History of Germany. A Brief History of the Ancient Germans

Classification of Germanic tribes

Pliny the Elder in the 4th book of his "Natural History" for the first time tried to classify the Germanic tribes, grouping them into geographical groups:

The Germanic tribes fall into five groups:
1) vandili (Vandili), part of which are burgundions (Burgodiones), varinae (Varinnae), charini (Charini) and Gutones (Gutones);
2) the Ingveons, to which belong the Cimbri (Cimbri), the Teutons (Teutoni) and the tribes of the Hawks (Chaucorum gentes);
3) the Istveons, who live closest to the Rhine and include the Sicambri;
4) Hermiones living inland, which include the Suebi (Suebi), Hermunduri (Hermunduri), Hatti (Chatti), Cherusci (Cherusci);
5) the fifth group - Peucini and Bastarnae (Basternae), which border on the above-mentioned Dacians.

Separately, Pliny also mentions the Gillevions living in Scandinavia, and other Germanic tribes (Batavs, Kanninefats, Frisians, Frisiavons, Ubies, Sturii, Marsaks), without classifying them.

• Pliny's Vandylia belong to the East Germans, of which the Goths (Gutons) are the most famous. The same group includes the tribes of the Vandals.
• Ingveons inhabited the north-west of Germany: the coast of the North Sea and the Jutland peninsula. Tacitus called them "dwelling near the Ocean." To them, modern historians include the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians.
• The Rhine tribes of the Istveons became known in the 3rd century under the name of the Franks.
• The ethnicity of the Bastarns (Pevkins) to the Germans remains debatable. Tacitus expressed doubt about their Germanic roots, although he says they " speech, way of life, settlement and dwellings repeat the Germans". Early breaking away from the array of Germanic peoples, the Bastarns began to mix with the Sarmatians.

According to Tacitus the titles " ingevons, hermiones, istevons” came from the names of the sons of the god Mann, the progenitor of the Germanic tribes. After the 1st century, these names are not used, many names of the Germanic tribes disappear, but new ones appear.

History of the Germans

Map of the settlement of Germanic tribes in the 1st century AD. e.

The Germans as an ethnic group formed in the north of Europe from Indo-European tribes that settled in the region of Jutland, the lower Elbe and southern Scandinavia. They began to be singled out as an independent ethnic group only from the 1st century BC. BC e. Since the beginning of our era, there has been an expansion of Germanic tribes into their neighboring areas, in the 3rd century they attacked the northern borders of the Roman Empire along the entire front, and in the 5th century, during the Great Migration of Peoples, they destroy the Western Roman Empire, settling throughout Europe from England and Spain to the Crimea and even on the coast of North Africa.

During the migrations, the Germanic tribes mixed with the larger indigenous population of the conquered territories, losing their ethnic identity and participating in the formation of modern ethnic groups. The names of the Germanic tribes gave the names to such large states as France and England, although the proportion of Germans in their population was relatively small. Germany as a nationally unified state was formed only in 1871 on the lands occupied by Germanic tribes in the first centuries of our era, and included both the descendants of the ancient Germans and the descendants of the assimilated Celts, Slavs and ethnically unknown tribes. It is believed that the inhabitants of Denmark and southern Sweden remain genetically closest to the ancient Germans.

abstract in the academic discipline "History of the World"

on the topic: "History of Germany. Germanic tribes".

Plan

1. Introduction.

2. Germany. prehistoric times.

3. Germanic tribes within the Roman Empire.

4. The history of the German lands until the beginning of the X century.

5. Conclusion.

6. List of references.

1. Introduction.

The history of Germany has many blank spots, myths and dubious facts. The fact is that it never had any clearly fixed borders, nor a single economic, political and cultural center. The territory of present-day Germany was a place constantly traversed by various nomadic tribes. The ancient Germans, migrating from the northern part of Europe, gradually colonized these lands. The tribes of the Germans were not united, sometimes at enmity with each other, sometimes making alliances. The difference between them, even despite the established Germanic ethnic group, was fixed for many centuries. Moving south, they systematically displaced and assimilated the Celts. They were to play a decisive role in the fate of the Roman Empire, as well as participate in the formation of a number of European peoples and states. Therefore, in the future, the Germans will be closely connected with the British, French, Belgians, Swiss, Scandinavians, Czechs, Dutch, etc. This abstract work will be devoted to the early period in the history of Germany.

2. Germany. prehistoric times.

In prehistoric times, glaciers advanced on Central Europe four times. On the territory of present-day Germany, there were sites and migration routes of the most ancient hominids. The found remains of the Heidelberg man belong to the first interglacial warming, approximately 600 - 500 thousand years ago. Later, other finds were discovered by archaeologists: parts of the skeleton from Bilzingsleben, bone remains of a Steinheim man discovered near Stuttgart (second interglacial period), Scheningen and Lehringen wooden spears, Neanderthal remains found near Düsseldorf (third interglacial period). Neanderthal Man is now known to have evolved from Heidelberg Man. These prehistoric people lived in difficult climatic conditions and waged an intense struggle for survival. In particularly dangerous areas, on the border of glaciers, they tried to settle as close to each other as possible. Of course, it is still too early to talk about tribes, and even more so to consider these ancient people as Germans. After all, archaeologists believe that Germany was hardly inhabited until the Middle Paleolithic.

During the Upper Paleolithic period, traces of the migration of the Cro-Magnon man (an early representative of modern man) were found. The onset of the Mesolithic is distinguished by tools characteristic of this time, made of bones. The Dufensee culture is considered dominant, but the Tardenois culture is gradually beginning to penetrate. Over time, stone tools began to be used in everyday life. Near Rottenburg, several sites were discovered and explored, in which dwellings and workshops are clearly expressed. The Late Mesolithic (6000-4500 BC) brings climate change, from a continental climate to an Atlantic climate. Large forests appear in which deer, wild boars and other animals live, becoming one of the main sources of food for ancient man. In addition to animal food, there is also plant food: nuts, berries, acorns. Improved stone processing.

In the early Neolithic era, new population groups gradually penetrate into the lands of Germany from modern Austria and Hungary. Their main activity is animal husbandry and crop production. Ceramic products (linear-band ceramics) appear. With the advent of the Middle Neolithic, a culture of pricked pottery developed. The Münchshöfen culture belongs to the Late Neolithic, which includes the Copper Age. It was largely formed under the influence of cultures from neighboring Bohemia and Moravia. It is characterized by large ceramic vessels and goblets with legs. Copper products are not common, but apparently, even then it was mined in the Alps. The Münchshöfen culture was inherited by the Altheim culture, with the advent of which dwellings began to be erected in the swampy area on stilts in Bavaria. Archaeologists attribute the Hamer culture to the Late Copper Age.

In the Bronze Age, Germany is inhabited by peoples who speak Indo-European languages. This period is dominated by the culture of Corded Ware, as well as bell-shaped goblets. The era of hunters, forced to get their own food with the help of primitive weapons, is replaced by the era of shepherds. They have livestock that are moved from one pasture to another, followed by their families. It is known about a major battle that took place near the Tollense River around 1250 BC. e., which was attended by several thousand well-organized and armed warriors. In general, few historical monuments are known to us during this period. For the most part, these are burial mounds, in which there are jewelry in the form of a necklace or bracelets, dishes made of clay or copper. These grave hills suggest that a person was already thinking about the future afterlife, leaving various objects in the graves.

In the process of the continuous formation of an ethnic community, which continued throughout the Bronze Age in Germany, the following ethnic groups appeared: the Celts, who inhabited from the XIII century BC. e. before the Roman invasion, most of Europe; the Venets, who settled east of the Germans (they completely disappeared from the map of Europe after the Great Migration of Peoples, which began in the 4th century AD); northwestern block - the peoples who lived in the territory of the modern Netherlands, Belgium, Northern France and Western Germany, speaking languages ​​​​other than the Celtic language or Germanic and assimilated by these ethnic groups in the future.

The additions of the Proto-Germanic ethnic and linguistic community, scientists attribute to the 1st millennium BC. e. and are associated with the Jastorf culture, which bordered on the Celtic La Tène culture. The ancient Germans lived in the north of Germany, their closest neighbors were the Celts who settled in the south. Gradually, starting from the Iron Age, the Germans forced them out or assimilated them. By the 1st century BC. e. The Germans settled in lands approximately coinciding with the territory of present-day Germany.

3. Germanic tribes within the Roman Empire.

The ancient Germans, as a single ethnic group, formed in the northern part of Europe from various tribes who were carriers of the Indo-European language. They led a settled way of life in the lands of Jutland, Scandinavia and in the region of the lower Elbe. Approximately from the II century BC. e. the Germans begin to move south, displacing the Celts. The Germanic tribes were numerous, but there was no unity among them. They can be divided into groups on a geographical basis. Batavs, Bructers, Hamavs, Hutts and Ubii lived between the Rhine, Main and Weser. Hawks, Angles, Varins, Frisians settled on the coast of the North Sea. Marcomanni, Quadi, Lombards and Semnons inhabited the lands from the Elbe to the Oder. Vandals, Burgundians and Goths lived between the Oder and the Vistula. Svions and Gauts entrenched in Scandinavia.

