Ancient Germany and Its Inhabitants

By Frederick Kohlrausch

Ancient Germany and Its Inhabitants issuccinct introduction to the early tribes of modern-day Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles River Editors
• Release date: Mar 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781508014966

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ANCIENT GERMANY AND ITS INHABITANTS

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Frederick Kohlrausch

WAXKEEP PUBLISHING

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Copyright © 2015 by Frederick Kohlrausch

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ancient Germany and Its Inhabitants

ANCIENT GERMANY AND ITS INHABITANTS.

ANCIENT GERMANY AND ITS INHABITANTS

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BY FREDERICK KOHLRAUSCH

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ANCIENT GERMANY AND ITS INHABITANTS.

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THE SOURCES OF THE MOST ANCIENT GERMAN HISTORY—THE NATURE OF THE COUNTRY—THE NATIVES—THE GERMANIC RACES—MANNERS AND CUSTOMS—CIVIL INSTITUTIONS—WAR—REGULATIONS AND ARMS—RELIGION—ARTS AND MANUFACTURES—THE GERMANIC TRIBES.

I. THE SOURCES OF OUR EARLIEST HISTORY.

THE HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN, and of the earliest state of the German nation, is involved in impenetrable obscurity. No records tell us when, and under what circumstances, our ancestors migrated out of Asia, the cradle of the human race, into our fatherland; what causes urged them to seek the regions of the north, or what allied branches they left behind them in the countries they quitted. A few scattered and obscure historical traces, as well as a resemblance in various customs and regulations, but more distinctly the affinities of language, indicate a relationship with the Indians, Servians, and the Greeks.

This obscurity of our earliest history must not surprise us; for every nation, as long as it lives in a half savage state, without a written language, neglects every record of its history beyond mere traditions and songs, which pass down from generation to generation. But as these, even in their very origin, blend fiction with truth, they naturally become, in the course of centuries, so much disfigured, that scarcely the least thread of historical fact is to be found in them. Not a syllable or sound of even those traditions and songs, wherein, according to the testimony of the Romans, our ancestors also delighted to celebrate the deeds and fate of their people, has, however, descended to posterity.

Our authentic history, consequently, commences at the period when our ancestors, possibly after they had dwelt for centuries, or even a thousand years, in our native country, first came into contact with a nation that already knew and practised the art of historical writing. This happened through the incursion of the Cimbrians and Teutonians into the country of the Romans, in the year 113 before the birth of Christ. But this intercourse was too transitory, and the strangers were too unknown, and too foreign to the Romans, for them, who were sufficiently occupied with themselves, and besides which, looked haughtily upon all that was alien, to inquire very particularly into their origin and history.

And even the relation of this contest against the German tribes, howsoever important it was to the Romans, we are obliged to seek laboriously from many authors; for the source whence we should draw most copiously, is precisely here dried up, the books of the Roman author, Livy, which treated of this war in detail, having been lost, together with many others; and we only possess—which we may even consider as very fortunate—their mere table of contents, by means whereof, viz., those of the 63—68 books, we can at least trace the course of the chief events of the war. Beyond this, we derive some solitary facts from Roman historians of the second and third class, who give but a short and partially mutilated account, and collectively lived too long after this period to be considered as authentic sources. To those belong—1, the Epit. Rer. Rom. of Florus (according to some, a book of the Augustan age, but according to others, the work of L. Annaeus Florus, who lived at the commencement of the second century under Adrian); 2, the History of the World of Velleius Paterculus, in a brief outline, down to the period of Tiberius, who lived about the time of the birth of Christ; 3, the De Stratagematibus of Frontinus (about 150 years after Christ) contains some good notices of the Cimbrian war; 4, the Dicta et Facta Memorabilia of Valerius Maximus (about 20 years after Christ); 5, the History of the World of Justin (about the year 150); and 6, the Sketch of the Roman History of Eutropius (about the year 375), present us with much—and again much is supplied us, incidentally, by the Roman writers who did not directly write history.

Among those who wrote in Greek, must stand: 1, Plutarch, (about 100 years b. c.), in his biography of Marius, besides whom, good details may be gleaned from: 2, Diodorus Siculus (about the period of the birth of Christ), in his Historical Library; 3, Appian (about the year 160), in his ethnographically arranged History of the Romans, (particularly in the cap., De Reb. Celt. and De Reb. Illyr.); 4, Dio Cassius (about the year 222), in the fragments which are preserved of his Roman History; and among those who treat of geography, Strabo (about the period of the birth of Christ) especially.

After the Cimbrian era, another half century passes before the Romans again mention the Germans. It was towards the middle of the last century before the birth of Christ, when Julius Caesar advanced to the frontiers of what may be truly considered Germany. He himself mentions having fought with Ariovistus in Gaul, and afterwards with some German tribes on the left bank of the Rhine, and that he twice united the banks of this river by means of a bridge, and set foot upon the opposite side; besides which, he gives us all the information he could obtain from the Gauls, travelling merchants, or German captives, relative to the nature and condition of