[1] The lacunae in these fragments have been filled in by the aid of
the law of the Bavarians, where the chief provisions are reproduced.
GERMANICUS CAESAR (15 B.C.-A.D. 19), a Roman general and provincial
governor in the reign of Tiberius. The name Germanicus, the only one by
which he is known in history, he inherited from his father, Nero
Claudius Drusus, the famous general, brother of Tiberius and stepson of
Augustus. His mother was the younger Antonia, daughter of Marcus
Antonius and niece of Augustus, and he married Agrippina, the
granddaughter of the same emperor. It was natural, therefore, that he
should be regarded as a candidate for the purple. Augustus, it would
seem, long hesitated whether he should name him as his successor, and as
a compromise required his uncle Tiberius to adopt him, though Tiberius
had a son of his own. Of his early years and education little is known.
That he possessed considerable literary abilities, and that these were
carefully trained, we gather, both from the speeches which Tacitus puts
into his mouth, and from the reputation he left as an orator, as
attested by Suetonius and Ovid, and from the extant fragments of his
works.
At the age of twenty he served his apprenticeship as a soldier under
Tiberius, and was rewarded with the triumphal insignia for his services
in crushing the revolt in Dalmatia and Pannonia. In A.D. 11 he
accompanied Tiberius in his campaign on the Rhine, undertaken, in
consequence of the defeat of Varus, with the object of securing the
German frontier. In 12 he was made consul, and increased his popularity
by appearing as an advocate in the courts of justice, and by the
celebration of brilliant games. Soon afterwards he was appointed by
Augustus to the important command of the eight legions on the Rhine. The
news of the emperor's death (14) found Germanicus at Lugdunum (Lyons),
where he was superintending the census of Gaul. Close upon this came the
report that a mutiny had broken out among his legions on the lower
Rhine. Germanicus hurried back to the camp, which was now in open
insurrection. The tumult was with difficulty quelled, partly by
well-timed concessions, for which the authority of the emperor was
forged, but chiefly owing to his personal popularity. Some of the
insurgents actually proposed that he should put himself at their head
and secure the empire for himself, but their offer was rejected with
indignation. In order to calm the excitement Germanicus determined at
once on an active campaign. Crossing the Rhine, he attacked and routed
the Marsi, and laid waste the valley of the Ems. In the following year
he marched against Arminius, the conqueror of Varus, and performed the
last rites over the remains of the Roman soldiers that still lay there
unburied, erecting a barrow to mark the spot. Arminius, however,
favoured by the marshy ground, was able to hold his own, and it required
another campaign before he was finally defeated. A masterly combined
movement by land and water enabled Germanicus to concentrate his forces
against the main body of the Germans encamped on the Weser, and to crush
them in two obstinately contested battles. A monument erected on the
field proclaimed that the army of Tiberius had conquered every tribe
between the Rhine and the Elbe. Great, however, as the success of the
Roman arms had been, it was not such as to justify this boastful
inscription; we read of renewed attacks from the barbarians, and plans
of a fourth campaign for the next summer.
But the success of Germanicus had already stirred the jealousy and fears
of Tiberius, and he was reluctantly compelled to return to Rome. On the
26th of May 17 he celebrated a triumph. The enthusiasm with which he was
welcomed, not only by the populace, but by the emperor's own
praetorians, was so great that the earliest pretext was seized to remove
him from the capital. He was sent to the East with extraordinary powers
to settle a disputed succession in Parthia and Armenia. At the same time
Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, one of the most violent and ambitious of the old
nobility, was sent as governor of Syria to watch his movements.
Germanicus proceeded by easy stages to his province, halting on his way
in Dalmatia, and visiting the battlefield of Actium, Athens, Ilium, and
other places of historic interest. At Rhodes he met his coadjutor Piso,
who was seeking everywhere to thwart and malign him. When at last he
reached his destination, he found little difficulty in effecting the
settlement of the disturbed provinces, notwithstanding Piso's violent
and persistent opposition. At Artaxata Zeno, the popular candidate for
the throne, was crowned king of Armenia. To the provinces of Cappadocia
and Commagene Roman governors were assigned; Parthia was conciliated by
the banishment of the dethroned king Vonones.
