The Germans differ much from these usages, for they have neither Druids to preside over sacred offices, nor do they pay great regard to sacrifices. They rank in the number of the gods those alone whom they behold, and by whose instrumentality they are obviously benefited, namely, the sun, fire, and the moon; they have not heard of the other deities even by report.
Their whole life is occupied in hunting and in the pursuits of the military art; from childhood they devote themselves to fatigue and hardships.
Those who have remained chaste for the longest time, receive the greatest commendation among their people;
they think that by this the growth is promoted, by this the physical powers are increased and the sinews are strengthened. And to have had knowledge of a woman before the twentieth year they reckon among the most disgraceful acts;
of which matter there is no concealment, because they bathe promiscuously in the rivers and [only] use skins or small cloaks of deer's hides, a large portion of the body being in consequence naked.
They do not pay much attention to agriculture, and a large portion of their food consists in milk, cheese, and flesh;
nor has any one a fixed quantity of land or his own individual limits;
but the magistrates and the leading men each year apportion to the tribes and families, who have united together, as much land as, and in the place in which, they think proper, and the year after compel them to remove elsewhere. For this enactment they advance many reasons-lest seduced by long-continued custom, they may exchange their ardor in the waging of war for agriculture;
lest they may be anxious to acquire extensive estates, and the more powerful drive the weaker from their possessions;
lest they construct their houses with too great a desire to avoid cold and heat;
lest the desire of wealth spring up, from which cause divisions and discords arise;
and that they may keep the common people in a contented state of mind, when each sees his own means placed on an equality with [those of] the most powerful.
It is the greatest glory to the several states to have as wide deserts as possible around them, their frontiers having been laid waste. They consider this the real evidence of their prowess, that their neighbors shall be driven out of their lands and abandon them, and that no one dare settle near them;
at the same time they think that they shall be on that account the more secure, because they have removed the apprehension of a sudden incursion.
When a state either repels war waged against it, or wages it against another, magistrates are chosen to preside over that war with such authority, that they have power of life and death.
In peace there is no common magistrate, but the chiefs of provinces and cantons administer justice and determine controversies among their own people. Robberies which are committed beyond the boundaries of each state bear no infamy, and they avow that these are committed for the purpose of disciplining their youth and of preventing sloth.
And when any of their chiefs has said in an assembly "that he will be their leader, let those who are willing to follow, give in their names;"
they who approve of both the enterprise and the man arise and promise their assistance and are applauded by the people;
such of them as have not followed him are accounted in the number of deserters and traitors, and confidence in all matters is afterward refused them.
To injure guests they regard as impious;
they defend from wrong those who have come to them for any purpose whatever, and esteem them inviolable;
to them the houses of all are open and maintenance is freely supplied.
And there was formerly a time when the Gauls excelled the Germans in prowess, and waged war on them offensively, and, on account of the great number of their people and the insufficiency of their land, sent colonies over the Rhine. Accordingly, the Volcae Tectosages, seized on those parts of Germany which are the most fruitful [and lie] around the Hercynian forest, (which, I perceive, was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, and which they call Orcynia), and settled there. Which nation to this time retains its position in those settlements, and has a very high character for justice and military merit;
now also they continue in the same scarcity, indigence, hardihood, as the Germans, and use the same food and dress;
but their proximity to the Province and knowledge of commodities from countries beyond the sea supplies to the Gauls many things tending to luxury as well as civilization. Accustomed by degrees to be overmatched and worsted in many engagements, they do not even compare themselves to the Germans in prowess.