The ancient Germans had a tribal system. The council of warriors at a special meeting chose a leader for themselves, after which he was raised on a shield. The ruler was only the first of equals and did not have absolute power, his decrees and decisions could be criticized and challenged. During the war, the tribe is led by a military leader - the duke. The main type of occupation is cattle breeding and internecine wars. The land was collectively owned. The migration of many tribes is very difficult to trace, they often mixed up and even changed names. So the Suebi suddenly became Alemanni, Franks and Saxons, the Bavarians will begin their origins from the Bohemian Marcomanni, etc. Over time, they will have common gods and beliefs. They are not afraid of death, because they know that after they die in battle they will go to Valhalla, where Wotan awaits them.

The ancient world first learned about the Germans from the writings of the Greek navigator Pytheas from Massalia, who traveled to the shores of the North and Baltic Seas. Later, Caesar and Tacitus wrote about the life of the Germanic tribes. The strength and power of the Roman military machine for a long time frightened and inspired fear in the Germans, who were in constant search for new lands, but their clash was only a matter of time. From 58 BC e. to 455 AD e. the territories west of the Rhine and south of the Danube were under the control of the Roman Empire. Moreover, from 80 to 260 years. n. e. it included part of present-day Hesse and part of present-day Baden-Württemberg. Roman possessions on the site of modern Germany were divided into a number of provinces: Germania Superior, Germania Inferior and Rhetia. During the period of Roman domination, such cities as Trier, Cologne, Bonn, Worms and Augsburg appeared.

Rome first encountered a military confrontation with the Germans during the invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons in the 2nd century BC. e. (113-101 BC). They moved from Jutland in search of new lands. In 113 BC. e. The Cimbri defeated the Romans in the Danubian Alpine province of Norik. Later, uniting with the Teutons, they defeated the Romans at the battle of Arausion. In 102-101 BC. e. Gaius Marius defeated the barbarians, pushing them back over the Alps. The second contact took place already in the 1st century BC. e., after Gaius Julius Caesar subjugated Gaul and went to the Rhine. In 72 BC. e. Sueves under the command of Ariovistus to support the Celtic tribes in the war against the allies of the Romans, the Aedui, invade Gaul. After Ariovistus defeated them, other Germanic tribes headed to Gaul. In 58 B.C. e. Julius Caesar opposed the barbarians and, having defeated them, threw the Germans back behind the Rhine. Three years later, Caesar destroyed the Usipetes and Tencteri tribes and crossed the Rhine for the first time, after which this river became the natural northwestern frontier of the Roman Empire for four centuries.

In the second half of the 1st century BC. e. rebellions often broke out in Gaul, which were supported by the Germanic tribes. The Romans had to invade the German lands in order to conduct punitive expeditions against the Germans. The second Roman commander to cross the Rhine was Mark Agrippa, who founded a fortress on the left bank of the Rhine. In 29 BC e. Guy Carrina fought against the Suebi, helping the Gauls, and in 25 BC. e. Mark Vinicius had already tried to punish the Germans for robbing Roman merchants. In 17 or 16 BC. e., Sugambri, Usipets and Tencters, again entered the borders of Gaul. It became clear that without decisive action the Germans simply could not be pacified. Octavian Augustus begins preparations for a large anti-German campaign, which resulted in a series of operations from 12 BC to 12 AD. e. to 12 n. e., which will be headed by Drusus the Elder and Tiberius. Some tribes were exterminated, their lands devastated. Drusus advanced to the Elbe, but after he died, Tiberius took his place. However, Rome did not want to annex the poor lands, at the cost of such efforts it was decided to create a German kingdom under the protectorate of Rome, which was destined to not last long until Arminius, the Cheruscan leader, rebelled, during which the Romans suffered a crushing defeat in the Teutoburg Forest. The rebels were defeated only in 16 AD. e. after which Arminius was killed by his inner circle. As a result, only Upper and Lower Germany remained under the rule of Rome. In 69, the Batavians, led by Julius Civilis, raised an uprising. They captured a number of fortresses along the Rhine. In 70, the rebels were pacified. The new emperor Domitian finally decided not to conquer the poor and hard-to-reach lands of the Germans. He decided to protect himself from barbarian raids by the defensive line of the Rhine-Danube, which stretched for more than five hundred kilometers. This stopped the migration of unsubdued Germanic tribes for a long time and isolated them. In the second half of the 2nd century A.D. e. the barbarians crossed the Rhine-Danube border and invaded Italy. In 180, Emperor Commodus managed to make peace with them and agree on the restoration of the former borders. In the III century, German raids on the eastern provinces of the empire resumed, which escalated into the Gothic wars. Ready managed to stop and defeat Emperor Aurelian on their own lands. On the western frontier, the Romans were threatened by the Alemanni, who were only held back with the help of loyal Marcomanni. In the 270s, part of Gaul was captured by the Franks, whom the emperor Probus managed to squeeze out.

In the IV century, the appearance of the Huns in the steppes of the northern Black Sea region set in motion the Germanic tribes, pressed by the hordes of these nomads. All this century, the Romans held back pressure from the Goths, Alemanni, Franks, and others in the area of ​​the Rhine and Danube. Somewhere success accompanied the Romans, somewhere they had to cede land to the barbarians, on which they settled, such as in Thrace. But oppressed by the imperial authorities, they often raised uprisings. One of the largest happened in 395, under the leadership of the Visigothic leader Alaric, in 410 he even ravaged Rome.

Relations between the Germans and Rome consisted not only of a series of endless wars, but also of mutually beneficial agreements. Rome saw that the Germans were not united and took advantage of this. The Romans realized that it was better to have tribes loyal to themselves than to constantly keep legions in the provinces. With the help of the allied Germans, other barbarian tribes could be held back. Many Germans entered the service of the Roman troops and served in the border garrisons, for which they received land. Over time, the Germans appeared among the military elite officers. Some, before becoming leaders of their tribe, managed to succeed in the service of the Romans. One of the first who chose friendship with the Romans were the Frisians and Suevi-Nikrets. Communication was not limited only to military alliances, trade was also carried out. Many items of Roman production: wine, jewelry, silverware, were found by archaeologists in the tombs of German leaders. In turn, Roman merchants imported fish, furs, skins, and amber. Diplomacy did not lag behind, for the loyalty and humility of one or another leader, Rome paid in gold and silver. Therefore, before the empire fell under their onslaught, which by the way was never organized and spontaneous, it had close relations with the Germanic tribes.

5th century AD e. was the last in the history of the Roman Empire, which is in the process of decay and decline. And the main role in this was to be played by the Germanic tribes. The Goths were the first to rush into the empire in large numbers back in the 4th century, followed by the Franks, Burgundians, and Sueves. Rome could no longer hold many provinces, as soon as the legions left Gaul, the Vandals, Suebi, Alans, and later the Burgundians and Franks came there. In 409 they broke into Spain. On the fragments of the Roman state, the first prototypes of the German states began to appear. The Kingdom of the Suebi was located in most of the Iberian Peninsula and lasted until 585. The Visigoths in 418 formed their state in Aquitaine. The Burgundians founded their kingdom in Gaul, which fell in 437 at the hands of the Huns. The Vandals settled on the shores of North Africa, founding the kingdom of the Vandals and Alans. In 455 they temporarily captured Rome. In 451, on the Catalaunian fields in Gaul, the Germans managed to defeat Attila, the leader of the Huns. The Roman emperor became very dependent on the Germanic tribes and in the period from 460 to 470. even appointed the Germans to the post of his commanders. In 476, the Germanic Wars, who were in the service of the Roman army under the leadership of Odoacer, overthrew the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus, without putting anyone in his place, this was the end of the Western Roman Empire.

4. The history of the German lands until the beginning of the X century.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish tribes became the strongest and most important among all the Germans. The Kingdom of the Franks was formed by Clovis I of the Merovingian dynasty. He, in the role of the first king of the Franks, began his conquests from Gaul. In the course of further campaigns, the lands of the Alemanni on the Rhine in 496, the possessions of the Visigoths in Aquitaine in 507 and the Franks who lived along the middle reaches of the Rhine were subjugated. The sons of Clovis defeated the leader of the Burgundians Godomaru in 534, and his state was included in the kingdom of the Franks. In 536, the leader of the Ostrogoths, Vitigis, ceded Provence to them. Further, the Franks extended their influence to the Alpine territories of the Alemanni and Thuringians between the Weser and the Elbe, as well as the possessions of the Bavarians on the Danube.

