TACITUS ON THE GERMANS - GERMANIA BY TACITUS #romanempire #history #ancienthistory #germania

Ajouté : 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]The Germans like many other peoples are said to have been visited by Hercules and they sing of him as the foremost of all heroes when they are about to engage in battle.

[00:00:11]Ulisses also in all those fabled wanderings of his is supposed by some to have reached the northern sea and visited German lands and to have founded and named Asabergium a town on the Rine inhabited to this day. They also have the well-known kind of chant that they call beritus. By the rendering of this, they not only kindle their courage, but merely by listening to the sound they can forecast the issue of an approaching engagement. For they either terrify their foes or themselves become frightened according to the character of the noise they make upon the battlefield, and they regard it not merely as so many voices chanting together, but as a unison of valor. What they particularly aim at is a harsh intermittent roar and they hold their shields in front of their mouths so that the sound is amplified into a deeper crescendo by the reverberation.

[00:01:02]For myself, I accept the view that the peoples of Germany have never contaminated themselves by intermarriage with foreigners, but remain of pure blood, distinct and unlike any other nation. One result of this is that their physical characteristics in so far as one can generalize about such a large population are always the same. Fiercel looking blue eyes, reddish hair and big frames which however can exert their strength only by means of violent effort.

[00:01:32]They are less able to endure toil or fatiguing tasks and cannot bear thirst or heat though their climate has endured them to cold spells and the poverty of their soil to hunger. They choose their kings for their noble birth, their commanders for their valor. The power even of the kings is not absolute or arbitrary. The commanders rely on example rather than on the authority of their rank, on the admiration they win by showing conspicuous energy and courage, and by pressing forward in front of their own troops.