arose and developed, is
shown e. g. by the bronze spangles. The specimens found in Burgundy, in
Roumania and on the Sea of Asow, might have been manufactured in the
same shop with those found in England or Sweden and are of undoubted
German origin.

The German constitution was also in keeping with the upper stage of
barbarism. According to Tacitus, the council of chiefs (principes)
universally decided matters of minor importance and prepared important
matters for the decision of the public meetings. So far as we know
anything of the public meeting in the lower stage of barbarism, viz.,
among the American Indians, it was only held by gentes, not by tribes or
leagues of tribes. The chiefs of peace (principes) were still sharply
distinguished from the chiefs of war (duces), just as among the
Iroquois. The peace chiefs were already living in part on honorary
donations of the gentiles, such as cattle, grain, etc. They were
generally elected from the same family, analogous to America. The
transition to paternal law favored, as in Greece and Rome, the gradual
transformation of office by election into hereditary office. A "noble"
family was thus gradually raised in each gens. Most of this hereditary
nobility came to grief during the migrations or shortly after. The
military leaders were elected solely on their merits. They had little
power and were obliged to rely on the force of their example. The actual
disciplinary power in the army was held by the priests, as Tacitus
implicitly states. The public meeting was the real executive. The king
or chief of the tribe presided. The people decided. A murmur signified
"No," acclamation and clanging of weapons meant "Yes." The public
meeting was at the same time a court of justice. Complaints were here
brought forth and decided, and death sentences pronounced. Only
cowardice, treason and unnatural lust were capital crimes. The gentes
and other subdivisions decided in a body under the chairmanship of the
chief, who in all original German courts was only the manager of the
transactions and questioner. Among Germans, the sentence has ever and
everywhere been pronounced by the community.

Leagues of tribes came into existence since Cesar's time. Some of them
already had kings. The first chief of war began to covet the usurper's
place, as among Greeks and Romans, and sometimes succeeded in obtaining
it. Such successful usurpers were by no means absolute rulers. But still
they began to bre