The Merovingian state was a loose political entity that did not have economic and ethnic unity. After the death of Clovis, his heirs divided the empires, occasionally joining forces for joint military campaigns. There were continuous internecine conflicts, during which power fell into the hands of senior dignitaries of the royal court - mayors. In the middle of the VIII century, Major Pepin the Short son of the famous Charles Martel, deposed the last ruler from the Merovingian family and became a monarch himself, thus founding the Carolingian dynasty. In 800, Charlemagne, son of Pepin the Short, assumed the title of Roman Emperor. The German city of Aachen became the capital of the empire. At this time, the peak of the power of the Frankish power comes. Louis the Pious became the last king of the united Frankish state. He waged endless wars that brought the country to a crisis. After his death, the empire broke up into several independent states.

In 843, the grandchildren of Kard the Great signed the Treaty of Verdun, according to which the West Frankish kingdom was assigned to Charles the Bald, the Middle Kingdom went to Lothair, and the German part passed to Louis the German. It is the East Frankish kingdom that is considered by scientists as the first full-fledged German state. It controlled the lands east of the Rhine and north of the Alps. The East Frankish state showed stable development, which led in 870 to the expansion of its borders. The eastern part of Lorraine was included in its composition, including the Netherlands, Alsace and Lorraine proper. The process of development by the Germans of the territory along the Elbe, where the Slavs had previously lived, began. Louis the German chose Regensburg as his capital. The German state consisted of five semi-independent duchies: Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, Swabia and Thuringia (Later Lorraine was added). The king did not have absolute power and was dependent on large feudal lords. The peasants still had a number of personal and property freedoms, the process of enslavement began somewhat later. By the end of the 9th century, the principle of the inseparability of the state had developed, the throne of which was to be inherited from father to eldest son. In 911, the German line of Carolingians ceased to exist, but this did not lead to a transfer of power to the French Carolingians. The East Frankish aristocracy elected the Franconian Duke Conrad I as their king. This secured the rights of the German princes to appoint a successor, if the deceased ruler had no sons to whom the throne could pass. Conrad turned out to be a weak monarch, who practically lost influence on the duchies. After his death in 918, the Duke of Saxony Henry I the Fowler (918-936) became king. He led several successful military campaigns against the Hungarians and Danes and erected defensive fortifications that protected Saxony from the invasion of the Slavs and Hungarians. Thus, by the 10th century, all the conditions had developed for the creation of a full-fledged German statehood and the formation of its own ruling dynasty, independent of the French line of the Carolingians.

5. Conclusion.

In this paper, we examined the early history of the Germanic lands and tribes. As you can see, the territory of modern Germany from prehistoric times was the site of ancient human settlements, on which traces of various cultures were found. In the first millennium BC. e. German tribes begin to penetrate into central Europe, from Scandinavia, gradually mastering these lands and squeezing out the Celts. At the turn of II-I centuries. BC e. The Germans first encounter the Romans. This confrontation will last for several centuries. The disunity of the Germans will play into the hands of the Romans, who will use this to their advantage. By fighting with some, they will be able to make alliances with others. The invasion of the Huns into Europe in the 4th century, which began, will set in motion the Goths, who will begin to massively move to the lands of the empire, followed by other tribes. As a result, in the 5th century, the Germans form their first kingdoms on the fragments of Ancient Rome, which will finally fall at the hands of all the same Germans who deposed the last emperor. In the future, the leading Germanic tribe would be the Franks, who formed the Frankish state, subjugating other tribes and even Gaul. According to scientists, it will become, in fact, the first full-fledged German state.

6. List of references.

1. A Brief History of Germany / Schulze Hagen - Publisher: Ves Mir, 2004. - 256 p.

2. History of Germany. Volume 1. From ancient times to the creation of the German Empire / Bonwetsch Bernd - Publisher: Publisher: KDU, 2008. - 644 p.

3. History of Germany / Andre Morua - Publisher: Azbuka-Atticus, 2017. - 320 p.

4. A Brief History of Germany / James Howes - Publisher: Azbuka-Atticus, 2017. - 370 p.

5. German history. Through the thorns of two millennia / Alexander Patrushev - Publisher: "Publishing House of the International University in Moscow", 2007. - 708 p.

6. German tribes in the wars against the Roman Empire / S. Evseenkov, V. Mityukov, A. Kozlenko - Publisher: Reitar, 2007. - 60 p.

ancient germany

The name of the Germans aroused bitter sensations in the Romans, evoked gloomy memories in their imagination. From the time the Teutons and Cimbri crossed the Alps and rushed in a devastating avalanche to beautiful Italy, the Romans looked with alarm at the peoples little known to them, worried about the continuous movements in ancient Germany beyond the ridge that fences Italy from the north. Even Caesar's brave legions were seized with fear as he led them against the Suebi Ariovistus. The fear of the Romans was increased by the terrible news of War's defeat in the Teutoburg Forest, stories of soldiers and captives about the severity of the German country, about the savagery of its inhabitants, their high growth, about human sacrifices. The inhabitants of the south, the Romans, had the darkest ideas about Ancient Germany, about impenetrable forests that stretch from the banks of the Rhine for nine days of travel east to the headwaters of the Elbe and whose center is the Hercynian Forest, filled with unknown monsters; about swamps and desert steppes that stretch in the north to the stormy sea, over which lie thick fogs that do not allow the life-giving rays of the sun to reach the earth, on which swamp and steppe grass is covered with snow for many months, along which there are no ways from the region of one people to the region another. These ideas about the severity, gloominess of Ancient Germany were so deeply rooted in the thoughts of the Romans that even an impartial Tacitus says: “Who would leave Asia, Africa or Italy to go to Germany, a country of harsh climate, devoid of all beauty, making an unpleasant impression on everyone who lives in it or visits it, if it is not his homeland?” The prejudices of the Romans against Germany were strengthened by the fact that they considered barbaric, wild all those lands that lay beyond the borders of their state. For example, Seneca says: “Think of those peoples who live outside the Roman state, about the Germans and about the tribes that roam along the lower Danube; Does not an almost continuous winter weigh on them, a constantly overcast sky, is not the food that the hostile barren soil gives them?

Meanwhile, near the majestic oak and leafy linden forests, fruit trees already grew in ancient Germany and there were not only steppes and moss-covered swamps, but also fields abundant in rye, wheat, oats, barley; the ancient Germanic tribes had already mined iron for weapons from the mountains; healing warm waters were already known in Mattiak (Wiesbaden) and in the land of the Tungros (in Spa or Aachen); and the Romans themselves said that in Germany there are a lot of cattle, horses, a lot of geese, the fluff of which the Germans use for pillows and feather beds, that Germany is rich in fish, wild birds, wild animals suitable for food, that fishing and hunting provide the Germans with delicious food. Only gold and silver ores in the German mountains were not yet known. “The gods denied them silver and gold, I don’t know how to say whether it was out of mercy or dislike for them,” says Tacitus. Trade in ancient Germany was only exchange, and only the tribes neighboring the Roman state used money, which they received a lot from the Romans for their goods. The princes of the ancient Germanic tribes or people who traveled as ambassadors to the Romans had gold and silver vessels received as a gift; but, according to Tacitus, they valued them no more than earthenware. The fear that the ancient Germans initially inspired in the Romans later turned into surprise at their tall stature, physical strength, and respect for their customs; the expression of these feelings is the "Germany" of Tacitus. At the end wars of the era of Augustus and Tiberius relations between the Romans and the Germans became close; educated people traveled to Germany, wrote about it; this smoothed out many of the old prejudices, and the Romans began to judge the Germans better. The concepts of the country and climate remained with them the same, unfavorable, inspired by the stories of merchants, adventurers, returning captives, exaggerated complaints of soldiers about the difficulties of campaigns; but the Germans themselves began to be considered among the Romans as people who have much good in themselves; and finally, the fashion appeared among the Romans to make their appearance, if possible, similar to the German one. The Romans admired the tall and slender, strong physique of the ancient Germans and German women, their flowing golden hair, light blue eyes, in whose eyes pride and courage were expressed. Noble Roman women artificially gave their hair the color that they liked so much in the women and girls of Ancient Germany.