After wintering in Syria Germanicus started for a tour in Egypt. The
chief motive for his journey was love of travel and antiquarian study,
and it seems never to have occurred to him, till he was warned by
Tiberius, that he was thereby transgressing an unwritten law which
forbade any Roman of rank to set foot in Egypt without express
permission. On his return to Syria he found that all his arrangements
had been upset by Piso. Violent recriminations followed, the result of
which, it would seem, was a promise on the part of Piso to quit the
province. But at this juncture Germanicus was suddenly attacked at
Epidaphne near Antioch by a violent illness, which he himself and his
friends attributed to poison administered by Plancina, the wife of Piso,
at the instigation of Tiberius. Whether these suspicions were true is
open to question; it seems more probable that his death was due to
natural causes. His ashes were brought to Rome in the following year
(20) by his wife Agrippina, and deposited in the grave of Augustus. He
had nine children, six of whom, three sons and three daughters, survived
him, amongst them the future emperor Gaius and the notorious Agrippina,
the mother of Nero. The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole
empire. Nor was Germanicus unworthy of this passionate devotion. He had
wiped out a great national disgrace; he had quelled the most formidable
foe of Rome. His private life had been stainless, and he possessed a
singularly attractive personality. Yet there were elements of weakness
in his character which his short life only half revealed: an impetuosity
which made him twice threaten to take his own life; a superstitious vein
which impelled him to consult oracles and shrink from bad omens; an
amiable dilettantism which led him to travel in Egypt while his enemy
was plotting his ruin; a want of nerve and resolution which prevented
him from coming to an open rupture with Piso till it was too late.
He possessed considerable literary abilities; his speeches and Greek
comedies were highly spoken of by his contemporaries. But the only
specimen of his work that has come down to us is the translation in
Latin hexameters (generally attributed to him, although some consider
Domitian the author), together with scholia, of the _Phaenomena_ of
Aratus, which is superior to those of Cicero and Avienus (best edition
by A. Breysig, 1867; 1899, without the scholia). A few extant Greek and
Latin epigrams also bear the name Germanicus.
In addition to monographs by A. Zingerle (Trent, 1867) and A. Breysig
(Erfurt, 1892), there are treatises on the German campaigns by E. von
Wietersheim (1850), P. Hofer (1884), F. Knoke (1887, 1889), W. Fricke
(1889), A. Taramelli (1891), Dahm (1902).
See Tacitus, _Annals_, i.-iv. (ed. Furneaux); Suetonius, _Augustus,
Tiberius_; J.C. Tarver, _Tiberius_ (1902); Merivale, _Hist. of the
Romans under the Empire_, chs. 42, 43; H. Schiller, _Geschichte der
romischen Kaiserzeit_, i. 1 (1883), pp. 227, 258, 261-266, 270-276; M.
Schanz, _Geschichte der romischen Litteratur_, pt. ii. (2nd ed.,
1901), and Teuffel-Schwabe, _Hist. of Roman Literature_ (Eng. tr.,
1900), 275.
GERMANIUM (symbol Ge, atomic weight 72.5); one of the metallic elements
included in the same natural family as carbon, silicon, tin and lead. It
was discovered in 1886 by C. Winkler in argyrodite, a mineral found at
Freiberg in Saxony. On examination of the metal and its salts it was
shown to be identical with the hypothetical element _ekasilicon_, whose
properties had been predicted by D. Mendeleeff many years previously.
The element is of extremely rare occurrence, being met with only in
argyrodite and, to a very small extent, in euxenite. It may be obtained
from argyrodite by heating the mineral in a current of hydrogen; or by
heating the dioxide to redness with carbon. It forms grey coloured
octahedra of specific gravity 5.496 at 20 deg. C., melting at 900 deg.
C.; it burns at a red heat, is insoluble in hydrochloric acid, but
dissolves in _aqua regia_, and is also soluble in molten alkalis. Two
oxides of germanium are known, the _dioxide_, GeO2, being obtained by
roasting the sulphide and treatment with nitric acid. It is a white
powder, very slightly soluble in water, and possesses acid properties.
