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The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]». Краткое содержание книги:
The Romans praise the ancient Germans for all those moral qualities which are characteristic of every brave nation in a half-civilised condition, such as bravery and hospitality. The Germans seem to have early distinguished themselves from other nations by three merits: polygamy was never one of their customs; they set a high value on the virtue of chastity; they distinguished themselves by their fidelity and devotion towards those whom they had chosen as leaders.
The high position which women occupied amongst them as compared with other barbarians was also characteristic. The wife was not treated as a slave; and amongst all German nations, maidens were considered better hostages for a treaty than men, as in the former case they considered themselves more bound to keep their word. The female sex was very highly honoured; many women—as, for example, the Veleda living in Vespasian’s time—played the part of alrunas, that is to say omniscients or prophetesses, an important rôle, and these prophetesses exercised a great influence over the counsels and decisions of their people.
The administration was not exactly democratic, except among the Frisians; even in the times when the people and every individual still took part in the government, we often find traces of the later free monarchy. The Germans had elected leaders in war and a chief appointed for life, who in peace had to manage their affairs with limited authority. All the freemen constituted the national assembly, which deliberated on and decided all general questions, determined on the life or death of a criminal, and selected the presidents for the tribunals of the individual cantons.
The national assemblies were held on certain days either at the new or the full moon; with the Frank nation generally only once a year and that in March and, later on, in May. There were certain nobles who, as a rule, though not always, were chosen in preference to others, and who deliberated on and decided the less important affairs among themselves; whether they obtained this position on account of their birth or their personal distinction must remain undecided.
The king was chosen from among them and was not the lord, as is usual with the leaders of warlike semi-barbarous races, but the representative of his tribe, and was therefore not only chosen for his bravery but for his distinction. The army consisted of all the freemen. Besides this so-called heerbann (militia), at times when no war was being carried on by the whole tribe, individual bodies of troops were formed, who attached themselves to a brave leader for some special undertakings. They constituted his following, and fought under his leadership for fame and booty. The greater the following of a noble, the greater the influence which he held in the national assembly.
Justice was carried out by a chosen judge who was called “graf” (count), from the word grau—grey, i.e., the eldest, and who had a number of householders as assistants. Punishments were considered as compensations, and decided according to that principle; even murder was atoned for by the judge deciding the damages to be paid to the relations of the person slain.
The Romans only give us very superficial information concerning the religion of the ancient Germans. That they acknowledged many gods is about all we can determine with certainty. If, as is generally done, the legends of the ancient Scandinavians written in the Middle Ages are added to the Roman reports, two detailed accounts are obtained concerning the gods and myths of the Germans; but it is very doubtful if the older inhabitants of Germany proper, who alone are spoken of in the Roman histories, had one and the same faith and worship as the Scandinavians.
According to the usual theory, the principal god of the Germans was Woden or Odin; as the god ruling over all, the “All-father”; and as the founder of the German race he was called Tuisko. Next to him came his elder sons, the god of thunder, Thonar or Thor, whose memory is still preserved in the word Thursday, and the god of war, Tyr or Tir from whose name the word Tuesday is derived. Woden’s wife and the goddess of marriage was Freia, to whom Friday was dedicated. Another wife of Woden was Hertha, or the goddess of the earth. Besides these the Scandinavians honoured the god of poetry, Bragi; Balder, the hero of the gods distinguished for his beauty; the goddess of youth, Iduna; the Norns or goddesses of fate and other divinities.
The Scandinavians had just as many poetical myths concerning the life and fate of the gods as the ancient Greeks. Besides the gods, they believed in two unseen worlds of giants and dwarfs. They also believed in immortality, and depicted the life after death in their own fashion. For example, they thought that those who fell in battle lived in the palace of Valhalla with Woden, and spent their time fighting, hunting, and drinking, and at their banquets were attended by the Valkyries, or goddesses of battle, who spun the web of the battle with terrible songs.