Family of ancient Germans

In peaceful relations, the ancient Germanic tribes inspired respect for the Romans with their courage, strength, militancy; those qualities with which they were terrible in battles turned out to be respectable in friendship with them. Tacitus extols the purity of morals, hospitality, straightforwardness, fidelity to the word, marital fidelity of the ancient Germans, their respect for women; he praises the Germans to such an extent that his book on their customs and institutions seems to many scholars to have been written with the intention that his wicked compatriots devoted to pleasures would be ashamed when they read this description of a simple, honest life; they think that Tacitus wanted to vividly characterize the depravity of Roman customs by depicting the life of Ancient Germany, which was the exact opposite of them. Indeed, in his praise of the strength and purity of marital relations among the ancient Germanic tribes, one hears sadness about the depravity of the Romans. In the Roman state, the decline of the former beautiful state was everywhere visible, it was clear that everything was leaning towards destruction; the brighter was drawn in the thoughts of Tacitus the life of ancient Germany, which still retained primitive customs. His book is imbued with a vague foreboding that Rome is in great danger from a people whose wars are more deeply etched in the memory of the Romans than the wars with the Samnites, Carthaginians and Parthians. He says that "more triumphs were celebrated over the Germans than victories were won"; he foresaw that a black cloud on the northern edge of the Italian horizon would burst over the Roman state with new thunderclaps, stronger than the previous ones, because "the freedom of the Germans is more powerful than the strength of the Parthian king." The only reassurance for him is the hope for dissension among the ancient Germanic tribes, for mutual hatred between their tribes: “Let the Germanic peoples, if not love for us, then the hatred of some tribes for others; with the dangers that threaten our state, fate cannot give us anything better than discord between our enemies.

Settlement of the ancient Germans according to Tacitus

Let's combine those features with which it describes Tacitus in his "Germany" the way of life, customs, institutions of the ancient Germanic tribes; he makes these notes fragmentarily, without strict order; but, putting them together, we get a picture in which there are many gaps, inaccuracies, misunderstandings, or Tacitus himself, or the people who informed him of information, much is borrowed from folk tradition, which does not have reliability, but which nevertheless shows us the main features of life Ancient Germany, the germs of what subsequently developed. The information that Tacitus gives us, supplemented and explained by the news of other ancient writers, legends, considerations about the past based on later facts, serve as the basis for our knowledge of the life of the ancient Germanic tribes in primitive times.

Same with Caesar Tacitus says that the Germans are a numerous people, having neither cities nor large villages, living in scattered villages and occupying the country from the banks of the Rhine and Danube to the northern sea and to unknown lands beyond the Vistula and beyond the Carpathian ridge; that they are divided into many tribes, and that their customs are peculiar and strong. The Alpine lands up to the Danube, inhabited by the Celts and already conquered by the Romans, were not counted among Germany; the tribes that lived on the left bank of the Rhine were not ranked among the ancient Germans, although many of them, such as the Tungros (according to the Meuse), the Trevirs, the Nerviians, the Eburons, still boasted of their Germanic origin. The ancient Germanic tribes, which, under Caesar and after, on various occasions were settled by the Romans on the western bank of the Rhine, had already forgotten their nationality, adopted the Roman language and culture. The Ubii, in whose land Agrippa founded a military colony with a temple of Mars, which received great fame, were already called Agrippines; they adopted this name from the time that Agrippina the younger, wife of the emperor Claudius, expanded (AD 50) the colony founded by Agrippa. This city, whose current name Cologne still testifies to the fact that it was originally a Roman colony, became populous and flourishing. Its population was mixed, it consisted of Romans, Ubii, Gauls. The settlers, according to Tacitus, were attracted there by the opportunity to easily acquire wealth by profitable trade and the wild life of the fortified camp; these merchants, innkeepers, artisans, and the people who served them thought only of personal gain and pleasure; they had neither courage nor pure morality. Other Germanic tribes despised and hated them; hostility intensified especially after Batavian war they betrayed their fellow tribesmen.

Settlement of the ancient Germanic tribes in the 1st century AD. Map

Roman power was also established on the right bank of the Rhine in the area between the rivers Main and Danube, the border of which was guarded by the Marcomanni before their resettlement to the east. This corner of Germany was settled by people of various ancient Germanic tribes; they enjoyed the patronage of the emperors in return for tribute, which they paid with bread, the fruits of gardens and cattle; little by little they adopted Roman customs and language. Tacitus already calls this area Agri Decumates, the Decumate Field, (that is, the land whose inhabitants pay a tithe tax). The Romans took it under their control, probably under Domitian and Trajan, and subsequently built a ditch with a rampart (Limes, “Border”) along its border with independent Germany to protect it from German raids.

The line of fortifications that protected the Decumate region from the ancient Germanic tribes, not subject to Rome, went from the Main through Kocher and Jaxt to the Danube, which it adjoined in present-day Bavaria; it was a rampart with a moat, fortified with watchtowers and fortresses, in some places interconnected by a wall. The remains of these fortifications are still very visible, the people in that area call them the devil's wall. For two centuries, the legions defended the population of the Dekumat region from enemy raids, and they lost the habit of military affairs, lost their love for independence and the courage of their ancestors. Under Roman protection, agriculture developed in the Decumate region, a civilized way of life was established, to which other Germanic tribes remained alien for a whole thousand years after that. The Romans managed to turn into a flourishing province the land, which was almost a deserted desert while it was in the power of the barbarians. The Romans managed to do this quickly, although the Germanic tribes initially thwarted them with their attacks. First of all, they took care to build fortifications, under the protection of which they founded municipal cities with temples, theaters, courthouses, water pipes, baths, with all the luxury of Italian cities; they connected these new settlements with excellent roads, built bridges across the rivers; in a short time, the Germans adopted here Roman customs, language, concepts. The Romans knew how to vigilantly find the natural resources of the new province and use them admirably. They transplanted their fruit trees, their vegetables, their varieties of bread into the land of Decumates, and soon began to export agricultural products from there to Rome, even asparagus and turnips. They arranged artificial irrigation of meadows and fields on these lands that previously belonged to the ancient Germanic tribes, made the land, which before them seemed unsuitable for anything, to be fertile. They caught delicious fish in the rivers, improved the breeds of livestock, found metals, found salt springs, everywhere found very durable stone for their buildings. They already used for their millstones those hardest varieties of lava, which are still considered to give the best millstones; they found excellent clay for making bricks, built canals, regulated the course of rivers; in areas rich in marble, such as on the banks of the Moselle, they built mills on which this stone was cut into slabs; not a single healing spring escaped from them; on all warm waters from Aachen to Wiesbaden, from Baden-Baden to Swiss Waden, from Partenkirch (Parthanum) in the Rhaetian Alps to Vienna Baden, they arranged pools, halls, colonnades, decorated them with statues, inscriptions, and posterity marvels at the remains of these structures found underground, they were so magnificent. The Romans did not neglect the poor native industry either, they noticed the industriousness and dexterity of the Germanic natives, and took advantage of their talents. The remains of wide stone-paved roads, the ruins of buildings found underground, statues, altars, weapons, coins, vases, and all kinds of attire testify to the high development of culture in the Decumate land under the rule of the Romans. Augsburg was a center of trade, a warehouse for goods that East and South exchanged with North and West. Other cities also took an active part in the benefits of civilized life, for example, those cities on Lake Constance, which are now called Constance and Bregenz, Aduae Aureliae (Baden-Baden) on the foothills of the Black Forest, that city on the Neckar, which is now called Ladenburg. - Roman culture covered under Trajan and the Antonines and the land in the south-east of the Decumate region, along the Danube. Rich cities arose there, such as Vindobona (Vienna), Karnunte (Petropel), Mursa (or Murcia, Essek), Tavrun (Zemlin) and especially Sirmium (somewhat west of Belgrade), more to the east Naissa (Nissa), Sardica (Sophia), Nikopol at Hemus. The Roman Itinerarius (“Road Builder”) lists so many cities on the Danube that, perhaps, this border was not inferior to the Rhine high development of cultural life.

Tribes of Mattiaks and Batavians

Not far from the area where the border rampart of the Decumate land converged with the trenches, previously built along the Tauna ridge, that is, to the north of the Decumate land, the ancient Germanic tribes of the Mattiaks settled along the banks of the Rhine, which made up the southern department of the warlike people of the Hatts; they and the Batavians of their tribe were true friends of the Romans. Tacitus calls both of these tribes allies of the Roman people, says that they were free from any tribute, they were only obliged to send their detachments to the Roman army and give horses to war. When the Romans retreated from prudent meekness towards the Batavi tribe, began to oppress them, they started a war that took on a wide scale. This uprising was pacified at the beginning of his reign by the emperor Vespasian.

Hutt tribe

The lands to the northeast of the Mattiaks were inhabited by the ancient Germanic tribe of the Hatts (Chazzi, Hazzi, Hesses - Hessians), whose country went to the borders of the Hercynian Forest. Tacitus says that the Hutts were of a dense, strong physique, that they had a courageous look, a mind more active than that of other Germans; judging by German standards, the Hutts have a lot of prudence and ingenuity, he says. Their young man, having reached adulthood, did not cut his hair, did not shave his beard until he killed the enemy: “only then does he consider himself to have paid the debt for his birth and upbringing, worthy of the fatherland and parents,” says Tacitus.

