The Romans of Latium were short, dark men of the wine-loving lands. Their great strength lay in their courage, and in their power of faithfulness, their intelligent, disciplined acting together for one united purpose. They conquered practically the whole civilised world of their day, and they seemed to have, as the Englishmen of this period, a constitution that would stand any climate, whether it was snowy Scotland or the burning sands of the East.
But the Romans never conquered Germany, their power never stretched far beyond the Rhine. The great Teutonic race seemed the indomitable opposite of the Romans. These short, energetic, dark-eyed men looked with astonishment at the huge, naked fair limbs of the men from the northern forests, at fresh, fierce faces with their blue eyes, and at the yellow hair — or the hair dyed bright red. These almost naked, big, white-skinned men lay and lounged about in an abandoned indolence, when no warfare was at hand: whereas the Romans were always spruce and aware of their conduct. So the latter looked with surprise and disgust at the sight of the great fair warriors lying about in the dirt, their limbs all soiled, their minds utterly indifferent and negligent. But still more impressed were the legions of Rome when these same huge, indolent warriors in warfare hurled forward like a great massive storm, flinging themselves with all their weight upon the wall of Roman iron, the locked shields, the swords and spears.
In the reign of Augustus the Romans suffered some terrible losses in the dark forests of Germany. But in the next reign the great general Germanicus inflicted severe defeats on the Germans. So the warfare went on, incessantly almost, for five hundred years. When it came to a battle, the Romans, with their iron-clad bodies and their perfect discipline, nearly always defeated the great naked hosts of Germans, destroying the barbarians in numbers. But when it came to following up these barbarians, through swamps and dark forests, to their homes, their camps, then the Romans were at a disadvantage. Brave as they were, the veterans were filled with mysterious fear when they found themselves in the dark., cold gloom of Germany, the northern savage land. They felt they had gone beyond their natural limits. So the Roman power never really extended across the Rhine.
The two opposite races of Europe had now met. The dark-eyed, swarthy, wine-loving men from the sunny lands met with the fierce, blue-eyed men, and the two could never understand one another, never meet and mix. It is as if the white-skinned men of the Germanic races were born from the northern sea, the heavy waters, the white snow, the yellow wintry sun, the perfect beautiful blue of ice. They had the fierceness and strength of the northern oceans, the keenness of ice. And thus they resisted the Romans, children of the sun.
The Romans first knew of Germany as the land whence the amber came: for in Rome amber was much esteemed. And as merchants are often the first explorers, so it was probably Roman and Phoenician traders who first penetrated the savage regions of Germany, even to the grey, forbidding shores of the Baltic, where amber was found in the greatest quantities. For amber is the fossilised resin of huge pine-trees that perished in one of the world’s previous days. These traders no doubt gave presents to the wild Germans, of small bronze or iron ware — and then, if they returned alive, they came back rich men, having pieces of amber that would sell for a fortune in the markets of Rome. And they came back with strange stories of the unknown dark lands of the north.
By Germany, in that time, was meant all the land north of the Rhine. How far it stretched no one knew. But the Romans knew of a far-off northern sea, with great islands — beyond which lay the everlasting ice. Probably the northern sea was the Baltic, and the huge islands the Scandinavian Peninsula, and Jutland.
In the north of Germany were huge flat lands, often wet, swampy, impassable, through which wandered the great rivers Rhine or Rhenus Flux, Weser or Visurgis, and Elbe or Albis. To the south, however, the whole country was covered by a vast forest of dark fir and pine trees, tracts of which still remain. This Hercynian forest created the greatest impression on the Roman imagination.
No one knew how far it stretched. German-natives who had travelled through it had gone on for sixty days without coming to the end of it. In the illimitable shadow the pine-trunks rose up bare, the ground was brown with pine-needles, there was no undergrowth. A great silence pervaded everywhere, not broken by the dense whisper of the wind above. Between these shadowy trunks flitted deer, reindeer with branching horns ran in groups, or the great elk, with his massive antlers, stood darkly alone and pawed the ground, before he trotted away into the deepening shadow of trunks. In places fir-trees, like enormous Christmas-trees, stood packed close together, their dark green foliage impenetrable. Then the pines would begin again. Or there were beeches in great groves, and elder- bushes here and there: or again a stream or pond, where many bushes grew green and flowery, or big, heathy, half- open stretches covered with heather and whortleberries or cranberries. Across these spaces flew the wild swans, and the fierce, wild bull stood up to his knees in the swamp. Then the forest closed round again, the never-ending dark fir-trees, where the tusked wild boar ran rooting and bristling in the semi-darkness under the shadows, ready to fight for his life with the grey, shadowy wolves which would sometimes encircle him.
