Tacitus · a new plain-English translation from the original language
1| The whole of Germany is separated from Gaul, Raetia, and Pannonia by the Rhine and Danube rivers, and from the Sarmatians and Dacians by mutual fear or by mountains. The rest is bounded by the Ocean, which embraces broad gulfs and vast stretches of islands, and among them peoples and kings only recently known to us, discovered when war opened the way. The Rhine rises from an inaccessible, sheer peak of the Raetian Alps, bends gently westward, and empties into the northern Ocean. The Danube pours out from the gentle, modestly raised ridge of Mount Abnoba and passes through many peoples before it breaks into the Black Sea through six channels; a seventh mouth is swallowed by marshes.
2| I am inclined to believe the Germans themselves are natives of the land, and very little mixed by the arrival and settlement of other peoples, because in the old days people seeking new homes came by sea, not by land, and the Ocean beyond them—vast, and, so to speak, hostile—is rarely reached by ships from our world. And who, besides the danger of that grim and unknown sea, would leave Asia, Africa, or Italy to make for Germany, shapeless in its land, harsh in its sky, grim to live in and look at, unless it were his homeland? In ancient songs—their only form of history or record—they celebrate the god Tuisto, born of the earth. They assign him a son, they assign him a son, Mannus, the origin of the race, and to Mannus three sons as its founders, from whose names the tribes nearest the Ocean are called Ingaevones, those in the middle Herminones, and the rest Istaevones. Some, since antiquity allows latitude, claim the god had more sons and so more names for the people—Marsi, Gambrivii, Suebi, Vandilii—and say these are the true, ancient names. But the name Germania is recent and newly applied, since the tribe that first crossed the Rhine and drove out the Gauls—now called the Tungri, then called Germani—gave its name to the whole. So a name that belonged to one tribe gradually prevailed as the name of the nation, until all were called Germani, first by the victor out of fear, then by themselves, once the name had been adopted.
3| They also tell of Hercules having been among them, and sing of him first of all brave men as they go into battle. They have other songs too, whose chanting—called the baritus—they use to stir their courage, and from the sound of it they foretell how the coming fight will go. It terrifies or unsettles them depending on how the battle-line roars; it comes across less as voices than as one massed sound of courage. What they aim for above all is a harsh, broken roar, achieved by holding their shields up before their mouths, so the sound swells fuller and deeper as it bounces back. Some also think that Ulysses, in that long and legendary wandering, was carried into this Ocean and reached the lands of Germany, and that Asciburgium—which stands on the bank of the Rhine and is still inhabited today—owed both its founding and its name to him; that on that very spot an altar once turned up bearing Ulysses' name alongside his father Laertes', and that Greek-lettered monuments and burial mounds can still be found along the frontier separating Germany from Raetia. I do not mean to prove or disprove these claims; let each reader believe or doubt them as he is inclined.
4| For my part I side with those who think the peoples of Germany have never been tainted by intermarriage with other nations, and stand out as a distinct, pure people, resembling only themselves. Hence, despite their great numbers, they all share the same physical type: fierce blue eyes, reddish hair, large bodies fit only for a sudden charge. They have less patience for hard labor and toil, and can hardly bear thirst and heat at all, though their climate and soil have accustomed them to cold and hunger.
5| The land, though it varies somewhat in appearance, is on the whole either bristling with forests or foul with marshes—wetter where it faces Gaul, windier where it faces Noricum and Pannonia. It is fertile enough for grain but will not grow fruit trees; it is rich in livestock, but the animals are mostly undersized. Not even the cattle have their natural pride of the brow: the Germans prize them for number, since herds are their one real, prized form of wealth. Whether the gods have withheld gold and silver out of favor or out of anger, I cannot say. Nor would I claim that no vein of Germany produces gold or silver—who has ever searched? They are not much moved by owning or using such things: you can see silver vessels among them, given as gifts to their envoys and chiefs, treated with no more regard than pottery. Though the tribes nearest us, because they trade, value gold and silver and recognize and prefer certain of our coin-types, those further inland keep to the simpler, older practice of barter. They favor old, long-familiar coin, the serrated kind and those stamped with a two-horse chariot. They go after silver more than gold, not from any particular liking, but because a stock of silver coins is easier to use for people who buy cheap, everyday goods.
6| Not even iron is plentiful among them, as one can tell from the kind of weapons they carry. Few use swords or long lances; instead they carry spears—framea is their own word for it—with a narrow, short iron head, but so sharp and handy that they can fight with the same weapon either at close range or at a distance, as the moment demands. The cavalryman is content with shield and framea; the infantry also hurl missiles, several apiece, and throw them a great distance, fighting naked or lightly covered by a cloak. There is no show of finery: only their shields are picked out in the brightest colors. Few have breastplates; barely one man in a group has a helmet of metal or hide. Their horses are unremarkable either in build or speed, and are not trained, as ours are, to wheel about; they are driven straight ahead or in a single turn to the right, in a tight formation so that no one is left behind. On the whole, judging the matter fairly, their strength lies more with the infantry, and so they fight with the two combined, choosing infantry from the whole body of young men for their speed, which suits it well to fighting alongside cavalry, and stationing them in front of the line. Even their numbers are fixed: a hundred men are drawn from each district, and that is what they are called among themselves, so that what began as a mere number has become a title of honor. Their line is drawn up in wedges. To give ground, provided you press forward again, they count as tactics, not cowardice. They carry off their dead even from indecisive battles. Losing one's shield is the height of disgrace; a man so disgraced may not attend the sacred rites or enter the assembly, and many survivors of war have ended such shame with a noose.
