18 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 6. He informs us (as far

as we may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1. That the

Magi derived some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian

Brachmans; and 2. That they were a tribe, or family, as well as

order.]

19 (return) [ The divine institution of tithes exhibits a

singular instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and

that of Moses. Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may

suppose, if they please that the Magi of the latter times

inserted so useful an interpolation into the writings of their

prophet.]

20 (return) [ Sadder, Art. viii.]

201a (return) [ The passage quoted by Gibbon is not taken from

the writings of Zoroaster, but from the Sadder, a work, as has

been before said, much later than the books which form the

Zendavesta. and written by a Magus for popular use; what it

contains, therefore, cannot be attributed to Zoroaster. It is

remarkable that Gibbon should fall into this error, for Hyde

himself does not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster; he remarks that

it is written inverse, while Zoroaster always wrote in prose.

Hyde, i. p. 27. Whatever may be the case as to the latter

assertion, for which there appears little foundation, it is

unquestionable that the Sadder is of much later date. The Abbé

Foucher does not even believe it to be an extract from the works

of Zoroaster. See his Diss. before quoted. Mem. de l’Acad. des

Ins. t. xxvii.—G. Perhaps it is rash to speak of any part of the

Zendavesta as the writing of Zoroaster, though it may be a

genuine representation of his. As to the Sadder, Hyde (in Præf.)

considered it not above 200 years old. It is manifestly

post-Mahometan. See Art. xxv. on fasting.—M.]

These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were

doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since

the Magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their

hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. 21

The Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved

and investigated the secrets of Oriental philosophy; and

acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art, the

reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which

have derived their appellation from the Magi. 22 Those of more

active dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities;

and it is observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in

a great measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order,

whose dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince

restored to its ancient splendor. 23

21 (return) [ Plato in Alcibiad.]

22 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxx. c. 1) observes, that

magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic,

and of astronomy.]

23 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 134.]

The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable

genius of their faith, 24 to the practice of ancient kings, 25

and even to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a

victim to a religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. 26

By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except

that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the

Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown

down with ignominy. 27 The sword of Aristotle (such was the name

given by the Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the

Greeks) was easily broken; 28 the flames of persecution soon

reached the more stubborn Jews and Christians; 29 nor did they

spare the heretics of their own nation and religion. The majesty

of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by the

despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel; and the

schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the

inconsiderable number of eighty thousand. 30 301 This spirit of

persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but

as it was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to

strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting all the various

inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious zeal. 302

24 (return) [ Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion,

sagaciously remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects

are constantly the most intolerant. * Note: Hume’s comparison is

rather between theism and polytheism. In India, in Greece, and in

modern Europe, philosophic religion has looked down with

contemptuous toleration on the superstitions of the vulgar.—M.]

25 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, ii. 10. Xerxes, by the advice of

the Magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.]

26 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Persar. c. 23, 24. D’Herbelot,

Bibliotheque Orientale, Zurdusht. Life of Zoroaster in tom. ii.

of the Zendavesta.]

27 (return) [ Compare Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 74, with

Ammian. Marcel lin. xxiii. 6. Hereafter I shall make use of these

passages.]

28 (return) [ Rabbi Abraham, in the Tarikh Schickard, p. 108,

109.]

29 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. viii. c. 3.

Sozomen, l. ii. c. 1 Manes, who suffered an ignominious death,

may be deemed a Magian as well as a Christian heretic.]

30 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persar. c. 21.]

301 (return) [ It is incorrect to attribute these persecutions to

Artaxerxes. The Jews were held in honor by him, and their schools

flourished during his reign. Compare Jost, Geschichte der

Isræliter, b. xv. 5, with Basnage. Sapor was forced by the people

to temporary severities; but their real persecution did not begin

till the reigns of Yezdigerd and Kobad. Hist. of Jews, iii. 236.

According to Sozomen, i. viii., Sapor first persecuted the

Christians. Manes was put to death by Varanes the First, A. D.

277. Beausobre, Hist. de Man. i. 209.—M.]

302 (return) [ In the testament of Ardischer in Ferdusi, the poet

assigns these sentiments to the dying king, as he addresses his

son: Never forget that as a king, you are at once the protector

of religion and of your country. Consider the altar and the

throne as inseparable; they must always sustain each other.

Malcolm’s Persia. i. 74—M]

II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre

of the East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still

remained the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the

vast extent of Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The

weak indulgence of the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and

brothers the principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the

kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The _vitaxæ_, or

eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the

regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with

a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of

barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper

Asia, 31 within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom

obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under

other names, a lively image of the feudal system 32 which has

since prevailed in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of

a numerous and disciplined army, visited in person every province

of Persia. The defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of

the strongest fortifications, 33 diffused the terror of his arms,

and prepared the way for the peaceful reception of his authority.

An obstinate resistance was fatal to the chiefs; but their

followers were treated with lenity. 34 A cheerful submission was

rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent Artaxerxes,

suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king,

abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the

people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,

was, on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by

the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus,

by the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf of Persia. 35 That country was

computed to contain, in the last century, five hundred and

fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages, and about forty

millions of souls. 36 If we compare the administration of the

house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political

influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we

shall probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at

least as great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But

it must likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of

harbors on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the

inland provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and

agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their

numbers, seem to have indulged one of the meanest, though most

common, artifices of national vanity.

31 (return) [ These colonies were extremely numerous. Seleucus

Nicator founded thirty-nine cities, all named from himself, or

some of his relations, (see Appian in Syriac. p. 124.) The æra of

Seleucus (still in use among the eastern Christians) appears as

late as the year 508, of Christ 196, on the medals of the Greek

cities within the Parthian empire. See Moyle’s works, vol. i. p.

273, &c., and M. Freret, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xix.]

32 (return) [ The modern Persians distinguish that period as the

dynasty of the kings of the nations. See Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.

25.]

33 (return) [ Eutychius (tom. i. p. 367, 371, 375) relates the

siege of the island of Mesene in the Tigris, with some

circumstances not unlike the story of Nysus and Scylla.]

