I. Germania] The country in tended by Tacitus is Germania east of the Rhine, sometimes called Trans-rhenana, Magna, or Barbara. Distinct from this was Germania Cis-rhenana, a district west of the Rhine, occupied by transplanted Germanic tribes. This was subdivided into Germania Prima, or Superior, extending from Augusta Rauracorum (Augst), a little above Bâle, to Moguntiacum (Mainz), and Germania Secunda or Inferior, reaching from this last point to the sea. These two divisions are comprehended in the plural form Germaniae, used by Tacitus (A. ii. 73). The area, embraced under the name Germania, by our author, is larger than that included in its modern equivalent, Germany. It extended from the Rhine to the Vistula and the Carpathian mountains; and from the Baltic to the Danube: thus comprising Mecklenburg, Pomerania, West Prussia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bohemia, Poland, Silesia, Denmark, Sweden, &c. In fact, according to the view of Tacitus, Germany was the entire country occupied by German races. In placing these so far east of the

Elbe, he was, I think, clearly in error; at which one can hardly be surprised, considering how scanty his means of information with respect to these regions and people must have been. There is little doubt that the population in this quarter was Slavonic, not German; for the older the names of the rivers, mountains, &c., of this region, the more surely they are Slavonic; and there is certain evidence that between the ninth and tenth centuries after Christ these countries were mainly occupied by that race. In the entire absence of any record of the expulsion of the Germanic peoples by them, this is fair ground for inferring similar occupancy at the time of Tacitus.

omnis] i. e. Germany entire,' as distinguished from the two provinces of Germania Superior and Inferior, regarded as detached fragments, dislocated from the true German area. So Caesar speaks of Gallia omnis' (B. G. i. 1), as distinguished from Cisalpine Gaul. The order here, and in the passage just quoted, is worth noticing; the name of the country to be described in the work occupies the emphatic

66

position. Suetonius, on the contrary (Julius Caesar, 25), under a different view, writes omnem Galliam in provinciae formam redegit."

Raetisque] Raetia Proper, or Prima, extended from the Helvetii to Noricum, embracing the upper portions of the valleys of the Licus (Lech), Aenus (Inn), and Athesis (Adige), the modern Grisons, Tyrol, and part of Lombardy. Tacitus seems to include under this name Vindelicia, or Raetia Secunda, between Raetia Prima and the Danube, including Southern Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, and Noricum, east of the Aenus (H. iii. 5), as far as the Mons Cetius (the Kahlenburg), comprising the modern Salzburg, and Carinthia. Perhaps, as Dr. Latham suggests, he regarded the whole as forming only one ethnological group, and therefore mentioned them under one name only.

Pannoniis] The country occupied by this people stretched from Mons Cetius to the Danube, near its junction with the Tibiscus (Theiss), and from the Danube in the North to the Savus (Save) in the South, comprising Croatia, Carniola, Bosnia, Slavonia, Western Hungary, Styria, and part of Lower Austria. It was divided into Upper and Lower Pannonia, west and east respectively of the Arrabo (Raab).

Sarmatis] This race occupied the vast region between the Vistula and the Tanais (Don), embracing modern Poland, East Prussia, Lithuania, and Russia. These people are described by Pliny (vi. 7) as Medorum, ut ferunt, soboles ;' and from an examination of their language they are supposed to belong to the Indo-Germanic family. In the time of Herodotus they were on the left bank of the Don, and gradually advanced westward. The name disappears from history

after the third century, and is replaced by that of Slavi, Slavini, &c., the modern Slavonic race, now spread more or less over Poland, Russia, Croatia, Carinthia, Styria, Bohemia, &c.