7| They choose kings for their noble birth, commanders for their courage. Even their kings do not hold unlimited or arbitrary power, and their commanders lead by example rather than by command, winning respect if they are bold, visible, and out in front of the line. But to punish, imprison, or even flog a man is allowed to no one but the priests, and even then not as punishment or at a commander's order, but as though by the command of the god they believe is present with them in battle. They carry into battle certain figures and standards taken from their sacred groves. And—this is a special spur to their courage—it is not chance or a random grouping that forms a troop or a wedge, but families and kinship groups; and close by are those dearest to them, so that the wailing of women and the crying of children can be heard nearby. These are, to each man, the most sacred witnesses and the highest praisers; they carry their wounds to their mothers and wives, who do not shrink from counting and inspecting the blows, and who bring food and encouragement to the fighters.
8| Tradition tells that some battle lines, already wavering and on the point of breaking, were rallied by the women, through the steadiness of their pleading, the baring of their breasts, and by pointing out to the men how close captivity was—something they dread far more fiercely on their women's behalf than their own. So much so that tribes bound by treaty are held more firmly to it when noble girls are demanded among the hostages. They even believe there is something holy and prophetic in women, and neither dismiss their advice nor do they brush off what these women foretell. Under the deified Vespasian, Veleda was among those we ourselves witnessed, treated by many for a long stretch as something divine; earlier still, Aurinia and a handful of others were held in similar reverence—not from mere flattery, nor as if the tribes were manufacturing goddesses.
9| Among the gods they worship Mercury most of all, to whom on certain fixed days they consider it right to offer even human sacrifice. Hercules and Mars they appease with permitted animal victims. Part of the Suebi also sacrifice to Isis: I have not been able to discover the reason or origin of this foreign rite, except that the image itself, shaped like a light warship, suggests the cult was imported. Beyond this, they think it beneath the greatness of heavenly beings to confine gods within walls or to model them in any human likeness; they consecrate groves and woods and call by the names of gods that hidden presence which they see only through reverence.
10| No people pays closer attention to omens and lots. Their method with lots is simple: they cut a branch from a fruit-bearing tree and slice it into strips, mark these with certain signs, and scatter them at random over a white cloth. Then, if the question is public, the priest of the community prays to the gods, looks up at the sky, and picks up three strips one at a time; if private, the head of the household does it himself. He reads them according to the mark cut into each. If the signs forbid, there's no further inquiry on the same matter that day; if they permit, further confirmation by omen is still required. They also, like others, know how to read the calls and flight of birds. But it's a habit unique to this people to consult the omens and warnings given by horses. White horses, touched by no human labor, are kept at public expense in the same sacred groves; yoked to a sacred chariot, with the priest walking alongside, and the king or the community's chief as well, marking closely how the animals neigh and snort. No omen wins fuller confidence — the common people trust it, yes, but so do the nobles, so do the priests, since they hold themselves to be the gods' attendants and the horses to be privy to divine intent. A second form of divination exists too, by which they test the outcome of serious wars: they get hold of a captive from the enemy nation, by whatever means, and pit him against a chosen man of their own, each armed in his people's fashion. The victory of one or the other is taken as a forecast.
11| On minor matters the chiefs deliberate; on major ones, the whole people — though even those questions reserved for the people's decision are first worked over by the chiefs. They assemble, barring some sudden emergency, on fixed days, at the new moon or the full moon, since they think this the luckiest time to begin any undertaking. They don't count by days, as we do, but by nights: their reckonings and their appointments are made this way, night treated as leading the day. It's a flaw that comes of freedom that they don't gather at once or on command — a second and even a third day is wasted through the slowness of the assembling. When the crowd is satisfied that enough have come, they take their seats, armed. Silence is called for by the priests, who on these occasions also hold the right to enforce order. Then the king or a chief is heard, by age, by rank, by glory in war, or by eloquence, each in his turn — with the authority of persuasion rather than the power to command. If his proposal displeases them, they reject it with a growl; if it pleases them, they clash their spears together. Approval by weapons is their most honored form of assent.