34 (return) [ Agathias, ii. 64, [and iv. p. 260.] The princes of

Segestan de fended their independence during many years. As

romances generally transport to an ancient period the events of

their own time, it is not impossible that the fabulous exploits

of Rustan, Prince of Segestan, many have been grafted on this

real history.]

35 (return) [ We can scarcely attribute to the Persian monarchy

the sea-coast of Gedrosia or Macran, which extends along the

Indian Ocean from Cape Jask (the promontory Capella) to Cape

Goadel. In the time of Alexander, and probably many ages

afterwards, it was thinly inhabited by a savage people of

Icthyophagi, or Fishermen, who knew no arts, who acknowledged no

master, and who were divided by in-hospitable deserts from the

rest of the world. (See Arrian de Reb. Indicis.) In the twelfth

century, the little town of Taiz (supposed by M. d’Anville to be

the Teza of Ptolemy) was peopled and enriched by the resort of

the Arabian merchants. (See Geographia Nubiens, p. 58, and

d’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 283.) In the last

age, the whole country was divided between three princes, one

Mahometan and two Idolaters, who maintained their independence

against the successors of Shah Abbas. (Voyages de Tavernier, part

i. l. v. p. 635.)]

36 (return) [ Chardin, tom. iii c 1 2, 3.]

As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever

the resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the

neighboring states, who, during the long slumber of his

predecessors, had insulted Persia with impunity. He obtained some

easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate

Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their past

injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his

arms. A forty years’ tranquillity, the fruit of valor and

moderation, had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the

period that elapsed from the accession of Marcus to the reign of

Alexander, the Roman and the Parthian empires were twice engaged

in war; and although the whole strength of the Arsacides

contended with a part only of the forces of Rome, the event was

most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus, indeed, prompted

by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper, purchased a

peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; 37 but

the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected

many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their

exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably

interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we

shall only mention the repeated calamities of the two great

cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.

37 (return) [ Dion, l. xxviii. p. 1335.]

Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five

miles to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the

Macedonian conquests in Upper Asia. 38 Many ages after the fall

of their empire, Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a

Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom.

The independent republic was governed by a senate of three

hundred nobles; the people consisted of six hundred thousand

citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed

among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt

the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was

sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common

enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony. 39 The

Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan,

delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and

the Imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of

Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of

only three miles from Seleucia. 40 The innumerable attendants on

luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little

village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. 41

Under the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far

as Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the

Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian

kings; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack

and conflagration of Seleucia, with the massacre of three hundred

thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman

triumph. 42 Seleucia, already exhausted by the neighborhood of a

too powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in

about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength

to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. The

city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in

person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives,

and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers. 43

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon

and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In

summer, the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool

breezes of the mountains of Media; but the mildness of the

climate engaged him to prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

38 (return) [ For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia,

Ctesiphon, Moiain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each

other, see an excellent Geographical Tract of M. d’Anville, in

Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxx.]

39 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 42. Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26.]

40 (return) [ This may be inferred from Strabo, l. xvi. p. 743.]

41 (return) [ That most curious traveller, Bernier, who followed

the camp of Aurengzebe from Delhi to Cashmir, describes with

great accuracy the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry

consisted of 35,000 men, that of infantry of 10,000. It was

computed that the camp contained 150,000 horses, mules, and

elephants; 50,000 camels, 50,000 oxen, and between 300,000 and

400,000 persons. Almost all Delhi followed the court, whose

magnificence supported its industry.]

42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1178. Hist. August. p. 38.

Eutrop. viii. 10 Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the

Augustan History) attempted to vindicate the Romans by alleging

that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith.]

43 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263. Herodian, l. iii. p. 120.

Hist. August. p. 70.]

From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or

lasting benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant

conquests, separated from the provinces of the empire by a large

tract of intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of

Osrhoene was an acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far

more solid advantage. That little state occupied the northern and

most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the

Tigris. Edessa, its capital, was situated about twenty miles

beyond the former of those rivers; and the inhabitants, since the

time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians,

and Armenians. 44 The feeble sovereigns of Osrhoene, placed on

the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were attached from

inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power of Rome

exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by

their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under

Marcus, it was judged prudent to secure some substantial pledges

of their doubtful fidelity. Forts were constructed in several

parts of the country, and a Roman garrison was fixed in the

strong town of Nisibis. During the troubles that followed the

death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene attempted to shake off

the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus confirmed their

dependence, 45 and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the easy

conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to

Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital

dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten

years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm

and permanent establishment beyond the Euphrates. 46

44 (return) [ The polished citizens of Antioch called those of

Edessa mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of

the three dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant

(the Aramæan) was spoken at Edessa. This remark M. Bayer (Hist.

Edess. p 5) has borrowed from George of Malatia, a Syrian

writer.]

45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1248, 1249, 1250. M. Bayer has

neglected to use this most important passage.]

46 (return) [ This kingdom, from Osrhoes, who gave a new name to

the country, to the last Abgarus, had lasted 353 years. See the

learned work of M. Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena.]

Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side

of Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or

acquisition of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian

openly avowed a far more extensive design of conquest; and he

thought himself able to support his lofty pretensions by the arms

of reason as well as by those of power. Cyrus, he alleged, had

first subdued, and his successors had for a long time possessed,

the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and the Ægean

Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had

been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines

of Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. 47 Their rights

had been suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and

as soon as he received the Persian diadem, which birth and

successful valor had placed upon his head, the first great duty

of his station called upon him to restore the ancient limits and

splendor of the monarchy. The Great King, therefore, (such was

the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor Alexander,)

commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the provinces

of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of

Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of

Europe. This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the

tallest and most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine

horses, splendid arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and

greatness of their master. 48 Such an embassy was much less an

offer of negotiation than a declaration of war. Both Alexander

Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting the military force of the

Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this important contest

to lead their armies in person.

47 (return) [ Xenophon, in the preface to the Cyropædia, gives a

clear and magnificent idea of the extent of the empire of Cyrus.

Herodotus (l. iii. c. 79, &c.) enters into a curious and

particular description of the twenty great Satrapies into which

the Persian empire was divided by Darius Hystaspes.]

48 (return) [ Herodian, vi. 209, 212.]