Dacisque] When Dacia became a Roman province, after the conquests of Trajan, its boundaries were the Tibiscus on the West, and the Hierasus (Pruth) on the East, while it stretched from the Mons Carpatus to the Danube; thus comprising Wallachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Eastern Hungary.

mutuo metu] Where there is no physical boundary between the Germans on the one hand and Dacians and Sarmatians on the other, they still forbear to molest each other, each being afraid to attack the other. In other quarters they are separated by mountain chains; the Carpathians forming a barrier between the Germans and Sarmatians, and the Medves range and the Bakonyer Wald, between the former and the Dacians.

to

latos sinus] Embracing in its range broad peninsulas and vast insular tracts.' 'Sinus' is a term for any thing that is gathered into a fold or makes a bend, and most commonly is used for gulfs, bays, and the like, but also for projecting headlands where the boundary line makes a sweep. Tacitus here seems speak of the Danish peninsula, Holstein, Sleswig, and Jütland. The word comes to mean any distant nook or corner, as, c. 29,' sinus imperii,' and in Agric. 23, omnis propior sinus Britanniae.' The 'insularum spatia,' are no doubt amongst others Seeland, Funen, Norway and Sweden; for Tacitus considered the Scandinavian peninsula to be an island. Cf. Plinius iv. 27, "qui (sinus) Codanus vocatur, refertus insulis, quarum clarissima Scandinavia est."

nuper cognitis] Compare Annals, ii. 24. The chief knowledge of Germany possessed by the Romans was gained, after the conquests of Julius Caesar, from the expeditions of Domitius Ahenobarbus (A. i. 63, and iv. 44; Suetonius, Nero 4), and especially those of Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, and his son Caesar Germanicus. The former was the first Roman general who penetrated to the German Ocean (c. 34), probably by the Canal of Drusus, from the northern arm of the Rhine near Arnheim to the Sala (Yssel) at Doesberg. Possibly he may have reached the Amisia (Ems) and subjugated the islands of the coast. Subsequently he reached the Visurgis (Weser), but had to retire; afterwards he penetrated into the country of the Suevi, and turning his arms against the Cherusci, reached the Elbe, but without advancing further retired and soon after died, B.C. 9.

Caesar Germanicus, after visiting Germany on the destruction of Varus and his legions, in conjunction with Tiberius, commenced a brilliant career in that country. He crossed the Rhine, and after crushing the Marsi and Chatti, on the organization of a revolt against the Romans by Arminius, embarked in a flotilla, and sailing by the Lacus Flevus (Zuydersee) to the ocean and up the Ems, laid waste the country between that river and the Lippe. In the following year collecting a fleet at the Insula Batavorum, he sailed by the Canal of Drusus and the Flevus to the sea, and disembarking at Amisia on the Ems, crossed that river and the Weser, and defeated Arminius. On returning by the Ems to the ocean, the fleet was shattered by terrific storms, and the soldiers dispersed along the coast. From these stragglers, on their return, a good deal of information, accompanied,

a

according to Tacitus, with a good deal of fable, was gleaned. Soon after these events, Germanicus was recalled, A.D. 16. In A.D. 84, the emperor Domitian undertook campaign against the Chatti, and apparently with some trifling success; but although Tacitus says nuper cognitis,' he can hardly refer to this. No doubt he used the word loosely, referring to the campaigns mentioned above; the date of which would be from 80 to 100 years before the publication of the Germania.

·

Rhenus] The ancient geographers-Strabo, for instance (iv. 3) made the Rhine rise in Mount Adula. As this last author also places the sources of the Addua (Adda) in the same mountain, he probably regarded the Upper Rhine as the true river, and not the Lower Rhine, which has a course less directly northwards. In that case the mountain would be the range near the passes of the Splügen, and S. Bernardino, not the St. Gothard. The Raetian Alps, mentioned here, are the Grisons and the Tyrol.

The name of the Rhine seems only another form of Rhodanus, and to be connected with Eridanus, Danube, Don, Tanais, &c. In this view the name was a Keltic one, signifying the water, or river; perhaps originally the name for a part of the river only, and used by the Romans to designate the whole.

Alpium] This word apparently, like Rhine and Danube, is of Keltic origin; its root being alb,' high, the same word appearing in Albion, the hilly land, or Scotland, and thence Great Britain generally. At all events, the derivation, mentioned by Festus, from the Sabine

alpus,' equivalent to the Latin 'albus,' in the sense of white, snowclad mountains, does not seem worth much.