By heating with a small quantity of magnesium it is converted into
_germanious oxide_, GeO. By heating the metal with chlorine, _germanic
chloride_, GeCl4, is obtained as a colourless fuming liquid boiling at
86-87 deg. C., it is decomposed by water forming a hydrated germanium
dioxide. _Germanium dichloride_, GeCl2, and _germanium chloroform_,
GeHCl3, have also been described.
Germanium compounds on fusion with alkaline carbonates and sulphur form
salts known as _thiogermanates_. If excess of a mineral acid be added to
a solution of an alkaline thiogermanate a white precipitate of
_germanium disulphide_, GeS2, is obtained. It can also be obtained by
passing sulphuretted hydrogen through a solution of the dioxide in
hydrochloric acid. It is appreciably soluble in water, and also in
solutions of the caustic alkalis and alkaline sulphides. By heating the
disulphide in a current of hydrogen, _germanious sulphide_, GeS, is
formed. It sublimes in thin plates of a dark colour and metallic lustre,
and is soluble in solutions of the caustic alkalis. Alkyl compounds of
germanium such as _germanium tetra-ethyl_, Ge(C2H5)4, a liquid boiling
at 160 deg. C., have been obtained. The germanium salts are most readily
recognized by the white precipitate of the disulphide, formed in acid
solutions, on passing sulphuretted hydrogen. The atomic weight of the
element was determined by C. Winkler by analysis of the pure chloride
GeCl4, the value obtained being 72.32, whilst Lecoq de Boisbaudran
(_Comptes rendus_, 1886, 103, 452), by a comparison of the lines in the
spark spectrum of the element, deduced the value 72.3.
GERMAN LANGUAGE. Together with English and Frisian, the German language
forms part of the West Germanic group of languages. To this group
belongs also Langobardian, a dialect which died out in the 9th or 10th
century, while Burgundian, traces of which are not met with later than
the 5th century, is usually classed with the East Germanic group. Both
these tongues were at an early stage crushed out by Romance dialects, a
fate which also overtook the idiom of the Western Franks, who, in the
so-called _Strassburg Oaths_[1] of 842, use the Romance tongue, and are
addressed in that tongue by Louis the German.
Leaving English and Frisian aside, we understand by _Deutsche_
_Sprache_ the language of those West Germanic tribes, who, at their
earliest appearance in history, spoke a Germanic tongue, and still speak
it at the present day. The chief of these tribes are: the Saxons, the
Franks (but with the restriction noted above), the Chatti (Hessians),
Thuringians, Alemannians and Bavarians. This definition naturally
includes the languages spoken in the Low Countries, Flemish and Dutch,
which are offsprings of the Low Franconian dialect, mixed with Frisian
and Saxon elements; but, as the literary development of these languages
has been in its later stages entirely independent of that of the German
language, they are excluded from the present survey.
The German language, which is spoken by about seventy-one millions, and
consequently occupies in this respect the third place among European
languages, borders, in the west and south, on Romance languages (French,
Italian), and also to some extent on Slavonic. On Italian and Slovenian
territory there are several German-speaking "islands," notably the Sette
and Tredici Communi, east and north-east of the Lake of Garda, and the
"Gottschee Landchen" to the south of Laibach. The former of these is,
however, on the point of dying out. Neighbours on the east, where the
boundary line runs by no means as straight as on the west or south, are
the Magyars and again Slavonic races. Here, too, there are numerous
"islands" on Hungarian and Slavonic territory. Danes and Frisians join
hands with the Germans in the north.[2]
In the west and south the German language has, compared with its status
in earlier periods, undoubtedly lost ground, having been encroached upon
by Romance tongues. This is the case in French Flanders, in Alsace and
Lorraine, at any rate before the war of 1870, in the valleys south of
Monte Rosa and in southern Tirol; in Styria and Carinthia the
encroachment is less marked, but quite perceptible. On the east, on the
other hand, German steadily spread from the days of Charles the Great
down to recent times, when it has again lost considerable ground in
Bohemia, Moravia and Livonia. At the time of Charles the Great the
eastern frontier extended very little beyond the lower Elbe, following
this river beyond Magdeburg, whence it passed over to the Saale, the
Bohemian forest and the river Enns (cf. the map in F. Dahn,
_Urgeschichte der germanischen und romanischen Volker_, vol. iii.).