If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records,

an oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to

the senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus

was not inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the

Persians by the son of Philip. The army of the Great King

consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, clothed in

complete armor of steel; of seven hundred elephants, with towers

filled with archers on their backs, and of eighteen hundred

chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host, the like of

which is not to be found in eastern history, and has scarcely

been imagined in eastern romance, 49 was discomfited in a great

battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid

soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his

valor; an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were

the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the

circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation,

dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the

monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,

and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious

senate. 50 Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of

Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we

are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was

designed to conceal some real disgrace.

49 (return) [ There were two hundred scythed chariots at the

battle of Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of

Tigranes, which was vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand

horse only were completely armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four

elephants into the field against the Romans: by his frequent wars

and negotiations with the princes of India, he had once collected

a hundred and fifty of those great animals; but it may be

questioned whether the most powerful monarch of Hindostan evci

formed a line of battle of seven hundred elephants. Instead of

three or four thousand elephants, which the Great Mogul was

supposed to possess, Tavernier (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 198)

discovered, by a more accurate inquiry, that he had only five

hundred for his baggage, and eighty or ninety for the service of

war. The Greeks have varied with regard to the number which Porus

brought into the field; but Quintus Curtius, (viii. 13,) in this

instance judicious and moderate, is contented with eighty-five

elephants, distinguished by their size and strength. In Siam,

where these animals are the most numerous and the most esteemed,

eighteen elephants are allowed as a sufficient proportion for

each of the nine brigades into which a just army is divided. The

whole number, of one hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may

sometimes be doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260. * Note:

Compare Gibbon’s note 10 to ch. lvii—M.]

50 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 133. * Note: See M. Guizot’s note,

p. 267. According to the Persian authorities Ardeschir extended

his conquests to the Euphrates. Malcolm i. 71.—M.]

Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary

historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect,

and his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which

had been formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies

were destined to invade Persia at the same time, and by different

roads. But the operations of the campaign, though wisely

concerted, were not executed either with ability or success. The

first of these armies, as soon as it had entered the marshy

plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux of the

Euphrates and the Tigris, 51 was encompassed by the superior

numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance

of Chosroes, king of Armenia, 52 and the long tract of

mountainous country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little

service, opened a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the

second of the Roman armies. These brave troops laid waste the

adjacent provinces, and by several successful actions against

Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the emperor’s vanity. But the

retreat of this victorious army was imprudent, or at least

unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of

soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity

of the winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two

great detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the

Persian dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander

himself, should support their attack, by invading the centre of

the kingdom. But the unexperienced youth, influenced by his

mother’s counsels, and perhaps by his own fears, deserted the

bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of victory; and after

consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious summer, he

led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and provoked

by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very

different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the

marshes of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders

in person; and in either fortune had united with the ablest

conduct the most undaunted resolution. But in several obstinate

engagements against the veteran legions of Rome, the Persian

monarch had lost the flower of his troops. Even his victories had

weakened his power. The favorable opportunities of the absence of

Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that emperor’s

death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead of

expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of

Asia, he found himself unable to wrest from their hands the

little province of Mesopotamia. 53

51 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has already observed, that

Herodian’s geography is somewhat confused.]

52 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 71)

illustrates this invasion of Media, by asserting that Chosroes,

king of Armenia, defeated Artaxerxes, and pursued him to the

confines of India. The exploits of Chosroes have been magnified;

and he acted as a dependent ally to the Romans.]

53 (return) [ For the account of this war, see Herodian, l. vi.

p. 209, 212. The old abbreviators and modern compilers have

blindly followed the Augustan History.]

The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the

Parthians, lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in

the history of the East, and even in that of Rome. His character

seems to have been marked by those bold and commanding features,

that generally distinguish the princes who conquer, from those

who inherit, an empire. Till the last period of the Persian

monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the groundwork of

their civil and religious policy. 54 Several of his sayings are

preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight

into the constitution of government. “The authority of the

prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force;

that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at

last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish

except under the protection of justice and moderation.” 55

Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs

against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great

father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of

Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series

of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

54 (return) [Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 180, vers. Pocock. The great

Chosroes Noushirwan sent the code of Artaxerxes to all his

satraps, as the invariable rule of their conduct.]

55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, au mot Ardshir.

We may observe, that after an ancient period of fables, and a

long interval of darkness, the modern histories of Persia begin

to assume an air of truth with the dynasty of Sassanides. Compare

Malcolm, i. 79.—M.]

The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far

from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid

hardiness, both of mind and body, which have rendered the

northern barbarians masters of the world. The science of war,

that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as

it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in

the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonize and

animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. They

were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or

defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their

numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to

their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd

of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and

as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and

his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the

seraglio. Their military operations were impeded by a useless

train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels; and in the midst of

a successful campaign, the Persian host was often separated or

destroyed by an unexpected famine. 56

56 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 214. Ammianus Marcellinus, l.

xxiii. c. 6. Some differences may be observed between the two

historians, the natural effects of the changes produced by a

century and a half.]

But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,

preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national

honor. From the age of seven years they were taught to speak

truth, to shoot with the bow, and to ride; and it was universally

confessed that in the two last of these arts they had made a more

than common proficiency. 57 The most distinguished youth were

educated under the monarch’s eye, practised their exercises in

the gate of his palace, and were severely trained up to the

habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and laborious

parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a

like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is

the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king’s bounty lands

and houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were

ready on the first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial

and splendid train of followers, and to join the numerous bodies

of guards, who were carefully selected from among the most robust

slaves, and the bravest adventurers of Asia. These armies, both

of light and of heavy cavalry, equally formidable by the

impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity of their motions,

threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern provinces of the

declining empire of Rome. 58

57 (return) [ The Persians are still the most skilful horsemen,

and their horses the finest in the East.]

58 (return) [ From Herodotus, Xenophon, Herodian, Ammianus,

Chardin, &c., I have extracted such probable accounts of the

Persian nobility, as seem either common to every age, or

particular to that of the Sassanides.]

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.

The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The Time Of

The Emperor Decius.