Under Claudius, a detachment of the Germans-Hattas made a predatory raid on the Rhine, in the province of Upper Germany. The legate Lucius Pomponius sent vangios, Germans and a detachment of cavalry under the command of Pliny the Elder cut off these robbers' escape route. The warriors went very zealously, dividing into two detachments; one of them caught the Hutts returning from a robbery, when they were resting and drunk so much that they were unable to defend themselves. This victory over the Germans was, according to Tacitus, all the more joyful because on this occasion several Romans were freed from slavery, taken prisoner forty years before during the defeat of Varus. Another detachment of the Romans and their allies went to the land of the Hutts, defeated them and, having gained much booty, returned to Pomponius, who stood with the legions on Taun, ready to repel the Germanic tribes if they wanted to take revenge. But the Hatti feared that when they attacked the Romans, the Cherusci, their enemies, would invade their land, so they sent envoys and hostages to Rome. Pomponius was more famous for his dramas than for his military exploits, but for this victory he received a triumph.

The ancient Germanic tribes of the Usipetes and Tencters

The lands to the north of Lahn, on the right bank of the Rhine, were inhabited by the ancient Germanic tribes of the Usipets (or Usipians) and Tencters. The tencters were famous for their excellent cavalry; Their children amused themselves by riding, and the old people also liked to ride. The warhorse of the father was given as an inheritance to the bravest of the sons. Farther northeast along the Lippe and the headwaters of the Ems lived the Bructers, and behind them eastward to the Weser, the Hamavs and Angrivars. Tacitus heard that the Bructers had a war with their neighbors, that the Bructers were driven out of their land and almost completely exterminated; this civil strife was, in his words, "a joyful sight for the Romans." It is probable that in the same part of Germany also lived the Marses, a brave people, exterminated Germanicus.

Frisian tribe

The lands along the seashore from the mouth of the Ems to the Batavians and Kaninefats were the area of ​​settlement of the ancient Germanic tribe of the Frisians. The Frisians also occupied the neighboring islands; these swampy places were not enviable to anyone, says Tacitus, but the Frisians loved their homeland. For a long time they obeyed the Romans, not caring about their fellow tribesmen. In gratitude for the patronage of the Romans, the Frisians gave them a certain number of oxhides for the needs of the troops. When this tribute became burdensome due to the greed of the Roman ruler, this Germanic tribe took up arms, defeated the Romans, overthrew their power (27 A.D.). But under Claudius, the brave Corbulo managed to return the Frisians to an alliance with Rome. Under Nero, a new quarrel began (58 AD) due to the fact that the Frisians occupied and began to cultivate some areas on the right bank of the Rhine that lay empty. The Roman ruler ordered them to leave from there, they did not obey and sent two princes to Rome to ask that this land be left behind them. But the Roman ruler attacked the Frisians who settled there, exterminated some of them, took the other into slavery. The land they had occupied became a desert again; the soldiers of the neighboring Roman detachments let their cattle graze on it.

Hawk Tribe

To the east from Ems to the lower Elbe and inland to the Hattians lived the ancient Germanic tribe of the Chavks, whom Tacitus calls the noblest of the Germans, who made justice the basis of their power; he says: “They have neither greed for conquest nor arrogance; they live calmly, avoiding quarrels, do not call anyone to war with insults, do not devastate, do not plunder neighboring lands, do not seek to base their predominance on insults to others; this is the best evidence of their valor and strength; but they are all ready for war, and when the need arises, their army is always under arms. They have a lot of warriors and horses, their name is famous even with peacefulness. This praise does not fit well with the news reported by Tacitus himself in the Chronicle that the hawks often went on their boats to rob ships that sailed along the Rhine and neighboring Roman possessions, that they expelled the Ansibars and took over their land.

Germanic Cherusci

To the south of the havki lay the land of the ancient Germanic tribe of the Cherusci; this brave nation, heroically defending freedom and homeland, had already lost its former strength and glory in the time of Tacitus. Under Claudius, the Cherusci tribe called Italicus, son of Flavius ​​and nephew of Arminius, a handsome and brave young man, and made him king. At first he ruled kindly and justly, then, expelled by his opponents, he defeated them with the help of the Lombards and began to rule cruelly. We have no news of his further fate. Weakened by strife and having lost their militancy from a long peace, the Cherusci in the time of Tacitus had no power and were not respected. Their neighbors, the Foz Germans, were also weak. About the Cimbri Germans, whom Tacitus calls a tribe small in number, but famous for their exploits, he only says that at the time Maria they inflicted many heavy defeats on the Romans, and that the extensive camps left of them on the Rhine show that they were then very numerous.

Suebi tribe

The ancient Germanic tribes who lived further to the east between the Baltic Sea and the Carpathians, in a country very little known to the Romans, Tacitus, like Caesar, calls the common name of the Suebi. They had a custom that distinguished them from other Germans: free people combed their long hair up and tied it over the top of the head, so that they fluttered like a sultan. They believed that this made them more fearsome to enemies. There was a lot of research and controversy about which tribes the Romans called the Suebi, and about the origin of this tribe, but with the darkness and contradictory information about them among ancient writers, these questions remain unresolved. The simplest explanation for the name of this ancient Germanic tribe is that "Suebi" means nomads (schweifen, "wander"); The Romans called Suebi all those numerous tribes that lived far from the Roman border behind dense forests, and believed that these Germanic tribes were constantly moving from place to place, because they were most often heard about from the tribes driven by them to the west. The news of the Romans about the Suebi is inconsistent and borrowed from exaggerated rumors. They say that the Suebi tribe had a hundred districts, from which each could put up a large army, that their country was surrounded by a desert. These rumors supported the fear that the name of the Suebi already inspired in Caesar's legions. Without a doubt, the Suebi were a federation of many ancient Germanic tribes, closely related to each other, in which the former nomadic life had not yet been completely replaced by a settled one, cattle breeding, hunting and war still prevailed over agriculture. Tacitus calls the oldest and noblest of them the Semnons who lived on the Elbe, and the Lombards, who lived north of the Semnons, the bravest.

Hermunduri, Marcomanni and Quads

The region to the east of the Dekumat region was inhabited by the ancient Germanic tribe of the Hermundurs. These faithful allies of the Romans enjoyed great confidence in them and had the right to freely trade in the main city of the Raetian province, the current Augsburg. Down the Danube, to the east, lived a tribe of the Germans-Narisks, and behind the Drafts, the Marcomanni and Quads, who retained the courage that brought them the possession of their land. The regions of these ancient Germanic tribes formed the stronghold of Germany on the Danube side. The kings of the Marcomanni for quite a long time were the descendants of Maroboda, then foreigners who gained power through the influence of the Romans and held on thanks to their patronage.

East Germanic tribes

The Germans, who lived behind the Marcomanni and the Quadi, had as their neighbors tribes of non-Germanic origin. Of the peoples who lived there in the valleys and gorges of the mountains, Tacitus ranks some among the Suebi, for example, the Marsigns and Boers; others, such as the Gotins, he considers Celts by their language. The ancient German tribe of the Gotins was subject to the Sarmatians, they extracted iron for their masters from their mines and paid tribute to them. Behind these mountains (the Sudetes, the Carpathians) lived many tribes, ranked by Tacitus among the Germans. Of these, the most extensive area was occupied by the Germanic tribe of Lygians, who probably lived in present-day Silesia. The Lygians formed a federation, to which belonged, besides various other tribes, the Garians and the Nagarwals. To the north of the Lygians lived the Germanic Goths, and behind the Goths the Rugians and Lemovians; the Goths had kings who had more power than the kings of other ancient Germanic tribes, but still not so much that the freedom of the Goths was suppressed. from Pliny and Ptolemy we know that in the north-east of Germany (probably between the Warta and the Baltic Sea) lived the ancient Germanic tribes of the Burgundians and Vandals; but Tacitus does not mention them.

Germanic tribes of Scandinavia: Svions and Sitons

The tribes living on the Vistula and the southern coast of the Baltic Sea closed the borders of Germany; to the north of them on a large island (Scandinavia) lived Germanic Svions and Sitons, strong, in addition to the ground forces, and the fleet. Their ships had prows at both ends. These tribes differed from the Germans in that their kings had unlimited power and did not leave weapons in their hands, but kept them in storerooms guarded by slaves. The sitons, in the words of Tacitus, stooped to such servility that they were commanded by the queen, and they obeyed the woman. Beyond the land of the Germanic Svions, says Tacitus, there is another sea, the water of which is almost still. This sea closes the extreme limits of the earth. In summer, after sunset, its radiance there still retains such strength that it darkens the stars all night.

Non-German tribes of the Baltic: Aestii, Peukins and Finns

The right bank of the Suevian (Baltic) Sea washes the land of the Aestii (Estonia). In customs and dress, the Aestii resemble the Suebi, and in language, according to Tacitus, they are closer to the Britons. Iron is rare among them; their usual weapon is a mace. They farm more diligently than the lazy Germanic tribes; they swim in the sea, and they are the only people who collect amber; they call it glaesum (German glas, "glass"?) they collect it from the shallows in the sea and on the shore. For a long time they left him lying among other things that the sea throws up; but Roman luxury finally drew their attention to it: "they themselves do not use it, they export it in an unfinished form and marvel that they receive payment for it."

