Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/492

Rh Army- Religion. 474 they never failed to exercise it, vying with each other in the number and quality of the young men whom they attractid to their SICPVICC. 1'l‘l_ifese1yoiiii_g)nieii were generally caeer or active (uty, am 1 tie tri e was at peace an adtventurous chief would often give them an opportunity of distinguishing themselves by taking part in the wars of other communities. They swore to be faithful to him, and he in return supplied them with horses, with armour, and with food. The authority of the chief was extremely limited, the constitution of ancient German society being essentially democratic. Every village, hundred, and tribe had its periodical assembly, and these assemblies were attended by all freemen, no one of whom had higher rights than his fellows. Before the meeting of the assembly of the tribe, the king or other supreme chief would consult with the chiefs of the hundreds, who formed his council; but the. ﬁnal decision rested with the freemen,_whom they could _influence only by persuasion. At this assembly the chiefs were elected; and in its presence freenieii clad their sons in the armour which indicated that they had attained the rights of citizenship. It declared war and made peace, permitted the chiefs with their followers, to undertake war-like expeditions, and settled all disputed cases of justice. The army was not a distinct institution ; it was made up of the whole body of freemen, all of whom were liable at alnyhrinoméznt to bltla callecll tC1)1 service. tllilach had a lrpililg s iie an spear, t e cava ry 3.Vlll0‘ no 0 er armour. e infantry were provided also with nijissile weapons, of which they made dexterous use, and occasionally wielded clubs and battle-axes. The men of each hundred kept together in war, and were commanded by their chief, the supreme command being undertaken by the head of the tribe, or entrusted to a "‘herzog" appointed by the army. In the event of several tribes uniting, a lierzog was chosen by the chiefs of the allied conimunities. The Germans rushed upon their enemies with fury, shouting pr chanting as they did so, and adding to the noise by putting their shields to their months. To throw away the shield in panic was perhaps the worst crime of a German; and most persons guilty of it committed suicide in an agony of remorse and shame. The religion of the ancient Germans was essentially the same as that of their Scandinavian kiiismeii, but our sources of information respecting it are few and imperfect. The highest place among the gods was held by Wuotan or Vodan, the Scandinavian Odin. The Romans identiﬁed him with Mercury, and the mediaeval German writers, in referring to him, follow their example. IIe was the gocl of the air and of the sky, and was looked upon as the giver of the fruits of the earth. He delighted in battle and in the chase, and was represented as an imposing ﬁgure in a large white mantle, riding upon a white horse. Along with him the Germans worshipped Donar the Scandinavian Thor, to whom Tacitus seems to refer in speaking of Hercules as a. German divinity. He was the god of thunder and of the weather, and was armed with a hammer or thunderbolt. In later times the Germans supposed him to be Jupiter. He presided over marriage, and controlled the operations of agriculture; and to him were sacred the oak and the mountain ash, the bear and the ram. Another great divinity was Ziu_ or Tiu, the Scandinavian Tyr, the god of war, whlpni Tacitus speaks of as Mars, and whose symbol was t e sword. Tacitus says that a powerful goddess called Nerthus was worshipped on the shores of the Baltic; he also mentions Isis as a goddess of the Suevic tribes. Both names evidently refer to the same _divinity. On the coasts her symbol was a ship; inland, it was a GElt)[Ai'Y The chiefs of the hundre ls -.iii.l of the tribes had the right of gathering around tlieiu bands of followers; and [1iisTORY. waggoii ; in some districts she was represented with the plough. Like Donar, she presided over marriage ; she also _ watched over the house and the ﬁelds, was the giver and protector of children, and ruled the world of the dead. At a later time she was known to the Saxons as Fria or Frigg, to the Franks as Ilolda, to the Bavarians as l’erchta,—the first name iiidicating her freedom of manner, the second her kindness, the third her splendour. In the Scandinavian mythology Frigg is the wife of Odin; and to this day, it is said, the peasants in certain parts of Low Germany . speak of Fru I"ricke, the wife of the wild hunter 'od. I The mythology of the Germans, like that of the Scai1di- navians, included the three sisters of fate, two of whom _ were fair and good, the third dark and evil. Beneath the gods were gi-ants, elves, and dwarfs. After death,_ it was believed, good men were received into Walhellaz and by good men were meant warriors who never shrank in battle——above all, warriors who died ﬁghting. The Germans were profoundly influenced by their religious faith, and both in daily life and on special occasions attended scrupulously to the duties and precautions it was supposed to involve. Each god and goddess had his and groves. Sacriﬁces were offered to them, and their will was discovered by means of lots, the iieigliing of wild horses, and the ﬂight of birds. Priests, without dominating the . whole of life, exercised considerable influence, especially when the freeiiieu met in public assembly, and when they were advancing against an enemy. Ifoman I’crz'oiI. The Cimbri and the Teutones, who appear to have waiidered from the northern coasts of Germany, were the first German tribes with whom the Romans came into coii- tact. Iii rather less than half a century after their ﬁnal I defeat by Marius, Ariovistiis, a bold and powerful Suevic , chief, crossed into Gaul with his followers to aid the I Sequani against the Elidui. The latter were defeated, and, in reward for his services, he received from the Seqiiaiii a ‘ third of their best lands. It soon became obvious that his I friendship was dangerous, and in 58 B. C. his terriﬁed allies I appealed for aid to the new procoiisiil, Julius Caesar, who had just inflicted a crushing defeat on the Helvetii. When Caesar sent to him proposing a personal interview, the bar- barian liaiiglitily answered that he himself had better come, . which Caesar quickly did. And the issue was that the army of Ariovistus was utterly beaten, and that he escaped with ‘ difﬁculty, severely wounded, across the Ithinc, and soon afterwards died. Caesar crossed the Rhine twice, but left no permanent mark of his invasions. He thoroughly sub- dued the Germans oii the left bank, and from this time the whole people began to be powerfully affected by their mighty neighbours, many of them taking service in the Roman army. The first serious attempt to conquer Germany was made by Augustus, who, after he rose to supreme power, wanted occupation for his legions. He began by conquering Rhaetia and Noricum, Celtic countries along the southern borders of Germany, extending northwards through what is new German Austria and Bavaria to the Danube. Drusus, who, with Tiberius, executed this conquest in t—lie summer of 15 B.C., was then entrusted with the task of sub- duing Germany. Deciding to reach the interior of the country by means of the sea and the northern rivers, he cut a canal between the Yssel and the Rhine ; and for the protection of Gaul he built no fewer than ﬁfty forts along the latter river. hlany of the tribes were at enmity with one another, and in his first expediti-.)n in 12 13.0. he was able to form an alliance with the Frisii against the Chaiici and the Bructeri. In three different expeditions in the
 * her own festival, and their images were preserved in sacred