40
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I
racy of Caesar’s statement. Like his previous rash
and most unfounded assertion respecting the Ger-
man gods, this may rest only upon the incorrect
information of Gallic provincials : at the utmost it
can be applied only to the Suevi and their warlike
allies ɪ, if it be not even intended to be confined to
the predatory bands of Ariovistus, encamped among
the defeated yet hostile Sequani2. The equally
well-known passage of Tacitus,—“ arva per annos
mutant, et superest ager3,”—may be most safely
rendered as applying to the common mode of cul-
ture ; “ they change the arable from year to year,
and there is land to spare ; ” that is, for commons
and pasture : but it does not amount to a proof
that settled property in land was not a part of the
Teutonic scheme ; it implies no more than this,
that within the Mark which was the property of all,
what was this year one man’s corn-land, might the
next be another man’s fallow; a process very in-
telligible to those who know anything of the system
of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany,
or have ever had any interest in what we call Lam-
mas Meadows.
Zeuss, whose admirable work4 is indispensable
to the student of Teutonic antiquity, brings toge-
ther various passages to show that at some early
period, the account given by Caesar may have
conveyed a just description of the mode of life in
ɪ Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes and Sedusii.
Bell. Gall. i. 61.
2 Bell. Gall. i. 31. 3 Tae. Germ. 26.
4 Die Deutschen und die Nachharstiimme, von Kaspar Zeuss. Mün-
chen. 1837.
CH. ∏∙]
THE MARK.
41
Germany1. He represents its inhabitants to himself
as something between a settled and an unsettled
people. What they may have been in periods pre-
vious to the dawn of authentic history, it is impos-
sible to say ; but all that we really know of them
not only implies a much more advanced state of
civilization, but the long continuance and tradition
of such a state. We cannot admit the validity of
Zeuss’ reasoning, or escape from the conviction
that it mainly results from a desire to establish his
etymology of the names bome by the several con-
federations, and which requires the hypothesis of
wandering and unsettled tribes 2.
ɪ He cites the passage from Caesar which I have quoted, and also
Bell. Gall. iv. 1, which still applies only to the Suevi. His next evi-
dence is the assertion of Tacitus just noticed. His third is from Plu-
tarch’s Aemil. Paul. c. 12, of the Bastamae : <tvδpes où γtωpγΛv eιδ<5τer,
oi πλe⅛, ovκ mro πoιμvlωv ζηv veμovτts, αλλ, ⅛ tpγov κα< μlav τtχvηv μe-
λeτωvτes, del μaχeσθaι κai κpaτeiv τi>v avτιτaττoμtva>v. A people with-
out agriculture or commerce, and who live only on fighting, may he
IeftSindisturbed in the realm of dreams with which philosophers are
conversant. Zeuss proceeds to reason upon the analogy of examples
derived from notices of Britons, Kelts and Wends, in Strabo, Polybius
and Dio Cassius. See p. 62, etc.
2 Thus, according to his view, Suevi (Suap, Swsef) denotes the wan-
derers ; Wandal also the wanderers. Assuredly if nations at large par-
took of such habits, single tribes could not have derived a name from
the custom. How much more easy would it be, upon similar etymolo-
gical grounds, to prove that the leading Teutonic nations were named
from their weapons ! Saxons from seax, the long knife ; Angles from
angolj a hook ; Franks from∕rαnc<ι, a javelin ; Langobards and HeatSo-
bards from barda, the axe or halberd ; nay even the general name
itself, Germans, from gιirman (Old Germ, kêrman) the javelin- or goad-
man. YetwhowouldassertthesetobelSatisfactoryderivations? Zahn,
whose services to Old German literature cannot be overrated, speaks
wisely when he calls the similarity of proper names, a rock “on which
uncritical heads 'are much in the habit of splitting.” Vorrede zu
Ulphilas, p. 3.