The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice,

from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman

empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian

tribes, 1001 which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and

herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains

which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from

the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike

Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length

overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more

important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if

we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our

attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe

issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of

those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles

of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of

simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the

discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of

Tacitus, 1002 the first of historians who applied the science of

philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of

his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of

innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and

penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The

subject, however various and important, has already been so

frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is

now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We

shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with

repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate,

of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild

barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.

1001 (return) [ The Scythians, even according to the ancients,

are not Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to

confound them.—M. ——The Greeks, after having divided the world

into Greeks and barbarians. divided the barbarians into four

great classes, the Celts, the Scythians, the Indians, and the

Ethiopians. They called Celts all the inhabitants of Gaul.

Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the Lake Aral: the people

enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between Celtica and

Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians were

placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of

Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were

invented, says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance

of the Greeks, and have no real ground; they are purely

geographical divisions, without any relation to the true

affiliation of the different races. Thus all the inhabitants of

Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers; yet Gaul

contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgæ, the

Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua

institutis, legibusque inter se differunt. Cæsar. Com. c. i. It

is thus the Turks call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine

Nordische Geschichte, p. 289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis

Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc. p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus

constat, Ephorus, in quarto historiarum libro, orbem terrarum

inter Scythas, Indos, Æthiopas et Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus

loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in topographia Christiana, f. 148,

conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum locorum positus per certa

capita distribuere et explicare constitueret, insigniorum nomina

gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala fraude et

successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis

habebant Græci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error

posteritate. Igitur tot tamque diversæ stirpis gentes non modo

intra communem quandam regionem definitæ, unum omnes Scytharum

nomen his auctoribus subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis

adpellatione in eandem nationem sunt conflatæ. Sic Cimmeriorum

res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis,

Tataricis commiscentur.—G.]

1002 (return) [ The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful

source of hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have

endeavored to account for the form of the work and the views of

the author. According to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and

note,) it contains the unfinished and disarranged for a larger

work. An anonymous writer, supposed by Luden to be M. Becker,

conceives that it was intended as an episode in his larger

history. According to M. Guizot, “Tacite a peint les Germains

comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces d’humeur

contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des mœurs Romaines,

l’eloquente boutade d’un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la

vertu la, ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la

depravation savante d’une vielle societe.” Hist. de la

Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.—M.]

Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the

province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman

yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. 1 Almost the

whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,

Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by

the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion,

manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a

striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by

the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from

the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising

from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered

Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was

faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the

Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring

and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote

darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen

ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula,

or islands 1001a of Scandinavia.

1 (return) [ Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from

Cæsar, and more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that

we can know what was the state of ancient Germany before the wars

with the Romans had changed the positions of the tribes. Germany,

as changed by these wars, has been described by Strabo, Pliny,

and Tacitus. Germany, properly so called, was bounded on the west

by the Rhine, on the east by the Vistula, on the north by the

southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and Esthonia. On the south,

the Maine and the mountains to the north of Bohemia formed the

limits. Before the time of Cæsar, the country between the Maine

and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians and other

Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of Cæsar

to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as

the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps,

although the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to

south, a space of nine days’ journey on both banks of the Danube.

“Gatterer, Versuch einer all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte,” p. 424,

edit. de 1792. This vast country was far from being inhabited by

a single nation divided into different tribes of the same origin.

We may reckon three principal races, very distinct in their

language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the east, the

Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri. 3.

Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so

called, the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before

Julius Cæsar, by nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the

Suevi.—G. On the position of these nations, the German

antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or Sclavonians, or Wendish

tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally settled in parts

of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania,

Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to Gatterer,

they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the

Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to

Procopius and Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The

Venedi or Vandals, who took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having

expelled the Vandals, properly so called, (a Suevian race, the

conquerors of Africa,) from the country between the Memel and the

Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited between the Dneister and the

Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so called, in the north of

Dacia. During the great migration, these races advanced into

Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian language

is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the

Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy

of Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of

Croatia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p.

323, 335. II. The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all

who were not Suevi. This race had passed the Rhine, before the

time of Cæsar, occupied Belgium, and are the Belgæ of Cæsar and

Pliny. The Cimbrians also occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri

of Wales and of Britain are of this race. Many tribes on the

right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in Jutland, the Usipeti in

Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg, were German

Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the

Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123

years before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real

Germans, extended to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the

Hercynian forest. The name of Suevi was sometimes confined to a

single tribe, as by Cæsar to the Catti. The name of the Suevi has

been preserved in Suabia. These three were the principal races

which inhabited Germany; they moved from east to west, and are

the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern Europe,

according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other

races, of different origin, and speaking different languages,

have inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The

German tribes called themselves, from very remote times, by the

generic name of Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus

derives from that of one of their gods, Tuisco. It appears more

probable that it means merely men, people. Many savage nations

have given themselves no other name. Thus the Laplanders call

themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz, Nissetsch, men,

&c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Cæsar found it in use

in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.

Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c.

2) have supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after

Cæsar’s time; but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion.

The name of Germans is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter,

Iscrip. 2899, in which the consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome

531, is said to have defeated the Gauls, the Insubrians, and the

Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See Adelung, Ælt. Geschichte der

Deutsch, p. 102.—Compressed from G.]

1001a (return) [ The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed

that the waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular

proportion, which they have ventured to estimate at half an inch

every year. Twenty centuries ago the flat country of Scandinavia

must have been covered by the sea; while the high lands rose

above the waters, as so many islands of various forms and

dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by Mela, Pliny,

and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See in the

Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of

Dalin’s History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. *

Note: Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the

depression of the Baltic, as inconsistent with recent

observation. The considerable changes which have taken place on

its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual observation now decidedly

attributes to the regular and uniform elevation of the

land.—Lyell’s Geology, b. ii. c. 17—M.]

Some ingenious writers 2 have suspected that Europe was much

colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient

descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to

confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and

eternal winter are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have

no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the

thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born

in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two

remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great

rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the

Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting

the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that

severe season for their inroads, transported, without

apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and

their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. 3 Modern

ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The

reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North

derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a

constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense

cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of

the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and

Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in

any country to the south of the Baltic. 4 In the time of Cæsar

the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native

of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of

Germany and Poland. 5 The modern improvements sufficiently

explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense

woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the

earth the rays of the sun. 6 The morasses have been drained, and,

in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become

more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of

ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the

finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences

the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the

ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river

of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters

of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. 7

2 (return) [ In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbé du Bos, and M.

Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]

3 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel.

Herodian, l. vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the

Danube, the wine, when brought to table, was frequently frozen

into great lumps, frusta vini. Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7,

9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii. 355. The fact is confirmed by a

soldier and a philosopher, who had experienced the intense cold

of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii. p. 560, edit.

Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At Pesth

the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication

between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is

likewise in many parts passable at least two years out of five.

Winter campaigns are so unusual, in modern warfare, that I

recollect but one instance of an army crossing either river on

the ice. In the thirty years’ war, (1635,) Jan van Werth, an

Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from Heidelberg on the

ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru’s memorable

campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal

opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery

attacked the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter

of unprecedented severity.—M. 1845.]

4 (return) [ Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]

5 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most

inquisitive of the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits,

although some of them had travelled in it more than sixty days’

journey. * Note: The passage of Cæsar, “parvis renonum tegumentis

utuntur,” is obscure, observes Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen

Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the reindeer to have existed

in Germany. It is supported however, by a fragment of Sallust.

Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.—M. It has been

suggested to me that Cæsar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the

reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus

a media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque

directum (divaricatum, qu?) his quæ nobis nota sunt cornibus. At

ejus summo, sicut palmæ, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell.

vi.—M. 1845.]

6 (return) [ Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47)

investigates the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian

wood.]

7 (return) [ Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]

It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the

influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and

bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have

allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,

that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life

and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the

human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate

climates. 8 We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen

air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the

natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the

people of the South, 9 gave them a kind of strength better

adapted to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired

them with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves

and spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the

courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy

children of the North, 10 who, in their turn, were unable to

resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and

sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. 11

8 (return) [ Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often

bear ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty;

but the authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]

9 (return) [ In hos artus, in hæc corpora, quæ miramur,

excrescunt. Tæit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]

10 (return) [ Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of

amusement, often did down mountains of snow on their broad

shields.]

11 (return) [ The Romans made war in all climates, and by their

excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health

and vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which

can live and multiply in every country from the equator to the

poles. The hog seems to approach the nearest to our species in

that privilege.]

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.

There is not anywhere upon the globe a large tract of country,

which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first

population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty.

And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from

investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity

consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When

Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the

forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce

those barbarians _Indigenæ_, or natives of the soil. We may allow

with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not

originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a

political society; 12 but that the name and nation received their

existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the

Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the

spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be

a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by

reason.

12 (return) [ Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls

followed the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on

Greece and Asia. Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable

tribe that retained any traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The

Gothini, who must not be confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian

tribe. In the time of Cæsar many other tribes of Gaulish origin

dwelt along the course of the Danube, who could not long resist

the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who dwelt on the

borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the Danube,

had been expelled long before the time of Cæsar. He mentions also

the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round

the Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest,

and also have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued

in the first century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in

Noricum, were mingled afterwards with the Lombards, and received

the name of Boio Arii (Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German

dialects, appearing to mean remains, descendants. Compare Malte

B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit 1832—M.]

Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular

vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of

the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was

formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow

basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure

of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, 13 as well as

the wild Tartar, 14 could point out the individual son of Japhet,

from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last

century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy

faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of

conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of

Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of

these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Olaus

Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. 15 Whatever is

celebrated either in history or fable this zealous patriot

ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so

considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves

derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their

religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the

eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the

Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate

Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and

imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature

could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck

allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to

about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small

colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human

species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am

not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the

son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common

diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern

hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,

and Asia; and (to use the author’s metaphor) the blood circulated

from the extremities to the heart.

13 (return) [ According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p.

13, 14,) the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son

of Esra, the son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of

Fathaclan, the son of Magog, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,

landed on the coast of Munster the 14th day of May, in the year

of the world one thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight. Though

he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose behavior of his

wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and provoked him to

such a degree, that he killed—her favorite greyhound. This, as

the learned historian very properly observes, was the first

instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in

Ireland.]

14 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi

Bahadur Khan.]

15 (return) [ His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.

Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des

Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]

But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is

annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any

doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.

The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the

use of letters; 16 and the use of letters is the principal

circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of

savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that

artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the

ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the

mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually

forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic,

the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this

important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to

calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and

the _illiterate_ peasant. The former, by reading and reflection,

multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and

remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and

confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little

his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental

faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found

between nations than between individuals; and we may safely

pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has

ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made

any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever

possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and

agreeable arts of life.

16 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter

ac fœminæ ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive

authority, without entering into the obscure disputes concerning

the antiquity of the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a

Swede, a scholar, and a philosopher, was of opinion, that they

were nothing more than the Roman letters, with the curves changed

into straight lines for the ease of engraving. See Pelloutier,

Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11. Dictionnaire Diplomatique,

tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest Runic inscriptions

are supposed to be of the third century, and the most ancient

writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius

Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the

sixth century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note:

The obscure subject of the Runic characters has exercised the

industry and ingenuity of the modern scholars of the north. There

are three distinct theories; one, maintained by Schlozer,

(Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who considers their sixteen

letters to be a corruption of the Roman alphabet, post-Christian

in their date, and Schlozer would attribute their introduction

into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of Frederick

Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes

that these characters were left on the coasts of the

Mediterranean and Northern Seas by the Phœnicians, preserved by

the priestly castes, and employed for purposes of magic. Their

common origin from the Phœnician would account for heir

similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to which we incline,

claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for the Runic,

and supposes them to have been the original characters of the

Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among

the different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von

W. C. Grimm, 1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten

Nordens. Foreign Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.—M.]

Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.

1601 They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty,

which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the

appellation of virtuous simplicity. Modern Germany is said to

contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. 17 In a

much wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could

discover no more than ninety places which he decorates with the

name of cities; 18 though, according to our ideas, they would but

ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have

been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods,

and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst

the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion.