After that, Tacitus gives the names of the tribes, about which he says that he does not know whether they should be ranked among the Germans or among the Sarmatians; these are the Wends (Vends), Peucins and Fenns. Of the Wends, he says that they live by war and robbery, but differ from the Sarmatians in that they build houses and fight on foot. Of the Peukins, he says that some writers call them Bastarns, that they are similar in language, clothing, but in the appearance of their dwellings to the ancient Germanic tribes, but that, having mixed with the Sarmatians through marriages, they learned from them laziness and untidiness. Far to the north live the Fenns (Finns), the most extreme people of the inhabited space of the earth; they are complete savages and live in extreme poverty. They have neither weapons nor horses. The Finns feed on grass and wild animals, which they kill with arrows having pointed bone tips; they dress in animal skins, sleep on the ground; in protection from bad weather and predatory animals, they make wattle fences from branches. This tribe, says Tacitus, fears neither men nor gods. It has achieved what is most difficult for man to achieve: they do not need to have any desires. Behind the Finns, according to Tacitus, there is already a fabulous world.

No matter how great the number of ancient Germanic tribes was, no matter how great was the difference in social life between the tribes that had kings and did not have them, the astute observer Tacitus saw that they all belonged to one national whole, that they were parts of a great people, which, without mixing with foreigners, lived according to completely original customs; fundamental sameness was not smoothed out by tribal differences. The language, the nature of the ancient Germanic tribes, their way of life and the veneration of the common Germanic gods showed that they all have a common origin. Tacitus says that in old folk songs the Germans praise the god Tuiscon, who was born from the earth, and his son Mann, as their ancestors, that from the three sons of Mann, three indigenous groups descended and received their names, which covered all the ancient Germanic tribes: Ingaevons (Friesians), Germinons (Svevi) and Istevons. In this legend of Germanic mythology, under the legendary shell, the testimony of the Germans themselves survived that, for all their fragmentation, they did not forget the commonality of their origin and continued to consider themselves fellow tribesmen.

For many centuries, the main sources of knowledge about how the ancient Germans lived and what they did were the works of Roman historians and politicians: Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, as well as some church writers. Along with reliable information, these books and notes contained conjectures and exaggerations. In addition, ancient authors did not always delve into the politics, history and culture of the barbarian tribes. They fixed mainly what “lay on the surface”, or what made the strongest impression on them. Of course, all these works give a pretty good idea of ​​the life of the Germanic tribes at the turn of the era. However, in the course of later studies, it was found that the ancient authors, describing the beliefs and life of the ancient Germans, missed a lot. That, however, does not detract from their merits.

Origin and distribution of the Germanic tribes

The first mention of the Germans

The ancient world learned about warlike tribes in the middle of the 4th century BC. e. from the notes of the navigator Pythia, who ventured to travel to the shores of the North (German) Sea. Then the Germans loudly declared themselves at the end of the 2nd century BC. e .: the tribes of the Teutons and Cimbri, who left Jutland, fell upon Gaul and reached the Alpine Italy.

Gaius Marius managed to stop them, but from that moment on, the empire began to vigilantly monitor the activity of dangerous neighbors. In turn, the Germanic tribes began to unite in order to increase their military power. In the middle of the 1st century BC. e. Julius Caesar defeated the Suebi during the Gallic War. The Romans reached the Elbe, and a little later - to the Weser. It was at this time that scientific works began to appear describing the life and religion of rebellious tribes. In them (with the light hand of Caesar) the term "Germans" began to be used. By the way, this is by no means a self-name. The origin of the word is Celtic. "German" is "a close living neighbor". The ancient tribe of the Germans, or rather its name - "Teutons", was also used by scientists as a synonym.

Germans and their neighbors

In the west and south, the Celts coexisted with the Germans. Their material culture was higher. Outwardly, the representatives of these nationalities were similar. The Romans often confused them, and sometimes even considered them to be one people. However, the Celts and Germans are not related. The similarity of their culture is determined by close proximity, mixed marriages, and trade.

In the east, the Germans bordered on the Slavs, the Baltic tribes and the Finns. Of course, all these peoples influenced each other. It can be traced in the language, customs, ways of doing business. Modern Germans are the descendants of the Slavs and Celts, assimilated by the Germans. The Romans noted the high growth of the Slavs and Germans, as well as blond or light red hair and blue (or gray) eyes. In addition, representatives of these peoples had a similar shape of the skull, which was discovered during archaeological excavations.

The Slavs and the ancient Germans amazed the Roman explorers not only with their beauty of physique and facial features, but also with their endurance. True, the former have always been considered more peaceful, while the latter are aggressive and reckless.

Appearance

As already mentioned, the Germans seemed to the pampered Romans mighty and tall. Free men wore long hair and did not shave their beards. In some tribes, it was customary to tie the hair at the back of the head. But in any case, they had to be long, since cropped hair is a sure sign of a slave. The clothes of the Germans were mostly simple, at first rather rough. They preferred leather tunics, woolen capes. Both men and women were hardy: even in the cold they wore shirts with short sleeves. The ancient German reasonably believed that excess clothing hinders movement. For this reason, the warriors did not even have armor. Helmets, however, were, although not all.

Unmarried German women walked with their hair loose, married women covered their hair with a woolen net. This headdress was purely symbolic. Shoes for men and women were the same: leather sandals or boots, woolen windings. The clothes were decorated with brooches and buckles.

ancient Germans

The socio-political institutions of the Germans were not complex. At the turn of the century, these tribes had a tribal system. It is also called primitive communal. In this system, it is not the individual who matters, but the race. It is formed by blood relatives who live in the same village, cultivate the land together and take an oath of blood feud to each other. Several genera make up a tribe. The ancient Germans made all important decisions by collecting the Thing. That was the name of the people's assembly of the tribe. Important decisions were made at the Thing: they redistributed communal lands between clans, judged criminals, resolved disputes, concluded peace treaties, declared wars and gathered militia. Here, young men were initiated into warriors and military leaders, dukes, were elected as needed. Only free men were allowed to the Thing, but not every one of them had the right to make speeches (this was allowed only to the elders and the most respected members of the clan / tribe). The Germans had patriarchal slavery. The not free had certain rights, had property, lived in the owner's house. They could not be killed with impunity.

military organization

The history of the ancient Germans is full of conflicts. Men devoted a lot of time to military affairs. Even before the start of systematic campaigns on Roman lands, the Germans formed a tribal elite - the Edelings. Edelings were people who distinguished themselves in battle. It cannot be said that they had any special rights, but they had authority.

At first, the Germans chose ("raised on the shield") the dukes only in case of a military threat. But at the beginning of the Great Migration of Nations, they began to elect kings (kings) from the edelings for life. The kings were at the head of the tribes. They acquired permanent squads and endowed them with everything necessary (as a rule, at the end of a successful campaign). Loyalty to the leader was exceptional. The ancient German considered it dishonorable to return from the battle in which the king fell. In this situation, the only way out was suicide.

In the army of the Germans there was a tribal principle. This meant that relatives always fought shoulder to shoulder. Perhaps it is this feature that determines the ferocity and fearlessness of warriors.

The Germans fought on foot. The cavalry appeared late, the Romans had a low opinion of it. The main weapon of a warrior was a spear (framea). The famous knife of the ancient German - Saxon was widely used. Then came the throwing ax and spatha, a double-edged Celtic sword.

economy

Ancient historians often described the Germans as nomadic pastoralists. Moreover, there was an opinion that men were engaged exclusively in war. Archaeological research in the 19th and 20th centuries showed that things were somewhat different. Firstly, they led a settled way of life, engaged in cattle breeding and agriculture. The community of ancient Germans owned meadows, pastures and fields. True, the latter were not numerous, since most of the territories subject to the Germans were occupied by forests. Nevertheless, the Germans grew oats, rye and barley. But breeding cows and sheep was a priority. The Germans had no money, their wealth was measured by the number of heads of cattle. Of course, the Germans were excellent at processing leather and actively traded in them. They also made fabrics from wool and linen.

They mastered the extraction of copper, silver and iron, but few owned blacksmithing. Over time, the Germans learned to smelt and make swords of very high quality. However, the Sax, the combat knife of the ancient German, has not gone out of use.

Beliefs

Information about the religious beliefs of the barbarians, which Roman historians managed to obtain, is very scarce, contradictory and vague. Tacitus writes that the Germans deified the forces of nature, especially the sun. Over time, natural phenomena began to be personified. This is how, for example, the cult of Donar (Thor), the god of thunder, appeared.