The Romans tell us more about the worship and the priests of the Germans living in Germany than about their gods. The German priests were held in great respect, but they did not form a special class like the Druids or the priests of the Gauls. Their singers, like those of the Gauls, were not priests but poets and singers of battle songs. The Germans had no images of their gods, and they did not honour them in temples but in sacred groves in which the priests offered up sacrifices for the people. Among the victims there were captive foes. The will of the gods and the future were interpreted in different manners, preferably by the neighing of sacred white horses which were kept in the groves of the gods.
If we turn back from this general observation of the Germanic nations to their wars with Augustus, we find the Romans in hostile contact with them on the Rhine and the Danube. Since the time of Cæsar some German tribes—of which the Ubii in the region of Cologne and the Vangiones, Tribocci, and Nemetes between Schlettstadt and Oppenheim, were the most important—had settled on the left bank of the Rhine and had begun to adopt Roman customs.b
THE GERMAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AGAINST ROME
Augustus had no liking for war; he was wont to say that laurels were beautiful but barren, and it was his glory and pride that during his reign the Temple of Janus at Rome was repeatedly closed, and that the Parthians voluntarily restored the ensigns and prisoners captured from the army of Crassus. His mind was not set on the augmentation and extension of the empire but upon the founding and consolidation of monarchical institutions, his wars in Spain and the Alpine regions were undertaken for the purpose of protecting and safeguarding the frontiers of the empire, and the war in Dalmatia and Pannonia was purely defensive. On the Rhine alone he indulged in schemes of conquest; there Cæsar’s Gallic campaigns were to be continued, and the martial honours of the Julian race and name enhanced.
[16-11 B.C.]
As long as Gaul was not completely tranquillised, and stubborn tribes defended their hereditary liberties in the Alpine valleys, the Germans were treated with consideration. The imperator Augustus even confided the safety of his person and of the Capitol to a German troop of horse, as the divine Julius had done before him, and Vipsanius Agrippa settled the Ubii, who were hard pressed by the Suevi, on the left bank of the Rhine and founded the “Agrippine Colony,” the parent city of Cologne. Even the attack made by the eastern dwellers on the lower Rhine on the camp of M. Lollius, who had made an inroad into their territory because they had seized and crucified some Roman spies, went unpunished. But when the new division of Gaul into provinces had been accomplished, and the Alpine districts had been reduced to submission to the sway of Rome, Drusus the gallant and daring stepson of Augustus conceived the project of extending the borders of the empire beyond the Rhine and advancing further along the road which the great Cæsar had trodden.
After providing for the protection of the river by strongly fortifying the ancient confederate towns from Basel (Augusta Rauracorum) to Cologne (Colonia Agrippina)—to wit, Strasburg (Argentoratum), Speyer, Worms, Mainz, Bonn, etc., and creating fresh bulwarks and points d’appui both for defence and attack by founding the “Old Camp” (Castra Vetera) where Xanten now stands, and other castella, he next attempted to secure the northern districts. He induced the Batavians, who inhabited the marshy lowlands from the Rhine and Vaal to the North Sea, and their neighbours on the east, the Frisians, who occupied the seacoast as far as the Ems, to enter into friendship and alliance with the Romans; and then, by constructing a navigable canal which bears the name of “Drusus-Furt” to this day, he connected the lower course of the Rhine by means of the Yssel with the inland lake of Flevo, which at that time communicated with the sea by a navigable river of the same name, but which has since been widened out by the floods into an open bay, the Zuyder Zee. He then sailed into the German ocean with the fleet built on the Rhine, and, skirting the Frisian coast, came to the mouth of the Ems, where the legions fought some skirmishes with the Bructeri and Chauci. The fleet was here exposed to a great danger, for the ebb of the tide drew the waters of the channel away from the ships and left them high and dry. They were only saved from destruction by the aid of the Frisians who had accompanied the Romans by land with an army. When the incoming tide floated the ships once more Drusus returned to Batavia.