19 But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans,

in his time, had _no_ cities; 20 and that they affected to

despise the works of Roman industry, as places of confinement

rather than of security. 21 Their edifices were not even

contiguous, or formed into regular villas; 22 each barbarian

fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a

wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the

preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in

these slight habitations. 23 They were indeed no more than low

huts, of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with

straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the

smoke. In the most inclement winter, the hardy German was

satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.

The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed themselves in

furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind

of linen. 24 The game of various sorts, with which the forests of

Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with

food and exercise. 25 Their monstrous herds of cattle, less

remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, 26

formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of

corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of

orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor

can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people,

whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new

division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation,

avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to

lie waste and without tillage. 27

1601 (return) [ Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen

Volkes) has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm

for the virtues and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold

of the climate, and the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as

the barbarism of the inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious

Italians. M. Guizot, on the other side, (in his Histoire de la

Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,) has drawn a curious parallel

between the Germans of Tacitus and the North American

Indians.—M.]

17 (return) [ Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom.

iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work is, if I am not

misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]

18 (return) [ The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by

the accurate Cluverius.]

19 (return) [ See Cæsar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his

History of Manchester, vol. i.]

20 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

21 (return) [ When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to

cast off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume

their ancient manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition

of the walls of the colony. “Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniæ,

munimenta servitii, detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa

teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]

22 (return) [ The straggling villages of Silesia are several

miles in length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]

23 (return) [ One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few

more regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube.

Herodian, l. vii. p. 234.]

24 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 17.]

25 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 5.]

26 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]

27 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 26. Cæsar, vi. 22.]

Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its

barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to

investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally

rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony.

Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant

of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans

furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to

bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that

metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced

some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the

Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely

unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined

traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude

earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the

presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 28 To a mind

capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more

instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances.

The value of money has been settled by general consent to express

our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express

our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active

energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have

contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to

represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure

factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important

and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have

received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation

of fire and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the

most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of

human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what

means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the

other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism. 29

28 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 6.]

29 (return) [ It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without

the use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress

in the arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have

been strangely magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom.

ii. p. 153, &c]

If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a

supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to

constitute their general character. In a civilized state every

faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of

mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of

society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant

and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that

necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of

interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their

understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies

of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied

resources. The care of the house and family, the management of

the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to

women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that

might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in

the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a

wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a

writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same

barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless

of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. 30

The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously

required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were

the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that

summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused

him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit,

and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the

mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In

the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately

addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by

different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other

by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain

of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at

table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their

numerous and drunken assemblies. 31 Their debts of honor (for in

that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they

discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate

gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw

of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and

suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote

slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist. 32

30 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

31 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]

32 (return) [ Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play

from the Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the

human species.]

Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat

or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by

Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the

gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the

rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more

delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however,

(as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize

the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they

endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous

commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was

esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. 33 The intemperate thirst

of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the

provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied

presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic

nations, attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich

fruits and delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate.

34 And in the same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into

France during the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were

allured by the promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of

Champaigne and Burgundy. 35 Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but

not the most dangerous of _our_ vices, was sometimes capable, in

a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a

war, or a revolution.

33 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 14.]

34 (return) [ Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]

35 (return) [ Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.

193.]

The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil

fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of

Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present

maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and

artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors

with the simple necessaries of life. 36 The Germans abandoned

their immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in

pasturage the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on

the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then

accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to

maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of

famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,

the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration

of a third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. 37 The

possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which

bind a civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans,

who carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their

cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of

their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The

innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the

great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the

vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from

facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and

has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that,

in the age of Cæsar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North

were far more numerous than they are in our days. 38 A more

serious inquiry into the causes of population seems to have

convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the

impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of

Machiavel, 39 we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and

Hume. 40

36 (return) [ The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country

called Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000

persons, (Cæsar de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of

people in the Pays de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the

Leman Lake, much more distinguished for politeness than for

industry) amounts to 112,591. See an excellent tract of M. Muret,

in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]

37 (return) [ Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and

the rest of Paul’s followers, represent these emigrations too

much as regular and concerted measures.]

38 (return) [ Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged,

on this subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]

39 (return) [ Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist.

Hispan. l. v. c. 1]

40 (return) [ Robertson’s Charles V. Hume’s Political Essays.

Note: It is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations

“were not populous in proportion to the land they occupied, but

to the food they produced.” They were prolific from their pure

morals and constitutions, but their institutions were not

calculated to produce food for those whom they brought into

being.—M—1845.]

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities,

letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage

state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their

freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest

fetters of despotism. “Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches

are held in honor. They are _therefore_ subject to an absolute

monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use

of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to

the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of

a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even

below servitude; they obey a woman.” 41 In the mention of these

exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the

general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive

by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote

corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that

blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman

provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so

distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could

thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. 42 Some

tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the

authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of

men, 43 but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of

government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not

so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional

ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. 44

41 (return) [ Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated

his supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to

be very angry with the Roman who expressed so very little

reverence for Northern queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones

are the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, their name may be

traced in that of Sweden; they did not belong to the race of the

Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri, whom the Suevi, in

very remote times, drove back part to the west, part to the

north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among

others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the

isle of Gothland.—G]

42 (return) [May we not suspect that superstition was the parent

of despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not

extinct till the year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden

above a thousand years. The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat

of religion and empire. In the year 1153 I find a singular law,

prohibiting the use and profession of arms to any except the

king’s guards. Is it not probable that it was colored by the

pretence of reviving an old institution? See Dalin’s History of

Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and xlv.]

43 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]

44 (return) [ Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]

Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary

associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is

absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself

obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the

judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German

tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of

political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had

attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general

council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and

spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military

commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was

convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial

of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great

business of peace and war, were determined by its independent

voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were

previously considered and prepared in a more select council of

the principal chieftains. 45 The magistrates might deliberate and

persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the

resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and

violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in

gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking

all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from

the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice

to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid

counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to

vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic

injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert

the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger

and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the

eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in

arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular

multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use

those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious

resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have

been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been

compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious. 46

45 (return) [ Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus,

pertractantur into Prætractantur. The correction is equally just

and ingenious.]