The Germans greatly revered Tivaz, the patron saint of warriors. According to Tacitus, they performed human sacrifices in his honor. In addition, the weapons and armor of the slain enemies were dedicated to him. In addition to the "general" gods (Donar, Wodan, Tivaz, Fro), each tribe praised "personal", lesser-known deities. The Germans did not build temples: it was customary to pray in the forests (sacred groves) or in the mountains. It must be said that the traditional religion of the ancient Germans ( those who lived on the mainland) was relatively quickly supplanted by Christianity. The Germans learned about Christ in the 3rd century thanks to the Romans. But on the Scandinavian Peninsula, paganism lasted a long time. It was reflected in folklore works that were recorded during the Middle Ages ("Elder Edda" and "Younger Edda").

Culture and art

The Germans treated priests and soothsayers with reverence and respect. The priests accompanied the troops on campaigns. They were charged with the duty to conduct religious rituals (sacrifices), turn to the gods, punish criminals and cowards. Soothsayers were engaged in fortune-telling: by the entrails of sacred animals and defeated enemies, by flowing blood and the neighing of horses.

The ancient Germans willingly made metal jewelry in the "animal style", borrowed, presumably, from the Celts, but they did not have a tradition of depicting gods. Very crude, conditional statues of deities found in peat bogs had exclusively ritual significance. They have no artistic value. Nevertheless, the furniture and household items were skillfully decorated by the Germans.

According to historians, the ancient Germans loved music, which was an indispensable attribute of feasts. They played flutes and lyres and sang songs.

The Germans used runic writing. Of course, it was not intended for long connected texts. The runes had a sacred meaning. With their help, people turned to the gods, tried to predict the future, cast spells. Short runic inscriptions are found on stones, household items, weapons and shields. Without a doubt, the religion of the ancient Germans was reflected in the runic writing. Among the Scandinavians, runes existed until the 16th century.

Interaction with Rome: war and trade

Germania Magna, or Greater Germany, was never a Roman province. At the turn of the era, as already mentioned, the Romans conquered the tribes living east of the Rhine River. But in 9 A.D. e. under the command of the Cherusca Arminius (German) were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest, and the Imperials remembered this lesson for a long time.

The border between enlightened Rome and wild Europe began to run along the Rhine, Danube and Limes. Here the Romans quartered troops, erected fortifications and founded cities that exist to this day (for example, Mainz - Mogontsiakum, and Vindobona (Vienna)).

The ancient Germans did not always fight each other. Until the middle of the 3rd century AD. e. peoples coexisted relatively peacefully. At this time, trade, or rather exchange, developed. The Germans supplied the Romans with dressed leather, furs, slaves, amber, and in return received luxury goods and weapons. Little by little they even got used to using money. Individual tribes had privileges: for example, the right to trade on Roman soil. Many men became mercenaries for the Roman emperors.

However, the invasion of the Huns (nomads from the east), which began in the 4th century A.D. e., "moved" the Germans from their homes, and they again rushed to the imperial territories.

Ancient Germans and the Roman Empire: Finale

By the time the Great Migration of Nations began, powerful German kings began to unite the tribes: at first in order to protect themselves from the Romans, and then in order to capture and plunder their provinces. In the 5th century, the entire Western Empire was invaded. Barbarian kingdoms of Ostrogoths, Franks, Anglo-Saxons were erected on its ruins. The Eternal City itself was besieged and sacked several times during this turbulent century. The Vandal tribes were especially distinguished. In 476 a.d. e. the last Roman emperor, was forced to abdicate under pressure from the mercenary Odoacer.

The social system of the ancient Germans finally changed. The barbarians moved from the communal way of life to the feudal one. The Middle Ages have arrived.

Etymology of the ethnonym Germani

“The word Germany is new and has recently come into use, for those who were the first to cross the Rhine and drive out the Gauls, now known as the Tungros, were then called Germans. Thus, the name of the tribe gradually prevailed and spread to the whole people; at first, out of fear, everyone designated him by the name of the winners, and then, after this name took root, he himself began to call himself Germans.

For the first time the term Germans was used, according to known data, by Posidonius in the 1st half of the 1st century. BC e. for the name of the people who had the custom of drinking fried meat with a mixture of milk and undiluted wine. Modern historians suggest that the use of the word in earlier times was the result of later interpolations. Greek authors, who were little interested in the ethnic and linguistic differences of the "barbarians", did not separate the Germans from the Celts. So, Diodorus Siculus, who wrote his work in the middle of the 1st century. BC e. , refers to the Celts tribes, which already in his time the Romans (Julius Caesar, Sallust) called Germanic.

Truly ethnonym " Germans» came into circulation in the 2nd half of the 1st century. BC e. after the Gallic wars of Julius Caesar to refer to the peoples who lived east of the Rhine to the Oder, that is, for the Romans it was not only an ethnic, but also a geographical concept.

Origin of the Germans

Indo-Europeans. 4-2 thousand BC e.

According to modern ideas, 5-6 thousand years ago, in the strip from Central Europe and the Northern Balkans to the northern Black Sea region, there was a single ethno-linguistic formation - the tribes of Indo-Europeans who spoke a single or at least close dialects of the language, which was called the Indo-European language-base, from which then all the modern languages ​​of the Indo-European family developed. According to another hypothesis, the Indo-European proto-language originated in the Middle East and was spread across Europe by migrations of kindred tribes.

Archaeologists identify several early cultures at the turn of the Stone and Bronze Ages associated with the spread of the Indo-Europeans and with which different anthropological types of Caucasoids are associated:

By the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. from the ethno-linguistic community of the Indo-Europeans, the Anatolian tribes (the peoples of Asia Minor), the Aryans of India, Iranians, Armenians, Greeks, Thracians and the most eastern branch, the Tocharians, stood out and developed independently. To the north of the Alps in Central Europe, an ethno-linguistic community of ancient Europeans continued to exist, which corresponds to the archaeological culture of barrow burials (XV-XIII centuries BC), which passed into the culture of burial urn fields (XIII-VII centuries BC) .

Separation of ethnic groups from the ancient European community is chronologically traced by the development of individual archaeological cultures.

The south of Scandinavia represents a region where, unlike other parts of Europe, there is a unity of toponyms belonging only to the Germanic language. However, it is here that a gap in archaeological development is found between the relatively prosperous culture of the Bronze Age and the more primitive culture of the Iron Age that replaced it, which does not allow us to make an unambiguous conclusion about the origin of the Germanic ethnos in this region.

Jastorf culture. 1st millennium BC e.

The direction of the migration of the Germanic tribes (750 BC - I century AD)

In the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BC. e. throughout the coastal zone between the mouths of the Rhine and the Elbe, and especially in Friesland and Lower Saxony (traditionally referred to as primordially Germanic lands), a single culture was spread, which differed both from the one-time La Tène (Celts) and from the Jastforian (Germans). The ethnicity of its Indo-European population, which became Germanic in our era, cannot be classified:

“The language of the local population, judging by toponymy, was neither Celtic nor German. Archaeological finds and toponymy testify that the Rhine before the arrival of the Romans was not any tribal border, and related tribes lived on both sides.

Linguists made an assumption about the separation of the Proto-Germanic language from the Proto-Indo-European at the very beginning of the Iron Age, that is, at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e., there are also versions about its formation much later, up to the beginning of our era:

“It was in the last decades, in the light of comprehending the new data that comes to the disposal of the researcher - the material of ancient German toponymy and onomastics, as well as runology, ancient German dialectology, ethnology and history - in a number of works it was clearly emphasized that the isolation of the Germanic linguistic community from the Western the area of ​​the Indo-European languages ​​took place at a relatively late time and that the formation of separate areas of the Germanic linguistic community refers only to the last centuries before and the first centuries after our era.

Thus, according to the versions of linguists and archaeologists, the formation of the Germanic ethnos on the basis of the Indo-European tribes dates back approximately to the period of the 6th-1st centuries. BC e. and occurred in areas adjacent to the lower Elbe, Jutland and southern Scandinavia. The formation of a specifically Germanic anthropological type began much earlier, in the early Bronze Age, and continued into the first centuries of our era as a result of the migrations of the Great Migration of Peoples and the assimilation of non-Germanic tribes related to the Germans within the framework of the ancient European community of the Bronze Age.

Well-preserved mummies of people are found in the peat bogs of Denmark, the appearance of which does not always coincide with the classical description of the tall race of Germans by ancient authors. See articles about a man from Tollund and a woman from Elling, who lived in Jutland in the 4th-3rd centuries. BC e.

Germanic genotype

Modern ethnic groups are characterized not so much by the predominance of one or another haplogroup (that is, a certain structure of mutation clusters in the male Y-chromosome), but by a certain proportion of the set of haplogroups among the population. Because of this, the presence of a haplogroup in a person does not determine his genetic belonging to a particular ethnic group, but indicates the degree of probability of such belonging, and the probability may be the same for completely different ethnic groups.

Although in the Germanic lands it is possible to classify weapons, brooches and other things as Germanic in style, according to archaeologists, they date back to the Celtic samples of the La Tène period.

