[54] They not only interposed to prevent the flight of their husbands and sons, but, in desperate emergencies, themselves engaged in battle. This happened on Marius's defeat of the Cimbri (hereafter to be mentioned); and Dio relates, that when Marcus Aurelius overthrew the Marcomanni, Quadi, and other German allies, the bodies of women in armor were found among the slain.
[55] Thus, in the army of Ariovistus, the women, with their hair dishevelled, and weeping, besought the soldiers not to deliver them captives to the Romans.--Caesar, Bell. Gall. i.
[56] Relative to this, perhaps, is a circumstance mentioned by Suetonius in his Life of Augustus. "From some nations he attempted to exact a new kind of hostages, women: because he observed that those of the male sex were disregarded."--Aug. xxi.
[57] See the same observation with regard to the Celtic women, in Plutarch, on the virtues of women. The North Americans pay a similar regard to their females.
[58] A remarkable instance of this is given by Caesar. "When he inquired of the captives the reason why Ariovistus did not engage, he learned, that it was because the matrons, who among the Germans are accustomed to pronounce, from their divinations, whether or not a battle will be favorable, had declared that they would not prove victorious, if they should fight before the new moon."--Bell. Gall. i. The cruel manner in which the Cimbrian women performed their divinations is thus related by Strabo: "The women who follow the Cimbri to war, are accompanied by gray-haired prophetesses, in white vestments, with canvas mantles fastened by clasps, a brazen girdle, and naked feet. These go with drawn swords through the camp, and, striking down those of the prisoners that they meet, drag them to a brazen kettle, holding about twenty amphorae. This has a kind of stage above it, ascending on which, the priestess cuts the throat of the victim, and, from the manner in which the blood flows into the vessel, judges of the future event. Others tear open the bodies of the captives thus butchered, and, from inspection of the entrails, presage victory to their own party."--Lib. vii.
[59] She was afterwards taken prisoner by Rutilius Gallicus. Statius, in his Sylvae, i. 4, refers to this event. Tacitus has more concerning her in his History, iv. 61.
[60] Viradesthis was a goddess of the Tungri; Harimella, another provincial deity; whose names were found by Mr. Pennant inscribed on altars at the Roman station at Burrens. These were erected by the German auxiliaries.--Vide Tour in Scotland, 1772, part ii. p. 406.
[61] Ritter considers that here is a reference to the servile flattery of the senate as exhibited in the time of Nero, by the deification of Poppaea's infant daughter, and afterwards of herself. (See Ann. xv. 23, Dion. lxiii, Ann. xiv. 3.) There is no contradiction in the present passage to that found at Hist. iv. 61, where Tacitus says, "plerasque feminarum fatidicas et, augescente superstitione, arbitrantur deas;" _i.e._ they deem (_arbitrantur_) very many of their women possessed of prophetic powers, and, as their religious feeling increases, they deem (_arbitrantur_) them goddesses, _i.e._ possessed of a superhuman nature; they do not, however, make them goddesses and worship them, as the Romans did Poppaea and her infant, which is covertly implied in _facerent deas_.--_White_.
[62] Mercury, _i.e._ a god whom Tacitus thus names, because his attributes resembled those of the Roman Mercury. According to Paulus Diaconus (de Gestis Langobardorum, i. 9), this deity was Wodun, or Gwodan, called also Odin. Mallet (North. Ant. ch. v.) says, that in the Icelandic mythology he is called "the terrible and severe God, the Father of Slaughter, he who giveth victory and receiveth courage in the conflict, who nameth those that are to be slain." "The Germans drew their gods by their own character, who loved nothing so much themselves as to display their strength and power in battle, and to signalize their vengeance upon their enemies by slaughter and desolation." There remain to this day some traces of the worship paid to Odin in the name given by almost all the people of the north to the fourth day of the week, which was formerly consecrated to him. It is called by a name which signifies "Odin's day;" "Old Norse, _Odinsdagr_; Swedish and Danish, _Onsdag_; Anglo-Saxon, _Wodenesdaeg_, _Wodnesdaeg_; Dutch, _Woensdag_; English, Wednesday. As Odin or Wodun was supposed to correspond to the Mercury of the Greeks and Romans, the name of this day was expressed in Latin _Dies Mercurii_."--_White_.