46 (return) [ Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often

carried a question, not so much by the number of votes, as by

that of their armed followers.]

A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and,

if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes

concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior

was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example

rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was

still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace

the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. 47

_Princes_ were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to

administer justice, or rather to compose differences, 48 in their

respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much

regard was shown to birth as to merit. 49 To each was assigned,

by the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and

the first of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of

rank and honor which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment

him with the regal title. 50

47 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]

48 (return) [ Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression

of Cæsar’s.]

49 (return) [ Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt. Tacit

Germ. 7]

50 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two

remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole

system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property

within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and

they distributed it every year according to a new division. 51 At

the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to

imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 52 A people thus

jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must

have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but

animated with a high sense of honor and independence.

51 (return) [ Cæsar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]

52 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 7.]

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III.

The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on

themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the

authority of the magistrates. “The noblest youths blushed not to

be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief,

to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation

prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the

esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the

greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a

band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs,

their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such

distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of

their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their

friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to

the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was

shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his

companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of

their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy.

To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies

of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The

chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The

noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the

laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some

distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and

to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of

soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and ever victorious

lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the

liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable

board was the only pay that _he_ could bestow, or _they_ would

accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,

supplied the materials of this munificence.” 53 This institution,

however it might accidentally weaken the several republics,

invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even

ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are

susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the

courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.

The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave

companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to

contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the

conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among

their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military

service. 54 These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the

maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents,

but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of

obligations. 55

53 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]

54 (return) [ Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant

imagination of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry,

cold reason of the Abbé de Mably. Observations sur l’Histoire de

France, tom. i. p. 356.]

55 (return) [ Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec

acceptis obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]

“In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the

men were brave and all the women were chaste;” and

notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and

preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is

ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient

Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and

among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.

Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws.

Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was

seduction justified by example and fashion. 56 We may easily

discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast

of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman

ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an

air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and

chastity of the Germans.

56 (return) [ The adulteress was whipped through the village.

Neither wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure

her a second husband. 18, 19.]

Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed

to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have

been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most

dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of

life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The

gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is

elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.

The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre

to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.

Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious

spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female

frailty. 57 From such dangers the unpolished wives of the

barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful

cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side,

to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard

of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs

of a Persian harem. To this reason another may be added of a more

honorable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and

confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and

fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and

wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as

Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity,

the fiercest nations of Germany. 58 The rest of the sex, without

being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal

companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony

to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. 59 In their great

invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a

multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the

sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the

honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. 60 Fainting armies

of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy

by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less

than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew

how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own

hands, from an insulting victor. 61 Heroines of such a cast may

claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely

nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the

stern virtues of _man_, they must have resigned that attractive

softness in which principally consist the charm and weakness of

_woman_. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress

every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and

the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The

sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at

once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of

the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it

may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a

faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that

distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.

57 (return) [ Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of

places the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the

theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and

to melt them into tenderness and sensuality,]

58 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]

59 (return) [ The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses,

and arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the

subject.]

60 (return) [ The change of exigere into exugere is a most

excellent correction.]

61 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the

wives of the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children,

they had offered to surrender, on condition that they should be

received as the slaves of the vestal virgins.]

The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of

savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their

fears, and their ignorance. 62 They adored the great visible

objects and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and

the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were

supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human

life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of

divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings,

and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable

offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed

on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity,

whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor

represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the

Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted

with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true

reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority

of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in

Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the

reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the

imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no

distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a

still deeper sense of religious horror; 63 and the priests, rude

and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the

use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions

so well suited to their own interest.

62 (return) [ Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one

hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The

former discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The

latter is positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon,

and the fire, his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in

unity]

63 (return) [ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror

by Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were

many of the same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had

shapeless idols, and, when they began to build more settled

habitations, they raised also temples, such as that to the

goddess Teufana, who presided over divination. See Adelung, Hist.

of Ane Germans, p 296—G]

The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of

conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes

them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The

German priests, improving this favorable temper of their

countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns,

which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the

haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,

when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the

immediate order of the god of war. 64 The defects of civil policy

were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical

authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence

and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended

to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn

procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries

of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the _Earth_,

covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by

cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was

in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her

worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed,

quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless

Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and

harmony. 65 The _truce of God_, so often and so ineffectually

proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious

imitation of this ancient custom. 66

64 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]

65 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]

66 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. i.

note 10.]

But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,

than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest

and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most

daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of

Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated

standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were

placed in the front of the battle; 67 and the hostile army was

devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.

68 In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice

is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy

favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his

shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies

of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced

the doctrine of transmigration, 69 others imagined a gross

paradise of immortal drunkenness. 70 All agreed that a life spent

in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best

preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or in another

world.

67 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only

the heads of wild beasts.]

68 (return) [ See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii.

57.]

69 (return) [ Cæsar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this

doctrine to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l.

iii. c. 18) labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox

sense.]

70 (return) [ Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the

Edda, see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book,

published by M. Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of

Denmark.]

The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some

degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has

most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to

investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and

the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence

paid to that important office, have been sufficiently

illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive,

the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast

of their audience. Among a polished people a taste for poetry is

rather an amusement of the fancy than a passion of the soul. And

yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by

Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and

feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold

is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary

study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory,

that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient

days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened

with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of

arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song;

and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame,

and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a

German mind. 71 711

71 (return) [ See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo,

l. iv. p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of

Demodocus in the Phæacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtæus

into the fainting Spartans. Yet there is little probability that

the Greeks and the Germans were the same people. Much learned

trifling might be spared, if our antiquarians would condescend to

reflect, that similar manners will naturally be produced by

similar situations.]

711 (return) [ Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at

their festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies

of their slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths,

killed in a battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he

was borne from the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same

honor was paid to the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According

to some historians, the Germans had songs also at their weddings;

but this appears to me inconsistent with their customs, in which

marriage was no more than the purchase of a wife. Besides, there

is but one instance of this, that of the Gothic king, Ataulph,

who sang himself the nuptial hymn when he espoused Placidia,

sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, (Olympiodor. p. 8.)