12| At the assembly one may also bring charges and press a capital case. The punishment varies with the offense: traitors and deserters they hang from trees; cowards, men unfit for battle, and those who disgrace their bodies they plunge into a bog and drown, with a hurdle thrown on top. The difference in punishment reflects a principle — crimes should be displayed as they're punished, shameful acts hidden away. For lighter offenses too the penalty fits the case: those convicted are fined in horses and cattle. Part of the fine goes to the king or the community, part to the injured man himself or his kin. At these same assemblies chiefs are also chosen who administer justice through the districts and villages; each is given a hundred companions from the common people, both as counsel and as backing for his authority.
13| They handle no business, public or private, except under arms. But custom forbids anyone from taking up arms until the community has judged him fit. Then, in the assembly itself, one of the chiefs, or the young man's father, or a relative, arms him with shield and spear. This is their equivalent of the toga — the young man's first honor. Up to this point he's seen as part of the household; from now on, of the state. Conspicuous nobility or great services by a man's father can win the rank of chief even for quite young men; others attach themselves to men of proven strength, long tested — and there's no shame in being counted among a leader's followers. Even within this retinue there are grades, set by the judgment of the man they follow; and there's fierce rivalry among the companions for first place beside their chief, and among the chiefs for who has the most and the fiercest followers. This is their standing, this their strength — to be always surrounded by a great band of chosen young men, an honor in peace and a defense in war. Nor is this reputation and glory confined to a man's own people; neighboring states know it too, if his following is outstanding in numbers and courage. Such men are sought out by embassies, honored with gifts, and their fame alone often settles a war.
14| Once battle is joined, it's shameful for the chief to be outdone in courage, shameful for his companions not to match their chief's courage. But it's a lifelong disgrace, an infamy, to survive one's chief and come back from the field. To defend him, to protect him, even to credit him with one's own brave deeds — that is their highest obligation. The chiefs fight for victory; the companions fight for their chief. If the community they were born into grows sluggish in long peace and idleness, many young nobles seek out, of their own will, whatever nation is currently at war, since peace is unwelcome to this people and they win renown more readily amid danger, and a large retinue cannot be kept up except by violence and war. They demand their chief's generosity — that fine war-horse, that blood-stained, victorious spear — for a table, however plain, lavishly supplied stands in for a soldier's pay. War and plunder are the source of this bounty. You'd sooner persuade them to challenge an enemy and earn wounds than to till the soil and wait on the harvest — indeed it seems to them slack and spiritless to win by sweat what could be won by blood.
15| When they're not at war, they spend some time hunting, but more idle, given over to sleep and food: the bravest and most warlike do nothing at all, leaving the care of house, home, and land to the women, the old, and the weakest of the family, while they themselves grow torpid — a strange contradiction in a single nature, that the same men should love idleness and hate quiet. It's a custom of the communities to bring gifts to their chiefs of their own accord, individually — cattle or grain — which, accepted as a mark of honor, also meets their needs. They especially delight in gifts from neighboring peoples, sent not by individuals only but by whole communities: choice horses, splendid arms, trappings, and torques. We have now taught them to accept money as well.
16| It's well known that none of the German peoples live in cities; they won't even tolerate houses built close together. They live scattered and apart, wherever a spring, a field, or a wood has taken their fancy. They lay out their villages not in our fashion, with buildings joined and connected — each man surrounds his house with open space, whether as a precaution against fire or from sheer lack of building skill. They don't even use quarried stone or tiles; they build everything out of rough timber, with no thought for appearance or comfort. Some spots they coat rather carefully with an earth so pure and gleaming it looks like painting, like patterns of color. They're also fond of digging underground chambers, which they heap over with great piles of dung — a refuge from winter and a storehouse for grain, since such places soften the harshness of the cold; and if an enemy ever comes, he plunders what's out in the open, while what's hidden and buried either goes unnoticed or escapes simply because it has to be searched for.
17| Everyone's covering is a cloak fastened with a pin, or, lacking that, a thorn; otherwise unclothed, they spend whole days by the hearth fire. The wealthiest are distinguished by a garment that isn't loose, as with the Sarmatians and Parthians, but fitted, tracing the shape of each limb. They also wear the skins of wild beasts — those near the river without much care, those farther off more carefully, since they have no trade to supply them finer dress. They pick out the animals and dapple the stripped hides with the spotted skins of the beasts bred by the outer ocean and its unknown sea. Women dress no differently from men, except that women more often wrap themselves in linen garments, which they dye with purple, and they don't extend the upper part of the dress into sleeves — their arms and shoulders are bare, though the nearest part of the chest is also left uncovered.
18| Yet marriage there is strict, and there's no part of their morals you could praise more. Almost alone among barbarians they're content with one wife each, except for the very few who, not from lust but for their high rank, are courted with several marriages. The dowry is offered not by the wife to the husband, but by the husband to the wife. Parents and relatives attend and approve the gifts — gifts chosen not to please a woman's vanity or to adorn a new bride, but oxen, a bridled horse, a shield, spear, and sword. For such gifts a wife is won, and in turn she herself brings some piece of weaponry to her husband. This exchange they consider the strongest bond, these the mystic rites, these the gods of marriage. So that the woman won't think herself set apart from thoughts of courage or the risks of war, she's reminded, in the very ceremonies that open her marriage, that she comes as a partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare the same things, in peace as in battle — that's the message of the yoked oxen, the harnessed horse, the given arms. So she must live, so bear children: she is to receive what she'll pass on to her children unspoiled and worthy, what her daughters-in-law will receive in turn and hand down again to her grandchildren.
