THE NORTHERN PEOPLES

CHAPTER II

II.

THE ENTRANCE INTO HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLES

The Germania of Tacitus marks the entrance into history of the North-European peoples. But long before his time isolated glimpses are caught of them. The name of a Scandinavian people (the Teutones) is first met with in Pytheas. This Greek from Massilia, who made a journey to Britain at the beginning of the fourth century BC, mentions Thule, lying six days journey to the north of Britain. That country has been identified as the northern part of Norway. Information about the continental part of Germania in other authors may be traced to his work, which has itself perished. The first more detailed description of a North-European people is Polybius' picture of the Bastarnae, whose connection with the Germani, however, it was left for the elder Pliny to elucidate. The first writer to realize that the Germani were a people by itself, separable from Celts and Scythians, was Posidonius (135—51 BC), in his lost continuation of Polybius' historical work. It is from his writings that classical authors chiefly derive their pictures of the violent attacks of the Cimbri and the Teutones—the first sign of the “blonde peril” threatening the Roman Empire. Important information about the Germani—though sometimes hard to interpret—is also contained in Caesar's Gallic War. To the decades immediately before and after the beginning of the Christian era belong three sources concerning northern Europe that supplement each other—Augustus’ short presentation in his Res Gestae of the most important results of his foreign policy, Velleius' detailed description of Tiberius' campaigns, and Strabo's geographical work. Augustus and Strabo mention the Cimbri, but on the whole the Elbe is still the boundary of the world as known to the Romans. The summary of the geographical knowledge of the time presented by Pomponius Mela shortly before the middle of the first century AD mentions the Sinus Codanus and its island world north of the Elbe. He is here probably referring only to the southern part of the west coast of Jutland. Pliny shows himself considerably better informed in his Natural History, in which five main Germanic tribes are enumerated. Of the countries north of the Baltic he mentions the island of Scadinavia, a word which is probably akin to the name of the Swedish province Skane (Scania), and may be assumed to refer to the southern portion of the Scandinavian peninsula.

In the knowledge of North Europe among the civilized people of his time Tacitus' Germania marks a great advance. The work, the original title of which is assumed to have been De situ et origine Germanorum, is one of the earliest works known to us wholly devoted to the presentation of a geographico-ethnographical subject.

From the first chapter of the Germania we can conclude that the shifting towards the south which the distribution of the Scandinavian tribes indicates was paralleled among the Germanic people on the continent. This becomes clear when the contents of that chapter are compared with the evidence of archaeological research. In the middle of the last millennium BC, when the southern boundary between the Germani and the Celts is easy to trace, thanks to the entirely different burial customs of the two peoples, the Germani practising cremation, the Celts inhumation, the conditions in the Saale districts afford clear evidence. The territory of the Germani does not extend farther south than the Harz and the Celts still occupy Thuringia. In the time of Tacitus, however, the Germani's southern boundary lies along the Danube.

He gives the Rhine as the western boundary of the Germani, though he himself states that the Mattiaci (around Wiesbaden) were clients of Rome and that the area in the angle between the Rhine and the Danube lay within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. The statement that the Rhine was the Germani's western boundary is also misleading in so far as it ignores the tribes living west of the Rhine, some of whom Tacitus himself enumerated. Efforts have been made to decide from archaeological evidence when these Germani cisrhenani mentioned by Caesar occupied Eastern Gaul, and a number of grave-finds have been interpreted as indicating that the Germani passed the lower Rhine as early as in the middle of the last century BC.

Tacitus' statement must be taken to refer to the political boundary between the Roman Empire and free Germania. For the rest, there are many signs that this boundary was not exclusively political, and that before the close of the first century AD the Romans had made a considerable advance in their endeavor to merge the foreign element into the body of the community. It is probable that the task of absorbing the western Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire was facilitated by the fact that the people there were not unmixed. Caesar's statements about the Belgae indicate that the Celts had not been entirely driven out, but had largely remained in the country. It is difficult to decide whether the Germani west of the Rhine had simply become celticized, as some scholars have assumed. The grave finds are rather scanty, and in addition the two cultures are fairly similar—even that of free Germania shows strong Celtic influence during the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era. The fact that the cremation-grave culture, which was so vigorous at that time, becomes general in these districts shows that in this respect the Germani set the fashion. But as regards the period following Caesar's conquest of Gaul, it is certain that no cultural expansion, either Celtic or Germanic, went on here, but rather a fusion with romanizing tendencies. The archaeological material points unmistakably in this direction. All the commodities which reach England, West Germany and Scandinavia especially from the mouth of the Rhine after the end of the second century, are provincial Roman in character. As a further sign that the Rhine Germany of this period are separated from their fellow-tribes reference may be made to the fact that of the Germanic fibulae which are found in such profusion only a single group is really represented here. This may indicate that even in Tacitus' time the Rhine was not only a political but also an ethnographical boundary, along which classical culture encountered Germanic.

Thus at the time of Tacitus there lived west of the Rhine a number of Germanic tribes, who undoubtedly formed an important element in the population of these areas. Both Tacitus' account and the archaeological facts referred to above suggest that they were in culture, though not in speech, largely denationalized. Even though a number of tribes still proudly asserted their Germanic origin we need not assume the existence of a Germania irredenta groaning beneath the Roman yoke. The real description of the Germany by Tacitus thus begins with his account of Germania libera, the regions east of the Rhine.

III.