Partly as a result of victories gained by the Germans over the Avars and
Slavs, partly owing to peaceful colonization, the eastern boundary was
pushed forward in subsequent centuries; Bohemia was in this way won for
the German tongue by German colonists in the 13th century, Silesia even
a little earlier; in Livonia German gained the upper hand during the
13th century, while about the same time the country of the Prussians was
conquered and colonized by the knights of the Teutonic order. The
dialect which these colonists and knights introduced bore the Middle
German character; and this, in various modifications, combined with Low
German and even Dutch elements, formed the German spoken in these
newly-won territories. In the north (Schleswig), where at the time of
Charles the Great the river Eider formed the linguistic boundary, German
has gained and is still gaining on Danish.
Before considering the development of the language spoken within these
boundaries, a word of explanation is perhaps necessary with regard to
the word _deutsch_. As applied to the language, _deutsch_ first appears
in the Latin form _theotiscus_, _lingua theotisca_, _teutisca_, in
certain Latin writings of the 8th and 9th centuries, whereas the
original Old High German word _thiudisc_, _tiutisc_ (from _thiot_,
_diot_, "people," and the suffix _-isc_) signified only "appertaining to
the people," "in the manner of the people." Cf. also Gothic
_[thorn]iudisko_ as a translation of [Greek: ethnikos] (Gal. ii. 14).
It, therefore, seems probable that if the application of the word to the
language (_lingua theotisca_) was not exactly an invention of Latin
authors of German nationality, its use in this sense was at least
encouraged by them in order to distinguish their own vernacular
(_lingua vulgaris_) from Latin as well as from the _lingua romana_.[3]
In the 8th and 9th centuries German or "Deutsch" first appears as a
written language in the dialects of Old High German and Old Low German.
Of an "Urdeutsch" or primitive German, i.e. the common language from
which these sharply distinguished dialects of the earliest historical
period must have developed, we have no record; we can only infer its
character--and it was itself certainly not free from dialectic
variations--by a study of the above-named and other Germanic dialects. It
is usual to divide the history of the German language from this earliest
period, when it appears only in the form of proper names and isolated
words as glosses to a Latin text, down to the present day, into three
great sections: (1) Old High German (_Althochdeutsch_) and Old Low German
(Old Saxon; _Altniederdeutsch_, _Altsachsisch_); (2) Middle High German
(_Mittelhochdeutsch_) and Middle Low German (Mittelniederdeutsch); and
(3) Modern High German and Modern Low German (_Neuhochdeutsch_ and
_Neuniederdeutsch_). It is more difficult to determine the duration of
the different periods, for it is obvious that the transition from one
stage of a language to another takes place slowly and gradually.
The first or Old High German period is commonly regarded as extending to
about the year 1100. The principal characteristic of the change from Old
High German to Middle High German is the weakening of the unaccented
vowels in final syllables (cf. O.H.G. _taga_, _gesti_, _geban_, _gabum_
and M.H.G. _tage_, _geste_, _geben_, _gaben_). But it must be remembered
that this process began tentatively as early as the 10th century in Low
German, and also that long, unaccented vowels are preserved in the
Alemannic dialect as late as the 14th century and even later. Opinion is
more at variance with regard to the division between the second and
third periods. Some would date Modern High German from the time of
Luther, that is to say, from about 1500. But it must be noted that
certain characteristics attributed to the Modern German vowel system,
such as lengthening of Middle High German short vowels, the change from
Middle High German _i_, _u_, _iu_ to Modern High German _ei_, _au_, _eu_
(_ou_), of Middle High German _ie_, _uo_, _ue_ to Modern High German
_i_, _u_, _u_, made their appearance long before 1500. Taking this fact
into consideration, others distinguish a period of classical Middle High
German extending to about 1250, and a period of transition (sometimes
called _Fruhneuhochdeutsch_, or Early Modern High German) from 1250 to
1650. The principal characteristics of Modern High German would then
consist in a greater stability of the grammatical and syntactical rules,
due to the efforts of earlier grammarians, such as Schottelius,
Gottsched and others, and the substitution of a single vowel sound for
the varying vowels of the singular and plural of the preterite of strong
verbs (cf. Middle High German _schreib_, _schriben_, and Modern High
German _schrieb_, _schrieben_, &c.). The much debated question of the
origins of Modern High German has been recently reopened by O. Behaghel
(_Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, l.c._ 661), who hopes that a more
satisfactory solution may be arrived at by the study of certain
syntactical peculiarities to be seen in the dialects of more recent
periods.
