1. Some of the accounts which we receive respecting the Cimbri are not
worthy of credit, while others seem likely enough: for instance, no one
could accept the reason given for their wandering life and piracy, that,
dwelling on a peninsula, they were driven out of their settlements by a
very high tide;[2590] for they still to this day possess the country
which they had in former times, and have sent as a present to Augustus
the caldron held most sacred by them, supplicating his friendship, and
an amnesty for past offences; and having obtained their request, they
returned home. Indeed, it would have been ridiculous for them to have
departed from their country in a pet, on account of a natural and
constant phenomenon, which recurs twice every day. It is likewise
evidently a fiction, that there ever occurred an overwhelming
flood-tide, for the ocean, in the influences of this kind which it
experiences, receives a certain settled and periodical increase and
decrease.[2591] Neither is it true, as has been related,[2592] that the
Cimbri take arms against the flood-tides, or that the Kelts, as an
exercise of their intrepidity, suffer their houses to be washed away by
them, and afterwards rebuild them; and that a greater number of them
perish by water than by war, as Ephorus relates. For the regular order
the flood-tides observe, and the notoriety of the extent of the country
subject to inundation by them, could never have given occasion for such
absurd actions. For the tide flowing twice every day, how could any one
think for an instant that it was not a natural and harmless phenomenon,
and that it occurs not only on their coasts, but on all others bordering
on the ocean? Is not this quite incredible? Neither is Clitarchus to be
trusted,[2593] when he says that their cavalry, on seeing the sea
flowing in, rode off at full speed, and yet scarcely escaped by flight
from being overtaken by the flood; for we know, by experience, that the
tide does not come in with such impetuosity, but that the sea advances
stealthily by slow degrees. And we should think, besides, that a
phenomenon of daily occurrence, which would naturally strike the ear of
such as [CAS. 293] approached it, before even they could see it with
their eyes, could not by any means terrify them so as to put them to
flight, as if they had been surprised by some unexpected catastrophe.
2. For such fables as these, Posidonius justly blames these writers, and
not inaptly conjectures that the Cimbri, on account of their wandering
life and habits of piracy, might have made an expedition as far as the
countries around the Palus Mæotis, and that from them has been derived
the name of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, or what we should more correctly
denominate the Cimbrian Bosphorus, for the Greeks call the Cimbri
Cimmerii.
He likewise tells us that the Boii formerly inhabited the Hercynian
Forest, and that the Cimbri, having made an incursion into those parts,
were repulsed by them, and driven towards the Danube, and the country
occupied by the Scordisci, a Galatic tribe, and from thence to the
Tauristæ, or Taurisci, a people likewise of Galatic origin, and farther
to the Helvetii, who were at that time a rich and peaceful people; but,
perceiving that the wealth of these freebooters far exceeded their own,
the Helvetii, and more especially the Tigureni and the Toygeni,
associated themselves with their expeditions. But both the Cimbri and
their auxiliaries were vanquished by the Romans, the one part when they
crossed the Alps and came down upon Italy, the others on the other side
of the Alps.
3. It is reported that the Cimbri had a peculiar custom. They were
accompanied in their expeditions by their wives; these were followed by
hoary-headed priestesses,[2594] clad in white, with cloaks of
carbasus[2595] fastened on with clasps, girt with brazen girdles, and
bare-footed. These individuals, bearing drawn swords, went to meet the
captives throughout the camp, and, having crowned them, led them to a
brazen vessel containing about 20 amphoræ, and placed on a raised
platform, which one of the priestesses having ascended, and holding the
prisoner above the vessel, cut his throat; then, from the manner in
which the blood flowed into the vessel, some drew certain divinations;
while others, having opened the corpse, and inspected the entrails,
prophesied victory to their army. In battle too they beat skins
stretched on the wicker sides of chariots, which produces a stunning
noise.
4. As we have before stated, the northernmost of the Germans inhabit a
country bordering on the ocean; but we are only acquainted with those
situated between the mouths of the Rhine and the Elbe, of which the
Sicambri[2596] and Cimbri[2597] are the most generally known: those
dwelling along the coast[2598] beyond the Elbe are entirely unknown to
us; for none of the ancients with whom I am acquainted have prosecuted
this voyage towards the east as far as the mouths of the Caspian Sea,
neither have the Romans as yet sailed coastwise beyond the Elbe, nor has
any one travelling on foot penetrated farther into this country. But it
is evident, by the _climates_ and the parallels of distances, that in
following a longitudinal course towards the east we must come to the
countries near the Dnieper, and the regions on the north side of the
Euxine. But as for any particulars as to Germany beyond the Elbe, or of
the countries which lie beyond it in order, whether we should call them
the Bastarnæ, as most geographers suppose, or whether other nations
intervene, such as the Jazyges,[2599] or the Roxolani,[2600] or any
others of the tribes dwelling in waggons, it is not easy to give any
account. Neither can we say whether these nations extend as far as the
[Northern] Ocean, along the whole distance, or whether [between them and
the Ocean] there are countries rendered unfit for habitation by the cold
or by any other cause; or whether men of a different race are situated
between the sea and the most eastern of the Germans.
The same uncertainty prevails with regard to the other [CAS. 294]
nations[2601] of the north, for we know neither the Bastarnæ nor the
Sauromatæ;[2602] nor, in a word, any of those tribes situate above the
Euxine: we are ignorant as to what distance they lie from the
Atlantic,[2603] or even whether they extend as far as that sea.