The Teutonic Nations after Cater.—When Caesar reached the Rhine, Northern Germany, Holland, Belgium, and a part of the countries on the Middle Rhine were inhabited by Teutonic nations which belonged to the northern, now Saxon, branch. They had been settled in fixed habitations for several centuries, and they must be considered as the first of this race which settled in Germany. The southern part of this country was then inhabited by Celts and Rhaetians, except the tract between the Upper Rhine and the Upper Danube, which was con quered by the Suevi, who belonged to the Teutonic race. The word " Suevi," which comes from " schweifen," may bo translated " wan derers," or people who rambled about for the purpose of settling in any convenient country. It was adopted by a great number of tribes, the majority of which belonged to the High Germans, and came from the countries on the Baltic between the Oder and the Niemen. Ciesar was obliged to fight with their leader Ariovistus (n.e. 58), who had invaded Gaul. Ariovistus was compelled to go back to Germany.
Tacitus divides the Germani into three great bodies : the Ingaevones, in the north ; the Istaevones, in the west, from the mouths of the Rhine upwards to Basel ; and the Hermiones, in Middle Germany and towards the north-east. This division seems to have an ethnographic and still more a political value. The position of the Ingaevones corre sponds to that of the later Saxons, and both the names have one meaning, Saxon signifying a settled people, and In-gae-vones a people who live in a cultivated country divided into districts (In-gau-wohner or Inwohner). The Istaevones, or Western Germani (West-wohner), correspond to the later Franks, and the Hermiones to the Suevi, in cluding the Alemiumi. Further, the name of Hermiones is undoubtedly identical with Hermunduri, one of the greatest Suevian or High-German tribes, the name of which is generally supposed to be the same with Doringi or Thuringi, the present Thuringians.
From the time when Ciesar first met with the Suevi under Ariovistus, there was a deadly enmity between the Romans and the Germans. The Romans wished to make Germany into a province, and tho Ger mans aimed at the possession of Gaul : on both sides there was the passion of conquest and the necessity of self-defence. Ambition pushed the Romans into Germany, and want of fertile lands, and perhaps some great revolution among the nations of Eastern Europe, led the Germans into Gaul and Italy. The Roman eagles were seen in the wilds of the Hereynian forest, but Arminius saved his nation from slavery in the forest of Teutoburg, in Detmold, where Varus was slain with three legions (A.D. 9). The campaign of Germanicus, who advanced as far as the Elbe, led to no results, though he gained a com plete victory over the Germans on the field of Idistavisus near the Weser (A.D. 16); when he celebrated his triumph in Rome (sm. 17), the Germans between the Rhine and the Weser were as free as before. These tribes made a confederation, and chose Arminius for their leader. A war arose between him and Maroboduus, king of the Mareomanni, Who was defeated and obliged to implore the assistance of the Romans (A.D. 19). Being attacked by Catwald, or Catualdus, the chief of the Gothones, he lost his crown, and the confederation of the Mareomanni was broken. Arminius, the hero of Germany, fell by the hands of his jealous kinsmen, in his thirty-seventh year. (Taeitus, Annal.; ii. 88.) Notwithstanding the civil wars in Germany, the Romans gave up the idea of conquering the country, and Tiberius ordered a defensive system to be observed on the frontiers, which were formed by the Rhine from its mouths to the Moselle, and from the junction of this river with the Rhine they followed the Lahn as far as the present district of Wetterau. The frontier then took a southern direction,
passed the Main at Obernburg, the Jagst at the Kocher at Hall, and joined the Danube near Pftiring, from which town it ran along the Danube as far as Pannonia. The rivers were defended by castles, and the tracts between them by a strong rampart with towers, the Vellum Romanum of Hadrianus, a considerable part of which, tho Pfahlgraben, i§ still visible. The Germans west and south of this barrier subjects, but those who lived east and north of it enjoyed their ancient liberty.
All the German tribes practised agriculture, but warfare being their favourite occupation, they abandoned their fields and their flocks to the care of bondsmen. The fine arts were not exercised among the Germans, but they were acquainted with the art of writing [ltuNEs], although only for religious purposes. (Rhabanus Maurus, in Goldast, Script. Rer. ii. 1 ; Hiekesius, Thes. Ling. Septentr.') Tho groundwork of their social and political constitution was the union of a certain number of families into a community, " Marelia," " erd marcha," now " Mark-Genossenschaft." Mr. Kemble, in his Saxons in England,' has shown the prevalence and the importance of the divisional mark in England. Several marchas formed a " gow," now " gau," a district which had its own administration. Twice a month, and sometimes every week, the members of a gow assembled and held the " gowding; " the gowdings were civil and criminal courts, and also meetings for legislation, and war and peace were decided on in them. Besides the gowdings there were " graven " or " greven " (graviones, comites), or delegates of the gowding, who were assisted in their judi ciary functions by a certain number of freemen. The magistrates were dhosen from the nobles (edelings or adelings), the " prineipes" of Tacitus, who had also the right of forming a kind of senate, where they deliberated on important affairs previously to their being brought be fore the gowding, (and they despatched matters of little importance, which did not come before the gowding. The nobles had also the privilege of keeping a " dienst-gefolge," or a band of freemen who served them in their feuds and wars ; and they had individually the right of protecting unfree people in the gowding, a right which also belonged to the community as a body, but not to individual freemen. The privileges of the nobles were probably connected with the religious institutions, of which we have no positive knowledge, although it appears that priests and nobles formed only one class, an opinion which is corroborated by the fact that wherever Christianity was introduced into Germany, it met with no opposition from the common people as soon as the nobles were converted. Some of the earlier Teutonic nations had hereditary kings, the " reges " of Tacitus, who however had a very limited authority. The greater part of them chose princes only as commanders of the army in time of war. The name of these commanders was " herzog," in low Gorman " hertog," or " hartog," in Latin " dux." Besides the freemen and tho nobles, there were bondsmen, " " lati," or "liti," now " leute ;" in low German " Bide," or " lide; " who were either the primitive inhabitants of a conquered territory, or prisoners of war, or freemen who had lost or sold their liberty. Their condition was in 'no way like that of the Roman Berri, who, legally speaking, were not considered as persons, but in most respects things. Domestic and personal services, and especially agriculture, were their exclusive occupations.