But this marriage was celebrated according to the Roman rites, of

which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p. 382.—G.

Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the

ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.—M.]

Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient

Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of

laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion,

their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of

enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes.

And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty

years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of

Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable

attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious, and

enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by

their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by

the intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been

observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command

of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold. But the rude

tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those valuable metals,

were reduced slowly to acquire, by their unassisted strength, the

possession of the one as well as the other. The face of a German

army displayed their poverty of iron. Swords, and the longer kind

of lances, they could seldom use. Their _frameæ_ (as they called

them in their own language) were long spears headed with a sharp

but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion required, they

either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset. With

this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented. A

multitude of darts, scattered 72 with incredible force, were an

additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when

they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of

colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields.

Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any

by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful,

swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman

manege, several of the nations obtained renown by their cavalry;

but, in general, the principal strength of the Germans consisted

in their infantry, 73 which was drawn up in several deep columns,

according to the distinction of tribes and families. Impatient of

fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to battle

with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by the

effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more

artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the

barbarians poured forth their whole souls on the first onset,

they knew not how to rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure

defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total destruction. When we

recollect the complete armor of the Roman soldiers, their

discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified camps, and military

engines, it appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked and

unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to encounter, in

the field, the strength of the legions, and the various troops of

the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest was

too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the

vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the

discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian

auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very

obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in

the arts of war and of policy. Although they were admitted in

small numbers and with the strictest precaution, the example of

Civilis was proper to convince the Romans, that the danger was

not imaginary, and that their precautions were not always

sufficient. 74 During the civil wars that followed the death of

Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies

condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, 75 formed a

great design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts

renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his

standard. He introduced an army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed

on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to embrace his

cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their fortified camps, and

employed against the Romans the military knowledge which he had

acquired in their service. When at length, after an obstinate

struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis secured

himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians

still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, 76 the

allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

72 (return) [ Missilia spargunt, Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that

historian used a vague expression, or he meant that they were

thrown at random.]

73 (return) [ It was their principal distinction from the

Sarmatians, who generally fought on horseback.]

74 (return) [ The relation of this enterprise occupies a great

part of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and

is more remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry

Saville has observed several inaccuracies.]

75 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]

76 (return) [ It was contained between the two branches of the

old Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was

changed by art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c.

30, 37.]

II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we

consider the effects that might have been produced by its united

effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a

million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of

a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of

concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was

agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was

divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in

each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose

and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew

not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their

resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that

so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or

drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations;

the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself

among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to

plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most

formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their

territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The

awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror

of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger

of unexpected incursions. 77

77 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]

“The Bructeri 771 (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally

exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 78 provoked by their

insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by

the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand

barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our

sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of

Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now

attained the utmost verge of prosperity, 79 and have nothing left

to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”

80—These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the

patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the

policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient

to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they

could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and

negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of

Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to

conciliate those nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or

Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most

troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by

the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks

of distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil

dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its

interest by entering into secret connections with the governors

of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among the Germans was

fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and

public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy

and interest. 81

771 (return) [ The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt

below the duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders

of the Lippe, and in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that

the priestess Velleda obtained her renown.—G.]

78 (return) [ They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth

centuries by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of

Franks. See Cluver. Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]

79 (return) [ Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense,

Lipsius, and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]

80 (return) [ Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbé de la

Bleterie is very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was

a murderer from the beginning, &c., &c.]

81 (return) [ Many traces of this policy may be discovered in

Tacitus and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the

principles of human nature.]

The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign

of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of

Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that

of the Danube. 82 It is impossible for us to determine whether

this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or

by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were

neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition,

of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the

firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in

the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct

of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long

and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued.

The Quadi and the Marcomanni, 83 who had taken the lead in the

war, were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They

were commanded to retire five miles 84 from their own banks of

the Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were

immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might

be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. 85 On the frequent

rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor

resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His

designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league,

however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of

the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving

any traces behind in Germany.

82 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5.

Aurel. Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich

furniture of the palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]

83 (return) [ The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of

the Rhine occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great

and formidable monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo,

l. vii. [p. 290.] Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. *

Note: The Mark-manæn, the March-men or borderers. There seems

little doubt that this was an appellation, rather than a proper

name of a part of the great Suevian or Teutonic race.—M.]

84 (return) [ Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the

prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious,

but not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified

barrier.]

85 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]

In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined

ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany,

without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various

tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cæsar, of

Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes

successively present themselves in the series of this history, we

shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their

particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent

societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,

bound to their native soil by art and agriculture. The German

tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers,

almost of savages. The same territory often changed its

inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same

communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a

new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient

confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but

long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated

its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of

volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite

leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of

the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed

multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were

perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the

astonished subjects of the Roman empire. 86

86 (return) [ See an excellent dissertation on the origin and

migrations of nations, in the Memoires de l’Academie des

Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48—71. It is seldom that the

antiquarian and the philosopher are so happily blended.]

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal

subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in

these busy scenes is very different, according to the different

condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient

subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity.

The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely

confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts

which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations.

But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil

commotions, or the situation of petty republics, 87 raises almost

every member of the community into action, and consequently into

notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the

people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply

their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of

armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects

are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and

that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished

on the most inconsiderable objects.

87 (return) [ Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000

citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on

the number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This

number, though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong,

as an average estimate. On the subject of Athenian population,

see St. Croix, Acad. des Inscrip. xlviii. Bœckh, Public Economy

of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans, Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol.

i. p. 381. The latter author estimates the citizens of Sparta at

33,000—M.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And

Gallienus—Part I.

The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The

General Irruption Of The Barbari Ans.—The Thirty Tyrants.

From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death

of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and

misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time

was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by

barbarous invaders, and military tyrants, and the ruined empire

seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.

The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic

memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who

attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration.

Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often

obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect,

to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place

his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human

nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained

passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical

materials.