19| So they live behind a wall of chastity, corrupted by no seductive spectacles, no provocative banquets. Men and women alike know nothing of secret letters. Adultery is very rare in so populous a people, and its punishment is swift and left to the husband: he cuts off her hair, strips her before the relatives, and drives her from the house, then whips her through the whole village. For unchastity once exposed finds no pardon; neither beauty, youth, nor wealth will win her another husband. No one there laughs at vice, and seducing or being seduced is not called "the way of the age." Still better are those tribes where only virgins marry, and a woman's hope and prayer for a husband are settled once and for all. So they take one husband as they take one body and one life: no thought beyond it, no lingering desire, so that they love him not merely as a husband but as marriage itself. To limit the number of children, or to kill any late-born child, is considered a crime, and good character counts for more there than good laws do elsewhere.
20| In every household the children grow up naked and unwashed into the limbs and bodies we admire. Each mother nurses her own child at her own breast; they are not handed off to maids and nurses. You cannot tell master from slave by any softness of upbringing: they live among the same animals, on the same ground, until age separates the free-born and merit marks them out. Young men come late to sex, and so their vigor is not used up; nor are the girls rushed into marriage. They are the same age, similarly tall, and pair off matched and strong, so that children reproduce their parents' strength. A sister's sons are honored by their uncle as much as by their father; some think this blood-tie even more sacred and binding, and insist on it especially when taking hostages, believing it grips the heart more firmly and the family more widely. Still, each man's own children are his heirs and successors, and there is no will. If there are no children, the next in line to inherit are brothers, then paternal uncles, then maternal uncles. The more relatives a man has, the larger his circle of kin by marriage, the more respected his old age; childlessness earns no rewards there.
21| A man must take up his father's or kinsman's feuds as much as his friendships. But hatreds do not last forever unappeased: even murder can be settled: a set tally of cattle and sheep is handed over, and the household as a whole takes the compensation and lets it go — a good thing for the community, since feuds are all the more dangerous where freedom runs unchecked. No people indulges more freely in feasting and hospitality. To turn any man away from your roof is thought a sin; each host serves a meal as lavish as he can afford. When the food runs out, the man who was host a moment ago now guides his guest to the next house and goes along with him; they arrive uninvited, and it makes no difference — they are welcomed with the same warmth. No one distinguishes known from unknown where the rights of a guest are concerned. If a departing guest asks for something, custom grants it, and he may ask just as freely in return. They enjoy giving gifts, but keep no account of what they give, and feel no debt for what they receive.
22| As soon as they wake — and they usually sleep well into the day — they bathe, often in warm water, since winter takes up most of their year. After washing they eat, each with his own seat and his own table. Then they go about their business, and just as often to their feasts, armed. Drinking through day and night without a break is no disgrace to anyone. Quarrels are frequent, as you'd expect among drinkers, and rarely end in mere insults — more often in blood and wounds. Yet it is mostly at these feasts that they discuss reconciling enemies, arranging marriages between families, choosing chiefs, and finally war and peace, as if at no other time is the mind more open to plain thoughts or more fired up for great ones. This people, neither cunning nor devious, lays bare the secrets of its heart in the freedom of the occasion; so every mind stands exposed and naked. The next day the matter is reconsidered, and each moment gets its due: they deliberate while incapable of pretense, and decide while incapable of being wrong.
23| Their drink is a liquor fermented from barley or wheat into something like wine; those nearest the river also buy actual wine. Their food is plain — wild fruit, fresh game, or curdled milk. They stave off hunger without fuss, without fine seasoning. Against thirst they show no such restraint. Indulge their drunkenness by supplying as much as they crave, and they will be beaten by their vices as easily as by weapons.
24| They have one kind of public spectacle, the same at every gathering: naked young men, for whom this is sport, leap and dance among swords and spears pointed at them. Practice has made them skilled, skill has made them graceful, but not for profit or pay — however daring the display, its only reward is the pleasure of the audience. Remarkably, they gamble while sober, as if it were serious business, with such reckless disregard for winning or losing that when everything else is gone, they stake their freedom and their body on one last throw of the dice. The loser submits to voluntary slavery: even if younger and stronger, he lets himself be bound and sold. Such is their stubbornness in a bad cause — they themselves call it "honor." Slaves won this way are traded off in commerce, so that the winners too can rid themselves of the shame of such a victory.
