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Tacitus, an important Roman historian, wrote the most detailed early description of
the Germans at the end of the first century CE. In doing so, be warned, he was commenting
on the Rome of his own time, as much as on the German themselves.
Question:
What specific aspects of Roman society was Tacitus criticizing in these descriptions of
the Germans?
Physical Characteristics.
For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from
all taint of intermarriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct,
unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities
throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit
only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst
they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure
them.
Government. Influence of Women.
They choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit. These kings have not
unlimited or arbitrary power, and the generals do more by example than by authority. If
they are energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they lead because
they are admired. But to reprimand, to imprison, even to flog, is permitted to the priests
alone, and that not as a punishment, or at the general's bidding, but, as it were, by the
mandate of the god whom they believe to inspire the warrior. They also carry with them
into battle certain figures and images taken from their sacred groves. And what most
stimulates their courage is, that their squadrons or battalions, instead of being formed
by chance or by a fortuitous gathering, are composed of families and clans. Close by them,
too, are those dearest to them, so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of
infants. They are to every man the most sacred witnesses of his bravery-they are his most
generous applauders. The soldier brings his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from
counting or even demanding them and who administer food and encouragement to the
combatants.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way have been rallied by women
who, with earnest entreaties and bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of
captivity, which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on behalf of their women, that
the strongest tie by which a state can be bound is the being required to give, among the
number of hostages, maidens of noble birth. They even believe that the sex has a certain
sanctity and prescience, and they do not despise their counsels, or make light of their
answers. In Vespasian's days we saw Veleda, long regarded by many as a divinity. In former
times, too, they venerated Aurinia, and many other women, but not with servile flatteries,
or with sham deification.
Punishments. Administration of Justice.
In their councils an accusation may be preferred or a capital crime prosecuted.
Penalties are distinguished according to the offence. Traitors and deserters are hanged on
trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into
the mire of the morass with a hurdle put over him. This distinction in punishment means
that crime, they think, ought, in being punished, to be exposed, while infamy ought to be
buried out of sight- Lighter offences, too, have penalties proportioned to them; he who is
convicted, is fined in a certain number of horses or of cattle. Half of the fine is paid
to the king or to the state, half to the person whose wrongs are avenged and to his
relatives. In these same councils they also elect the chief magistrates, who administer
law in the cantons and the towns. Each of these has a hundred associates chosen from the
people, who support him with their advice and influence. Marriage Laws. Their marriage
code, however, is strict, and indeed no part of their manners is more praiseworthy. Almost
alone among barbarians they are content with one wife, except a very few among them, and
these not from sensuality, but because their noble birth procures for them many offers of
alliance. The wife does not bring a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife. The
parents and relatives are present, and pass judgment on the marriage-gifts, gifts not
meant to suit a woman's taste, nor such as a bride would deck herself with, but oxen, a
caparisoned steed, a shield, a lance, and a sword. With these presents the wife is
espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her husband a gift of arms. This they count
their strongest bond of union, these their sacred mysteries, these their gods of marriage.
Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after noble deeds and
from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which inaugurates marriage that
she is her husband's partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with him
alike both in in war. The yoked oxen, the harnessed steed, the gift of arms proclaim this
fact. She must live and die with the feeling that she is receiving what she must hand down
to her children neither tarnished nor depreciated, what future daughters-in-law may
receive, and maybe so passed on to her grandchildren.
Thus with their virtue protected they live uncorrupted by the allurements of public
shows or the stimulant of feastings. Clandestine correspondence is equally unknown to men
and women. Very rare for so numerous a population is adultery, the punishment for which is
prompt, and in the husband's power. Having cut off the hair of the adulteress and stripped
her naked, he expels her from the house in the presence of her kinsfolk, and then flogs
her through the whole village. The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence; neither
beauty, youth, nor wealth will procure the culprit a husband. No one in Germany laughs at
vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted. Still better is the
condition of those states in which only maidens arc given in marriage, and where the hopes
and expectations of a bride are then finally terminated. They receive one husband, as
having one body and one life, that they may have no thoughts beyond, no further-reaching
desires, that they may love not so much the husband as the married state. To limit the
number of children or to destroy any of their subsequent offspring is accounted infamous,
and good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.
Food
A liquor for drinking is made of barley or other grain, and fermented into a certain
resemblance to wine. The dwellers on the river-bank also buy wine. Their food is of a
simple kind, consisting of wild fruit, fresh game, and curdled milk. They satisfy their
hunger without elaborate preparation and without delicacies. In quenching their thirst
they are equally moderate. If you indulge their love of drinking by supplying them with as
much as they desire, they will be overcome by their own vices as easily as by the arms of
an enemy.
Such on the whole is the account which I have received of the origin and manners of the
entire German people.
