with more probability, find in these names the roots of German words significant of _honor_ and _bravery_, assumed by different tribes or confederacies as epithets or titles of distinction. Grimm identifies these three divisions with the Franks, Saxons, and Thuringians of a later age. See further, note chap. 27.

_Vocentur_. The subj. expresses the opinion of others, not the direct affirmation of the author. H. 529; Z. 549.

_Deo_==hoc deo, sc. Mannus--Germ. Mann, Eng. Man.

_Marsos, Gambrivios_. Under the names of Franci and Salii these tribes afterwards became formidable to the Romans. Cf. Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, Vol. III. chap. 6, sec. 2.-- _Suevos_, cf. note, 38.--_Vandalios_. The Vandals, now so familiar in history.

_Additum_, sc. esse, depending on _affirmant_.

_Nunc Tungri_, sc. vocentur, cf. His. 4, 15, 16. In confirmation of the historical accuracy of this passage, Gr. remarks, that Caes. (B.G. 2, 4) does not mention the Tungri, but names four tribes on the left bank of the Rhine, who, he says, are called by the common name of _Germans_; while Pliny (Nat. His. 4, 31), a century later, gives not the names of these four tribes, but calls them by the new name _Tungri_.

_Ita--vocarentur_. Locus vexatissimus! exclaim all the critics. And so they set themselves to amend the text by conjecture. Some have written _in nomen gentis_ instead of _non gentis_. Others have proposed _a victorum metu_, or _a victo ob metum_, or _a victis ob metum_. But these emendations are wholly conjectural and unnecessary. Günther and Walch render _a victore, from_ the victorious tribe, i.e. _after the name of_ that tribe. But _a se ipsis_ means _by_ themselves; and the antithesis doubtless requires _a_ to be understood in the same sense in both clauses. Grüber translates and explains thus: "In this way the name of a single tribe, and not of the whole people, has come into use, so that all, at first by the victor (the Tungri), in order to inspire fear, then by themselves (by the mouth of the whole people), when once the name became known, were called by the name of Germans. That is, the Tungri called all the kindred tribes that dwelt beyond the Rhine, Germans, in order to inspire fear by the wide extension of the name, since they gave themselves out to be a part of so vast a people; but at length all the tribes began to call themselves by this name, probably because they were pleased to see the fear which it excited." This is, on the whole, the most satisfactory explanation of the passage, and meets the essential concurrence of Wr., Or. and Död.--_Germani_. If of German etymology, this word==gehr or wehr (Fr. guerre) and mann, _men of war_; hence the _metus_, which the name carried with it. If it is a Latin word corresponding only in _sense_ with the original German, then==_brethren_. It will be seen, that either etymology would accord with Grüber's explanation of the whole passage--in either case, the name would inspire fear. The latter, however, is the more probable, cf. Ritter in loc. A people often bear quite different names abroad from that by which they call themselves at home. Thus the people, whom we call _Germans_, call themselves _Deutsche_ (Dutch), and are called by the French _Allemands_, cf. Latham. _Vocarentur_ is subj. because it stands in a subordinate clause of the oratio obliqua, cf. H. 531; Z. 603.

_Metum_. Here taken in an _active_ sense; oftener passive, but used in both senses. Quintilian speaks of _metum duplicem_, quem patimur et quem facimus (6, 2, 21). cf. A. 44: nihil metus in vultu, i.e., nothing to inspire fear in his countenance. In like manner admiratio (§ 7) is used for the admiration which one excites, though it usually denotes the admiration which one feels. For _ob_, cf. Ann. 1, 79: _ob moderandas Tiberis exundationes_.

_Nationis--gentis. Gens_ is often used by T. as a synonym with _natio_. But in antithesis, _gens_ is the whole, of which _nationes_ or _populi_ are the parts, e.g. G. 4: populos--gentem; § 14: nationes--genti. In like manner, in the civil constitution of Rome, a _gens_ included several related _families_.

III. _Herculem_. That is, Romana interpretatione, cf. § 34. The Romans found _their_ gods everywhere, and ascribed to Hercules, quidquid ubique magnificum est, cf. note 34: _quicquid--consensimus_. That this is a Roman account of the matter is evident, from the use of _eos_, for if the Germans were the subject of _memorant_, _se_ must have been used. On the use of _et_ here, cf. note 11.

_Primum_--ut principem, fortissimum. Gün.

_Haec quoque_. _Haec_ is rendered _such_ by Ritter. But it seems rather, as Or. and Död. explain it, to imply nearness and familiarity to the mind of the author and his readers: _these_ well known songs. So 20: _in haec corpora, quae miramur_. _Quoque_, like _quidem_, follows the emphatic word in a clause, H. 602, III. 1; Z. 355.

_Relatu_, called _cantus trux_, H. 2, 22. A Tacitean word. Freund. Cf. H. 1, 30.

_Baritum_. Al. barditum and barritum. But the latter has no ms. authority, and the former seems to have been suggested by the bards of the Gauls, of whose existence among the Germans however there is no evidence. Död. says the root of the word is common to the Greek, Latin, and German languages, viz. _baren_, i.e. _fremere_, a verb still used by the Batavians, and the noun _bar_, i.e. carmen, of frequent occurrence in Saxon poetry to this day.