25| The rest of their slaves are not organized into household duties the way ours are: each has his own home and hearth to manage. The master requires a set amount of grain, livestock, or cloth from him, as from a tenant farmer, and the slave's obedience stops there; the rest of the household work is done by the master's wife and children. To beat a slave, or restrain him with chains and hard labor, is rare; killing them happens, though not out of discipline or severity but from a sudden fit of rage, as one might kill an enemy — except that it goes unpunished. Freedmen are not much above slaves; they rarely carry any weight in the household, and never in the tribe — except among those peoples ruled by kings. In those places freedmen actually outrank both the free-born and the nobles themselves; among other peoples their lesser standing is itself proof of freedom.
26| Lending money at interest is unknown, and so it is better guarded against than if it were forbidden. Land is claimed by the whole community according to the number of farmers, then divided among themselves by rank; the vast open spaces make the dividing easy. They shift their fields from year to year, and there is still land left over. They do not struggle against the richness and size of the soil by planting orchards, fencing off meadows, or irrigating gardens — they demand only a grain crop from the earth. So they do not even divide the year itself into as many seasons as we do: winter, spring, and summer are understood and named, but autumn's name and its blessings are alike unknown to them.
27| Funerals show no display: the only rule observed is that the bodies of famous men are burned with a particular kind of wood. They do not pile the pyre with fine clothes or incense; each man's arms are added to his own fire, and sometimes his horse as well. A mound of turf raises the grave; they scorn the difficult, elaborate honor of monuments as a burden upon the dead. They set aside wailing and tears quickly, but sorrow and grief slowly. For women, mourning is proper; for men, remembering. This is what we have learned in general about the origin and customs of all the Germans; now I will explain how the institutions and rites of the individual peoples differ, and which nations migrated from Germany into Gaul.
28| The deified Julius, greatest of authorities, records that the Gauls were once the stronger power — so it is believable that Gauls also crossed into Germany. How small a barrier a river was, after all, to keep any people, once it had grown strong, from seizing and exchanging territory still undivided and unclaimed by any powerful kingdoms! And so the Helvetii once occupied the ground lying between the Hercynian forest and the Rhine and Main rivers, and beyond them the Boii — both Gallic peoples. The name Boihaemum still survives, marking the ancient memory of the place even though its inhabitants have changed. But whether the Aravisci migrated into Pannonia from the Osi, a German nation, or the Osi from the Aravisci into Germany, is uncertain, since to this day they share the same language, institutions, and customs — because, when poverty and freedom were shared equally on both sides of the river, the good and bad of life were the same for both. The Treveri and Nervii, for their part, actively claim German origin, as if this glorious bloodline set them apart from the resemblance to the lazy Gauls. The banks of the Rhine itself are, without doubt, inhabited by peoples of German stock — the Vangiones, Triboci, and Nemetes. Even the Ubii, though they have earned the standing of a Roman colony and prefer to be called Agrippinenses after their founder, do not blush at their origin — they crossed the river long ago and, as proof of their loyalty, were settled right on the Rhine bank, to guard the frontier, not to be watched over by it.
29| The bravest of all these peoples are the Batavians. They occupy not much land on the riverbank but the island in the Rhine — once a Chattan people, driven by internal strife to migrate to these settlements, where they became part of the Roman empire. They still keep the honor and the mark of that old alliance: no one taxes them in scorn, no tax farmer wears them down. Exempt from tribute and levies, they're set aside for one use only — war — kept in reserve like weapons and arms. The Mattiaci hold that same rank; Rome's power is so great it has pushed our authority past the Rhine, beyond the old borders of the empire itself. So they live and hold their ground on their own bank, but their hearts and minds are with us — like the Batavians in every other way, except that they're stirred more fiercely still by the very soil and sky of their homeland. I wouldn't count among the peoples of Germany, though they've settled beyond the Rhine and Danube, those who farm the Tithe Lands. The most reckless of the Gauls, made bold by poverty, seized this land of doubtful ownership; then, once a frontier line was drawn and garrisons pushed forward, it became a pocket of empire and part of a province.
30| Beyond these, the Chatti begin their territory at the Hercynian forest. Their country isn't as flat and marshy as the other tribal lands where Germany opens out — hills run through it, thinning gradually, and the Hercynian forest both accompanies its Chatti and, in time, lets them go. Their bodies are tougher, their limbs compact, their faces threatening, their spirit unusually vigorous. For Germans, they have a good deal of judgment and skill: they pick out chosen leaders, they listen to those set over them, they know their ranks, they read opportunities, they hold back their charges, they plan out the day, they fortify the night, they count luck among uncertain things and courage among sure ones — and, rarest of all, a thing granted only to Roman discipline, they put more trust in their commander than in their army. Their whole strength is in the infantry, whom they load down with tools and supplies on top of weapons. You could watch other tribes go to a battle; the Chatti go to a war. Raids are rare for them, and fighting is not left to chance. That belongs properly to cavalry — quick to win, quick to give ground. The infantryman's speed lies close to fear, but his patience is closer to steadiness.
