rest and importance,
since it gives us by far the most detailed account of the state of
culture among the tribes that are the ancestors of the modern Teutonic
nations, at the time when they first came into account with the
civilization of the Mediterranean.

TACITUS ON GERMANY

The whole of Germany is thus bounded; separated from Gaul, from Rhoetia
and Pannonia, by the rivers Rhine and Danube; from Sarmatia and Dacia by
mutual fear, or by high mountains: the rest is encompassed by the ocean,
which forms huge bays, and comprehends a tract of islands immense in
extent: for we have lately known certain nations and kingdoms there,
such as the war discovered. The Rhine rising in the Rhoetian Alps from a
summit altogether rocky and perpendicular, after a small winding towards
the west, is lost in the Northern Ocean. The Danube issues out of the
mountain Abnoba, one very high but very easy of ascent, and traversing
several nations, falls by six streams into the Euxine Sea; for its
seventh channel is absorbed in the Fenns.

The Germans, I am apt to believe, derive their original from no other
people; and are nowise mixed with different nations arriving amongst
them: since anciently those who went in search of new dwellings,
travelled not by land, but were carried in fleets; and into that mighty
ocean so boundless, and, as I may call it, so repugnant and forbidding,
ships from our world rarely enter. Moreover, besides the dangers from
a sea tempestuous, horrid and unknown, who would relinquish Asia, or
Africa, or Italy, to repair to Germany, a region hideous and rude, under
a rigorous climate, dismal to behold or to manure [to cultivate] unless
the same were his native country? In their old ballads (which amongst
them are the only sort of registers and history) they celebrate
_Tuisto_, a God sprung from the earth, and _Mannus_ his son, as the
fathers and founders of the nation. To _Mannus_ they assign three sons,
after whose names so many people are called; the Ingaevones, dwelling
next the ocean; the Herminones, in the middle country; and all the rest,
Instaevones. Some, borrowing a warrant from the darkness of antiquity,
maintain that the God had more sons, that thence came more denominations
of people, the Marsians, Gambrians, Suevians, and Vandalians, and that
these are the names truly genuine and original. For the rest, they
affirm Germany to be a recent word, lately bestowed: for that those
who first passed th