THE 'FREE' GERMANI OF THE CONTINENT


	HISTORY OF ROME-THE IMPERIAL PEACE CHAPTER II II. THE ENTRANCE INTO HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN PEOPLES The Germania of Tacitus marks the entrance into history of the North-European peoples. But long before his time isolated glimpses are caught of them. The name of a Scandinavian people (the Teutones) is first met with in Pytheas. This Greek from Massilia, who made a journey to Britain at the beginning of the fourth century BC, mentions Thule, lying six days journey to the north of Britain. That country has been identified as the northern part of Norway. Information about the continental part of Germania in other authors may be traced to his work, which has itself perished. The first more detailed description of a North-European people is Polybius' picture of the Bastarnae, whose connection with the Germani, however, it was left for the elder Pliny to elucidate. The first writer to realize that the Germani were a people by itself, separable from Celts and Scythians, was Posidonius (135—51 BC), in his lost continuation of Polybius' historical work. It is from his writings that classical authors chiefly derive their pictures of the violent attacks of the Cimbri and the Teutones—the first sign of the “blonde peril” threatening the Roman Empire. Important information about the Germani—though sometimes hard to interpret—is also contained in Caesar's Gallic War. To the decades immediately before and after the beginning of the Christian era belong three sources concerning northern Europe that supplement each other—Augustus’ short presentation in his Res Gestae of the most important results of his foreign policy, Velleius' detailed description of Tiberius' campaigns, and Strabo's geographical work. Augustus and Strabo mention the Cimbri, but on the whole the Elbe is still the boundary of the world as known to the Romans. The summary of the geographical knowledge of the time presented by Pomponius Mela shortly before the middle of the first century AD mentions the Sinus Codanus and its island world north of the Elbe. He is here probably referring only to the southern part of the west coast of Jutland. Pliny shows himself considerably better informed in his Natural History, in which five main Germanic tribes are enumerated. Of the countries north of the Baltic he mentions the island of Scadinavia, a word which is probably akin to the name of the Swedish province Skane (Scania), and may be assumed to refer to the southern portion of the Scandinavian peninsula. In the knowledge of North Europe among the civilized people of his time Tacitus' Germania marks a great advance. The work, the original title of which is assumed to have been De situ et origine Germanorum, is one of the earliest works known to us wholly devoted to the presentation of a geographico-ethnographical subject. From the first chapter of the Germania we can conclude that the shifting towards the south which the distribution of the Scandinavian tribes indicates was paralleled among the Germanic people on the continent. This becomes clear when the contents of that chapter are compared with the evidence of archaeological research. In the middle of the last millennium BC, when the southern boundary between the Germani and the Celts is easy to trace, thanks to the entirely different burial customs of the two peoples, the Germani practising cremation, the Celts inhumation, the conditions in the Saale districts afford clear evidence. The territory of the Germani does not extend farther south than the Harz and the Celts still occupy Thuringia. In the time of Tacitus, however, the Germani's southern boundary lies along the Danube. He gives the Rhine as the western boundary of the Germani, though he himself states that the Mattiaci (around Wiesbaden) were clients of Rome and that the area in the angle between the Rhine and the Danube lay within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. The statement that the Rhine was the Germani's western boundary is also misleading in so far as it ignores the tribes living west of the Rhine, some of whom Tacitus himself enumerated. Efforts have been made to decide from archaeological evidence when these Germani cisrhenani mentioned by Caesar occupied Eastern Gaul, and a number of grave-finds have been interpreted as indicating that the Germani passed the lower Rhine as early as in the middle of the last century BC. Tacitus' statement must be taken to refer to the political boundary between the Roman Empire and free Germania. For the rest, there are many signs that this boundary was not exclusively political, and that before the close of the first century AD the Romans had made a considerable advance in their endeavor to merge the foreign element into the body of the community. It is probable that the task of absorbing the western Germanic tribes into the Roman Empire was facilitated by the fact that the people there were not unmixed. Caesar's statements about the Belgae indicate that the Celts had not been entirely driven out, but had largely remained in the country. It is difficult to decide whether the Germani west of the Rhine had simply become celticized, as some scholars have assumed. The grave finds are rather scanty, and in addition the two cultures are fairly similar—even that of free Germania shows strong Celtic influence during the closing centuries of the pre-Christian era. The fact that the cremation-grave culture, which was so vigorous at that time, becomes general in these districts shows that in this respect the Germani set the fashion. But as regards the period following Caesar's conquest of Gaul, it is certain that no cultural expansion, either Celtic or Germanic, went on here, but rather a fusion with romanizing tendencies. The archaeological material points unmistakably in this direction. All the commodities which reach England, West Germany and Scandinavia especially from the mouth of the Rhine after the end of the second century, are provincial Roman in character. As a further sign that the Rhine Germany of this period are separated from their fellow-tribes reference may be made to the fact that of the Germanic fibulae which are found in such profusion only a single group is really represented here. This may indicate that even in Tacitus' time the Rhine was not only a political but also an ethnographical boundary, along which classical culture encountered Germanic. Thus at the time of Tacitus there lived west of the Rhine a number of Germanic tribes, who undoubtedly formed an important element in the population of these areas. Both Tacitus' account and the archaeological facts referred to above suggest that they were in culture, though not in speech, largely denationalized. Even though a number of tribes still proudly asserted their Germanic origin we need not assume the existence of a Germania irredenta groaning beneath the Roman yoke. The real description of the Germany by Tacitus thus begins with his account of Germania libera, the regions east of the Rhine. III. THE 'FREE' GERMANI OF THE CONTINENT