31| A practice that other German peoples take up only rarely, and then as a matter of private daring, has become a fixed custom among the Chatti: as soon as they come of age, they let their hair and beard grow, and they don't shed that vow-bound, look pledged to courage until they've killed an enemy. Only over blood and spoils do they bare their brow again; only then, they say, have they repaid the price of their birth and proved themselves worthy of their homeland and their parents. Cowards and men unfit for war stay shaggy. The bravest among them also wear an iron ring — a mark of disgrace among this people — as a kind of shackle, until they free themselves by killing an enemy. Most of the Chatti favor this custom, and already there are men gone gray still wearing it, pointed out to friend and foe alike. In every battle it's they who open the fighting; they always form the first line, a strange thing to see, for even in peacetime their faces never soften. None of them has a house, or land, or any concern of that kind — they're fed wherever they happen to arrive, careless with what belongs to others, contemptuous of what's their own, until bloodless old age leaves them unequal to such hard courage.
32| Next to the Chatti, where the Rhine now runs in a fixed channel steady enough to serve as a border, live the Usipi and Tencteri. The Tencteri, beyond the usual glory of war, excel especially in cavalry skill — infantry is no more praised among the Chatti than cavalry is among the Tencteri. Their ancestors set it up this way, and their descendants follow. It's the game of their children, the rivalry of their young men; old men keep it up still. Horses pass down with the household, the family gods, and the rights of inheritance — not to the eldest son, as with everything else, but to whichever son is fiercest in war and best.
33| Next to the Tencteri once lived the Bructeri; now, the story goes, the Chamavi and Angrivarii have moved in, having driven the Bructeri out and wiped them out entirely, with neighboring peoples joining in — whether from hatred of their arrogance, or love of plunder, or some favor the gods show us, for they didn't even grudge us the sight of the battle. More than sixty thousand fell, not to Roman weapons and arms, but — more magnificent still — for our entertainment and before our eyes. May it last, I pray, and endure among these peoples — if not love for us, then at least hatred for each other — since, with the fate of the empire pressing in on us, fortune can grant nothing greater than discord among our enemies.
34| Behind the Angrivarii and Chamavi, the Dulgubnii and Chasuarii close them in, along with other tribes less worth mentioning; in front, the Frisii take over. They're called the Greater and Lesser Frisii, named for the measure of their strength. Both peoples run along the Rhine all the way to the Ocean, and surround as well vast lakes that Roman fleets have sailed. We even ventured onto the Ocean itself there, and rumor has spread that the Pillars of Hercules still survive out there — whether Hercules actually reached that place, or whether we've simply agreed to credit his name with anything magnificent anywhere. Drusus Germanicus wasn't short of daring, but the Ocean stood in the way of any inquiry into itself or into Hercules. No one has tried since, and it's come to seem more reverent and proper to believe in the deeds of the gods than to know them.
35| This is as far as we know Germany toward the west; toward the north it curves away in a vast bend. Right away, first, comes the tribe of the Chauci. Though they begin at the Frisii and hold part of the coast, they border the flanks of all the peoples I've described, until their territory curves around as far as the Chatti. They don't just hold this immense stretch of land, they fill it — a people the most noble among the Germans, one that would rather protect its greatness by justice than by force. Without greed, without aggression, quiet and withdrawn, they provoke no wars, they ravage nothing by raiding or robbery. This above all is proof of their strength and courage: that they don't need to wrong others to prove they outrank them. Yet weapons stand ready for all of them, and an army too if the need arises — plenty of men, plenty of horses — and even at rest, their reputation stays the same.
36| On the flank of the Chauci and Chatti, the Cherusci nursed a peace, too long unchallenged, that grew slack and rotten. It was more pleasant than safe, because sitting quiet between the reckless and the strong is a false safety: when it comes down to force, restraint and honesty are just names for the weaker side. So the Cherusci, once called good and just, are now called lazy and foolish. For the victorious Chatti, luck passed for wisdom. The Fosi, a neighboring people, were dragged down in the Cherusci's ruin, sharing their disasters as equal partners, though in better times they had been the lesser ones.
37| The same stretch of Germany, nearest the Ocean, is held by the Cimbri — a small nation now, but of enormous fame. Wide traces of their old glory still remain: camps and encampment grounds on both banks, whose size even today lets you measure the bulk and manpower of that people and confirm the scale of their famous exodus. Rome had stood six hundred and forty years when word of Cimbrian arms first reached us, in the year Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo were consuls. Reckon forward to Trajan's second consulship and you get something like two hundred and ten years since then — that long has the conquest of Germany been underway. In so long a stretch of time, losses have gone back and forth on both sides. Not the Samnites, not the Carthaginians, not Spain or Gaul, not even the Parthians have warned us more often — for the freedom of the Germans is fiercer than the rule of the Arsacid king. What, after all, can the East throw in our faces besides the slaughter of Crassus, when it lost Pacorus too and was struck down beneath Ventidius? But the Germans routed or captured Carbo, Cassius, Aurelius Scaurus, Servilius Caepio, and Mallius Maximus, stripping the Roman people of five consular armies all at once, and they took Varus and three legions with him from Caesar himself. Nor did they escape unpunished — Gaius Marius struck them down in Italy, the deified Julius in Gaul, Drusus and Nero and Germanicus on their own ground — but then Gaius Caesar's huge threats turned into a joke. After that came quiet, until, taking advantage of our own discord and civil war, they stormed the legions' winter camps and even made a try for the Gauls — and were driven back again. In recent times they've been triumphed over more than actually beaten.