Nevertheless, the differences between the areas of settlement of the Germanic and Celtic tribes can be traced archaeologically, primarily in terms of a higher level of material culture of the Celts, the spread of oppidums (fortified Celtic settlements), and burial methods. The fact that the Celts and Germans were similar, but not related, peoples is confirmed by their different anthropological structure and genotype. In terms of anthropology, the Celts were characterized by a diverse build, from which it is difficult to choose a typical Celtic, while the ancient Germans were predominantly dolichocephalic in terms of the structure of the skull. The genotype of the Celts is clearly limited to the haplogroup R1b, and the genotype of the population in the area of ​​origin of the Germanic ethnos (Jutland and southern Scandinavia) is represented mainly by the haplogroups I1a and R1a.

Classification of Germanic tribes

Separately, Pliny also mentions the Gillevions living in Scandinavia, and other Germanic tribes (Batavs, Kanninefats, Frisians, Frisiavons, Ubies, Sturii, Marsaks), without classifying them.

According to Tacitus the titles " ingevons, hermiones, istevons” came from the names of the sons of the god Mann, the progenitor of the Germanic tribes. After the 1st century, these names are not used, many names of the Germanic tribes disappear, but new ones appear.

History of the Germans

Ancient Germans until the 4th century.

The ancient world for a long time did not know anything about the Germans, separated from them by the Celtic and Scythian-Sarmatian tribes. For the first time, the Greek navigator Pytheas from Massalia (modern Marseilles) mentioned the Germanic tribes, who during the time of Alexander the Great (2nd half of the 4th century BC) traveled to the shores of the North Sea, and even presumably the Baltic.

The Romans clashed with the Germans during the formidable invasion of the Cimbri and Teutons (113-101 BC), who, during the resettlement from Jutland, devastated the Alpine Italy and Gaul. Contemporaries perceived these Germanic tribes as hordes of northern barbarians from unknown distant lands. In the description of their manners, made by later authors, it is difficult to separate fiction from reality.

The earliest ethnographic information about the Germans was reported by Julius Caesar, who conquered by the middle of the 1st century. BC e. Gaul, as a result of which he went to the Rhine and faced the Germans in battles. Roman legions towards the end of the 1st c. BC e. advanced to the Elbe, and in the 1st century, works appeared that described in detail the resettlement of the Germanic tribes, their social structure and customs.

The wars of the Roman Empire with the Germanic tribes began from their earliest contact and continued with varying intensity throughout the first centuries AD. e. The most famous battle was the battle in the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, when the rebel tribes exterminated 3 Roman legions in central Germany. Rome failed to gain a foothold behind the Rhine, in the 2nd half of the 1st century the empire went on the defensive along the line of the Rhine and Danube rivers, repelling the raids of the Germans and making punitive campaigns in their lands. Raids were made along the entire border, but the Danube became the most threatening direction, where the Germans settled along its entire length on its left bank during their expansion to the south and east.

In the 250s-270s, the Roman-Germanic wars called into question the very existence of the empire. In 251, Emperor Decius died in a battle with the Goths, who settled in the northern Black Sea region, followed by their devastating land and sea raids into Greece, Thrace, and Asia Minor. In the 270s, the empire was forced to abandon Dacia (the only Roman province on the left bank of the Danube) due to the increased pressure of the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes. The empire held out, consistently repulsing the attacks of the barbarians, but in the 370s the Great Migration of Nations began, during which the Germanic tribes penetrated and gained a foothold in the lands of the Roman Empire.

Great Migration of Nations. 4th-6th centuries

The Germanic kingdoms in Gaul showed strength in the war against the Huns. Thanks to them, Attila was stopped on the Catalaunian fields in Gaul, and soon the Hunnic empire, which included a number of eastern Germanic tribes, collapsed. Emperors in Rome itself in 460-470. commanders from the Germans were appointed, first sev Ricimer, then Burgundian Gundobad. In fact, they ruled on behalf of their henchmen, overthrowing those if the emperors tried to act independently. In 476, the German mercenaries who made up the army of the Western Empire, led by Odoacer, deposed the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustus. This event is formally considered the end of the Roman Empire.

The social structure of the ancient Germans

social order

According to ancient historians, ancient German society consisted of the following social groups: military leaders, elders, priests, combatants, free members of the tribe, freedmen, slaves. The supreme power belonged to the people's assembly, which was attended by all the men of the tribe in military weapons. In the first centuries A.D. e. the Germans had a tribal system at its late stage of development.

“When a tribe wages an offensive or defensive war, then officials are elected who have the duties of military leaders and who have the right to dispose of the life and death of [members of the tribe] ... When one of the first persons in the tribe declares in the popular assembly his intention to lead [in ] and calls on those who want to follow him to express their readiness for this - then rise those who approve of both the enterprise and the leader, and, greeted by those assembled, promise him their help.

The leaders were supported by voluntary donations from members of the tribe. In the 1st century, the Germans have kings who differ from leaders only in the possibility of inheriting power, which is very limited in peacetime. As Tacitus observed: They choose kings from the most distinguished, leaders from the most valiant. But their kings do not have unlimited and undivided power.»

Economic relations

Language and writing

It is believed that these magical signs became the letters of the runic script. The name of the rune signs is derived from the word secret(Gothic runa: mystery), and the English verb read(read) derived from the word guess. Futhark alphabet, the so-called "elder runes", consisted of 24 characters, which were a combination of vertical and oblique lines, convenient for cutting. Each rune not only conveyed a separate sound, but was also a symbolic sign that carried a semantic meaning.

There is no single point of view on the origin of the Germanic runes. The most popular version is runologist Marstrander (1928), who suggested that the runes developed on the basis of an unidentified Northern Italic alphabet, which became known to the Germans through the Celts.

In total, about 150 items are known (details of weapons, amulets, tombstones) with early runic inscriptions of the 3rd-8th centuries. One of the earliest inscriptions raunijaz: "testing") on a spearhead from Norway dates back to c. 200 year. , an even earlier runic inscription is considered to be an inscription on a bone crest, preserved in a swamp on the Danish island of Funen. The inscription is translated as harja(name or epithet) and dates from the 2nd half of the 2nd century.

Most inscriptions consist of a single word, usually a name, which, in addition to the magical use of runes, makes about a third of the inscriptions indecipherable. The language of the oldest runic inscriptions is closest to the Proto-Germanic language and more archaic than Gothic, the earliest Germanic language recorded in written monuments.

Due to its predominantly cult purpose, runic writing fell out of use in continental Europe by the 9th century, supplanted first by Latin, and then by writing based on the Latin alphabet. However, in Denmark and Scandinavia, runes were used until the 16th century.

Religion and beliefs

see also

• Slavic peoples

Notes

1. Strabo, 7.1.2
2. Tacitus, "On the origin of the Germans and the location of Germany"
3. Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 1966
4. Posidonius (135-51 BC): his fragment (fr. 22) on the Germans from the book. 13 is known in a quotation from Athenaeus (Deipnosophists, 4.153).
5. Schlette F. Frühe Völker in Mitteleuropa. Archaeologische Kulturen und ethnische Gemeinschaften des I. Jahrtausends v.u.Z. // Frühe Völker m Mitteleuropa. - Berlin. - 1988.
6. Diodorus in the book. 5.2 mentions the Cimbri tribe, the tribes beyond the Rhine, the amber-collecting tribes. He refers them all to the Celts and to the Gauls.
7. V. N. Toporov. Indo-European languages. Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1990. - S. 186-189
8. T. I. Alekseeva, Slavs and Germans in the light of anthropological data. VI, 1974, No. 3; V. P. Alekseev, Yu. V. Bromley, On the question of the role of the autochthonous population in the ethnogenesis of the South Slavs. VII International Congress of Slavists. Moscow, 1973
9. The theory of the ancient European linguistic community was formulated in the middle of the 20th century by the German linguist G. Krae based on the analysis of ancient European hydronyms (river names).
10. Pure toponomics characterizes both the autochthonous nature of the population in a given territory and the seizure of this territory by force, associated with the destruction or expulsion of the indigenous population.
11. A. L. Mongait. Archeology of Western Europe. Bronze and Iron Ages. Ch. Germans. Ed. "Science", 1974
12. Periodization of the early Iron Age in Germany based on materials from excavations in Lower Saxony: Beldorf, Wessenstedt (800-700 BC), Tremsbuttel (700-600 BC), Jastorf (600-300 BC AD), Ripdorf (300-150 BC), Seedorf (150-0 BC).
13. A. L. Mongait. Archeology of Western Europe. Bronze and Iron Ages. Ed. Science, 1974, p. 331
14. G. Schwantes. Die Jastorf-Zivilisation. - Reinecke-Festschnft. Mainz, 1950: the emergence of a linguistic community of the Germans dates back to the time not earlier than the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e.
15. A. L. Mongait. Archeology of Western Europe. Bronze and Iron Ages. Ed. Science, 1974, p. 325
16. Family Tree DNA R1a Project