[63] "The appointed time for these sacrifices," says Mallet (North. Ant. ch. vi.), "was always determined by a superstitious opinion which made the northern nations regard the number 'three' as sacred and particularly dear to the gods. Thus, in every ninth month they renewed the bloody ceremony, which was to last nine days, and every day they offered up nine living victims, whether men or animals. But the most solemn sacrifices were those which were offered up at Upsal in Sweden every ninth year...." After stating the compulsory nature of the attendance at this festival, Mallet adds, "Then they chose among the captives in time of war, and among the slaves in time of peace, nine persons to be sacrificed. In whatever manner they immolated men, the priest always took care in consecrating the victim to pronounce certain words, as 'I devote thee to Odin,' 'I send thee to Odin.'" See Lucan i. 444.
"Et quibus immitis placatur sanguine diro Teutates, horrensque feris altaribus Hesus."
Teutates is Mercury, Hesus, Mars. So also at iii. 399, &c.
"Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ab aevo. ... Barbara ritu Sacra Deum, structae diris altaribus arae, Omnis et humanis lustrata cruoribus arbor."
[64] That is, as in the preceding case, a deity whose attributes corresponded to those of the Roman Mars. This appears to have been not _Thor_, who is rather the representative of the Roman Jupiter, but _Tyr_, "a warrior god, and the protector of champions and brave men!" "From _Tyr_ is derived the name given to the third day of the week in most of the Teutonic languages, and which has been rendered into Latin by _Dies Martis_. Old Norse, _Tirsdagr_, _Tisdagr_; Swedish, _Tisdag_; Danish, _Tirsdag_; German, _Dienstag_; Dutch, _Dingsdag_; Anglo-Saxon, _Tyrsdaeg_, _Tyvesdag_, _Tivesdaeg_; English, _Tuesday_"--(Mallet's North. Ant. ch. v.)--_White_.
[65] The Suevi appear to have been the Germanic tribes, and this also the worship spoken of at chap. xl. _Signum in modum liburnae figuration _corresponds with the _vehiculum_ there spoken of; the real thing being, according to Ritter's view, a pinnace placed on wheels. That _signum ipsum _("the very symbol") does not mean any image of the goddess, may be gathered also from ch. xl., where the goddess herself, _si credere velis_, is spoken of as being washed in the sacred lake.
[66] As the Romans in their ancient coins, many of which are now extant, recorded the arrival of Saturn by the stern of a ship; so other nations have frequently denoted the importation of a foreign religious rite by the figure of a galley on their medals.
[67] Tacitus elsewhere speaks of temples of German divinities (e.g. 40; Templum Nerthae, Ann. i. 51; Templum Tanfanae); but a consecrated grove, or any other sacred place, was called templum by the Romans.
[68] The Scythians are mentioned by Herodotus, and the Alans by Ammianus Marcellinus, as making use of these divining rods. The German method of divination with them is illustrated by what is said by Saxo-Grammaticus (Hist. Dan. xiv, 288) of the inhabitants of the Isle of Rugen in the Baltic Sea: "Throwing, by way of lots, three pieces of wood, white in one part, and black in another, into their laps, they foretold good fortune by the coming up of the white; bad by that of the black."
[69] The same practice obtained among the Persians, from whom the Germans appear to be sprung. Darius was elected king by the neighing of a horse; sacred white horses were in the army of Cyrus; and Xerxes, retreating after his defeat, was preceded by the sacred horses and consecrated chariot. Justin (i. 10) mentions the cause of this superstition, viz. that "the Persians believed the Sun to be the only God, and horses to be peculiarly consecrated to him." The priest of the Isle of Rugen also took auspices from a white horse, as may be seen in Saxo-Grammaticus.
[70] Montesquieu finds in this custom the origin of the duel, and of knight-errantry.
[71] This remarkable passage, so curious in political history, is commented on by Montesquieu, in his Spirit of Laws. vi 11. That celebrated author expresses his surprise at the existence of such a balance between liberty and authority in the forests of Germany; and traces the origin of the English constitution from this source. Tacitus again mentions the German form of government in his Annals, iv. 33.
[72] The high antiquity of this made of reckoning appears from the Book of Genesis. "The evening and the morning were the first day." The Gauls, we are informed by Caesar, "assert that, according to the tradition of their Druids, they are all sprung from Father Dis; on which account they reckon every period of time according to the number of nights, not of days; and observe birthdays and the beginnings of months and years in such a manner, that the day seems to follow the night." (Bell. Gall. vi. 18.) The vestiges of this method of computation still appear in the English language, in the terms se'nnight and fort'night.