38| Now I must speak of the Suebi, who are not a single people like the Chatti or Tencteri — they hold the greater part of Germany, still divided into distinct nations with their own names, though together they're called Suebi. It's a mark of the people to comb the hair back and knot it tight: this sets the Suebi apart from other Germans, and free-born Suebi apart from their slaves. Among other tribes — whether from some kinship with the Suebi or, more often, simple imitation — the same style shows up, but rarely, and only within the span of youth. Among the Suebi, the hair is twisted back bristling right up to gray old age, and often tied at the very crown. Their chiefs wear it even more elaborately — a concern for looks, but a harmless one, for they don't dress this way to attract love or invite it. They groom themselves as they go to war, rising to a certain height and terror, adorning themselves, so to speak, for the eyes of the enemy.
39| The Semnones are said to be the oldest and noblest of the Suebi; the claim is backed up by a religious tradition. At a set time, delegates from all the peoples of their blood gather in a forest sacred through the omens of their ancestors and ancient dread, and by publicly killing a man there the tribesmen open their grim rite. The grove commands another kind of reverence too: no one enters it except bound with a cord, as a way of showing himself lesser and acknowledging the god's power. If a man happens to fall, he's not allowed to be lifted or to rise on his own; he must roll himself out along the ground. The whole superstition points to one belief: that this is where the nation began, that here the god who rules everything lives, and everything else is subject and answerable to him. The Semnones' good fortune adds to their standing further still: they occupy a hundred districts, and their sheer size leads them to believe they're the head of the Suebi.
40| The Langobardi, by contrast, are made noble by their very fewness: surrounded by many powerful nations, they stay safe not through submission but through fighting and taking risks. Next come the Reudigni, the Aviones, the Anglii, the Varini, the Eudoses, the Suarines, and the Nuitones, protected by rivers or forests. None of them is individually remarkable, except that together they worship Nerthus, that is, Mother Earth, and believe she takes part in human affairs and rides out among the peoples. On an island in the ocean stands an untouched grove, and in it a consecrated wagon draped with cloth, which only the priest is allowed to touch. He alone perceives when the goddess is present in her shrine, and he accompanies her, drawn by cows, with deep reverence. Those are joyful days, and wherever she deigns to visit and stay is treated as a festival. No wars are begun, no weapons taken up; every piece of iron is locked away; peace and quiet are known and loved only at that time — until the same priest returns the goddess, now sated with mortal company, to her temple. After that, the wagon, the cloth, and — if you're willing to believe it — the deity herself are washed in a hidden lake. Slaves perform this service, and the same lake swallows them the moment it's done. From this comes a secret dread and a holy ignorance about what it is that only dying men ever see.
41| This portion of the Suebi stretches into the more remote parts of Germany. Closer to us — and since I traced the Rhine a little earlier, let me now follow the Danube — is the tribe of the Hermunduri, loyal to Rome. Because of that, they alone among the Germans trade not just on the riverbank but deep inland, even in the splendid colony of the province of Raetia. They cross over anywhere, unguarded, and while we show other tribes only our weapons and our camps, to these people we've opened our homes and country houses, and they show no desire to seize them. The Elbe rises in the land of the Hermunduri — a river once famous and well known; now it's only heard of.
42| Next to the Hermunduri live the Naristi, and then the Marcomani and the Quadi. The Marcomani's glory and strength stand out above the rest, and they won their very homeland by courage, driving out the Boii long ago. Nor do the Naristi or the Quadi fall short. This region forms, so to speak, the forehead of Germany, where it borders the Danube. Down to our own time the Marcomani and the Quadi have kept kings from their own royal line — the noble house of Maroboduus and Tudrus (though now they tolerate outsiders too) — but a king's real power and influence come from Rome's backing. Rarely are they helped by our arms, more often by our money, and they're no less strong for it.