As the middle ages did not produce a German _Schriftsprache_ or literary
language in the modern sense of the word, which--as is undoubtedly the
case in Modern German--might have influenced the spoken language
(_Umgangssprache_), the history of the language in its earlier stages is
a history of different dialects. These dialects will, therefore, claim
our attention at some length.
It may be assumed that the languages of the different West Germanic
tribes enumerated above were, before the appearance of the tribes in
history, distinguished by many dialectic variations; this was certainly
the case immediately after the Migrations, when the various races began
to settle down. But these differences, consisting presumably in matters
of phonology and vocabulary, were nowhere so pronounced as to exclude a
mutual understanding of individuals belonging to different tribes. One
might compare the case of the Poles and Czechs of the present day.
During the 6th century, however, a phonological process set in, which
ultimately resulted in the separation of Germany into two great
linguistic divisions, south and north, or, as the languages are called,
High and Low German. This fundamental change, which is known as the
second or High German Soundshifting (_Lautverschiebung_), spread
northward from the mountainous districts in the south, and, whatever its
cause may have been,[4] left behind it clear and easily recognizable
effects on the Germanic voiced stop _d_, which became changed to _t_,
and more especially on the voiceless stops _t_, _p_ and _k_. Dialects
which have shifted initial _t_ and _tt_ in the middle of a word to the
affricate _tz_ (written _z_, _tz_) and _p_ and _k_ in corresponding
positions to the affricates _pf_ and _k[chi]_ (written _ch_), further,
_t_, _p_ and _k_ in the middle of words between vowels, to the double
spirant _zz_ (now written _ss_, _sz_), _ff_, _hh_ (written _ch_), are
called High German; those in which these changes have not taken place
form the Low German group, this group agreeing in this respect with
English and Frisian.
Of these sound changes, that of _t_ to _tz_ and _zz_ (_ss_) is the most
universal, extending over the whole region in which shifting occurs;
that of _k_ to _k[chi]_ (_ch_), the most restricted, being only found in
Old Bavarian, and in the Swiss pronunciation, e.g. in _chind_. The
remaining dialects occupy positions between the two extremes of complete
shifting and the absence of shifting. Some Franconian dialects, for
instance, leave _p_ unchanged under certain conditions, and in one
dialect at least, Middle Franconian, _t_ has remained after vowels in
certain pronominal forms (_dat_, _wat_, _allet_, &c.). On this ground a
subdivision has been made in the High German dialects into (a) an Upper
German (_Oberdeutsch_) and (b) a Middle German (_Mitteldeutsch_) group;
and this subdivision practically holds good for all periods of the
language, although in Old High German times the Middle German group is
only represented, as far as the written language is concerned, by
Franconian dialects.
As the scientific study of the German language advanced there arose a
keen revival of interest--and that not merely on the part of
scholars--in the dialects which were so long held in contempt as a mere
corruption of the _Schriftsprache_.[5] We are still in the midst of a
movement which, under the guidance of scholars, has, during the last
three decades, bestowed great care on many of the existing dialects;
phonological questions have received most attention, but problems of
syntax have also not been neglected. Monumental works like Wenker's
_Sprachatlas des deutschen Reiches_ and dialect dictionaries are either
in course of publication or preparing;[6] while the difficult questions
concerned with defining the boundaries of the various dialects and
explaining the reasons for them form the subject of many monographs.[7]
Beginning in the north we shall now pass briefly in review the dialects
spoken throughout the German-speaking area.