43| Behind them, the Marsigni, Cotini, Osi, and Buri close off the rear of the Marcomani and Quadi. Of these, the Marsigni and Buri resemble the Suebi in language and way of life; but the Cotini's Gallic speech and the Osi's Pannonian speech prove they aren't Germans — as does the fact that they pay tribute. Part of that tribute is imposed by the Sarmatians, part by the Quadi, treating them as foreigners; and to their further shame, the Cotini even mine iron for it. All these peoples occupy little open plain and mostly hold the forests and mountain heights, since a continuous mountain range splits and divides Suebia. Beyond it live many more nations, among whom the name of the Lugii spreads widest, covering several tribes. It's enough to name the strongest of them: the Harii, Helvecones, Manimi, Helisii, and Naharvali. Among the Naharvali a grove of ancient worship is shown to visitors. A priest presides over it dressed as a woman, and by the Roman interpretation the gods worshipped there are said to be Castor and Pollux; their real power is the same, but their name is Alci. There are no images, no trace of foreign superstition — yet they're worshipped as brothers, as young men. As for the Harii, beyond their strength, which already puts them ahead of the peoples just listed, they play up their natural ferocity with tricks and timing: black shields, bodies dyed black, they pick dark nights for battle, and by sheer dread and shadow, this deathly-looking army spreads terror, since no enemy can bear a sight so strange, so nearly infernal — for in every battle the eyes are the first to be beaten. Beyond the Lugii the Gotones are ruled by kings, a bit more tightly already than the other German peoples, though not yet beyond the bounds of freedom. Right after them, along the coast, come the Rugii and Lemovii; and the mark of all these peoples is round shields, short swords, and obedience toward their kings.
44| From here begin the states of the Suiones, out in the ocean itself, strong not only in men and weapons but in fleets. Their ships differ in shape in that a prow at each end always keeps a front ready to land. They don't work with sails, and they don't fasten oars in a row along the sides; instead the rowing is loose, as on certain rivers, and shifted from side to side as needed. Among them, wealth is also honored, and for that reason one man rules, with no exceptions now and no need to ask permission to be obeyed. Weapons here aren't left in common use as among other Germans, but kept locked away, and guarded, in fact, by a slave — because the ocean keeps sudden enemy raids away, and idle bands of armed men easily run wild. So it actually serves the king's purposes to put no nobleman, no free man, not even a freedman, in charge of the weapons.
45| Beyond the Suiones lies another sea, sluggish and almost motionless, which is believed to ring and enclose the whole world — the evidence being that the last glow of the setting sun lingers on into sunrise, bright enough to dim the stars. Popular belief adds that a sound is heard as the sun rises, and that the shapes of horses and the rays around its head can be seen. Only as far as that point does report reach true — nature stops there. So now, along the right-hand shore of the Suebian Sea, live the tribes of the Aestii, whose customs and dress are like the Suebi's, though their speech, more than anything, resembles British. The mother of the gods is what they worship, and the boar-shape is the emblem of that cult: this, instead of weapons, protects the goddess's worshipper securely even among enemies. They rarely use iron, and often clubs instead. They work at growing grain and other crops with more patience than you'd expect from the usual German laziness. But they also search the sea, and they alone gather amber — which they themselves call glesum — among the shallows and right on the shore. As barbarians, they've never asked or found out what it is or how it forms; in fact it long lay among the other debris cast up by the sea, until our own extravagance gave it a name. They themselves have no use for it: they gather it raw, carry it off shapeless, and take the price for it in wonder. Yet you can tell it's tree sap, because certain land creatures, even winged ones, are often visible glinting inside it, having been trapped in the liquid and then sealed as the material hardened. So I'd guess that, just as in the hidden places of the East where frankincense and balsam ooze out, so too in the islands and lands of the West there are richer groves and forests, which, squeezed out and made liquid by the nearby sun's rays, flow down into the neighboring sea and are washed by the force of storms onto the opposite shores. If you test the nature of amber by bringing fire near it, it catches like a torch and feeds a thick, fragrant flame; then it softens like pitch or resin. Beyond the Suiones come the tribes of the Sitones, similar in everything else, but different in one thing: a woman rules them. That is how far they've fallen — not just below freedom, but below slavery itself.
46| Here Suebia ends. Whether to count the Peucini, the Venethi, and the Fenni as Germans or as Sarmatians, I'm not sure. Although the Peucini — whom some call Bastarnae — live like Germans in speech, dress, and settled homes. Filth marks them all, and sluggishness marks their leading men; through intermarriage they've grown somewhat corrupted, taking on the look of the Sarmatians. The Venethi have drawn heavily on Sarmatian ways too, for they roam and raid through all the forest and mountain country between the Peucini and the Fenni. Even so, they're better classed among the Germans, because they build fixed houses, carry shields, and delight in traveling fast on foot — all of which sets them apart from the Sarmatians, who live their lives in wagon and on horseback. The Fenni are astonishingly wild and wretchedly poor: no weapons, no horses, no homes; grass for food, hides for clothing, the bare ground for a bed. Their only hope lies in arrows, which for lack of iron they tip with bone. The same hunting feeds men and women alike, since the women go along everywhere and claim their share of the catch. The only shelter they have for their infants against wild animals and rain is some tangle of branches pulled together; that's where the young return, and that's the old people's refuge too. Yet they count this a happier life than groaning over farm work, laboring over houses, and juggling their own and other people's fortunes between hope and fear: safe from other men, safe from the gods, they've achieved the hardest thing of all — not even needing to wish for anything. Everything beyond this is now the stuff of legend: that the Hellusii and Oxiones have human faces and features but the bodies and limbs of wild beasts — this I'll leave unverified, an open question.