Winter camc early. In October the first snow began to sprinkle down. And then for months the unending forests lay under snow, branches tore and cracked, reindeer pawed the snow to come at the moss or herbage, wolves ran in packs threading their way between the trunks, and the great bear lay curled up asleep in his hole. Meanwhile the perishing German natives would creep forth to hunt, braving the cold with their half-covered limbs.
It seems that the climate of North Europe was colder then than now. In those days great armies of Romans marched across the frozen Rhine, rolling their ponderous baggage- wagons on the ice. This could never happen now, the river does not freeze to this extent. The reindeer, also, which roamed the northern swamps and the Hercynian forests, now cannot live even round the southern Baltic. He must go much farther north, or he dies of warmth. Again, we are told that the wine of the Romans froze into lumps in the German camps. Now, in these very regions the vine grows. Perhaps the clearing of swamps and forests has made the difference, perhaps there is a change in the world.
In their camps along the Rhine the Roman soldiers, surrounded by the frozen, cracking darkness, told terrible stories of the land confronting them, stories of wolves, and growling bears, and the sudden, ferocious bull; stories of lurking, deadly Germans; stories of horrible sacrifices in groves dark as night; stories of demons that howled through the trees in the blackness, of wolves that turned into ghastly, blood-drinking women — and so on. So that tales of the black Hercynian forest thrilled the ears of the Romans, far off in Rome, in Antioch. The burning deserts of the East and the semi-tropical jungles did not impress the Roman imagination as did this northern forest.
Throughout the wild, icy Germany lived many separate tribes of Germans, some in the plains to the north, some among the hills, some deep in the forests. But wherever they were, they did not live in towns or close-clustered villages. The primitive German did not love his neighbours. He liked to have a space around himself. And therefore, between the tribes were wide border-lands of waste, dreary desert, swamps, or hills, or impenetrable forest, utterly uninhabited. So the tribes felt the pride of their own isolation.
And even individuals felt the same need for space or distance. When a German was going to build a house, he looked round for some pleasant spot, by a stream or spring — for he loved running water — or in a corner of a heath, or in a dry meadow among the swamps, and here, quite alone, he fixed his dwelling. With the help of his servants or slaves, and his women-folk, he made a round timber hut of poles driven into the ground, thatching this with straw or reeds, leaving a hole in the roof for the escape of the smoke. Here he lived with his family and his servants, until one wished to marry. Then the serf or slave would build a hut for himself at some little distance from his master. In the hut the man lay, in chilly weather when there was no fighting
to be done, stretched out on the earth by the hearth; children rolled naked in the dirt, serfs’ and masters’ children all together, indistinguishable; the woman prepared food or spun flax, or idled likewise. When they were warm the men and young people went quite naked; the women had a long linen chemise that left the arms and breast bare. In colder weather all had a cloak, fastened with a pin or a thorn, leaving the rest of the body uncovered. But in very cold weather they wrapped cloths or skins around their limbs, binding them close with long crossed straps. The wealthiest often were clothed in linen trousers, wrapped close to their limbs with straps or coloured bands and tied close round the waist with another band, over a close shirt. The Germans, unlike the Romans, never were long, loose robes, but liked a clothing that followed the form of the body. The women wore their hair long. In some tribes, the man must leave his hair and beard uncut, till he had slain his first foe, when he cut short his hair and shaved his beard. Some warriors kept a long, loose tail of hair, which they dyed red; some coiled their long hair carefully in a knot at the back of the head. Some were proud of their appearance, having beautifully sewn cloaks and garments of soft fur, soft fox- furs bordered by the spotted otter, or by ermine, white shirts with purple border-edges, and linen cloaks with colours. Some also plastered their houses with bright earths or colours in decoration.
Their wealth consisted in small, ugly cattle, horses, slaves, weapons. Weapons, slaves, horses: these were the dearest possessions, and they were bequeathed by a father, not to his eldest son, but to the bravest.
Slavery, however, was not in Germany what it was in Rome. In Germany a slave was a captive from another tribe, taken in war — or the child of such captives. But he was a free man living his own independent life, not a piece of human cattle, owned body and soul, as in Rome. A slave in Germany had his own house and family, his own possessions, he lived his own life. Merely he must do some work for his owner, pay some tribute of cheese or meat or leather, tend the cattle, and fight when called upon. Indeed he was more like a peasant than a slave.
Life was very careless. In summer the cattle roamed about feeding in the marshes or on the forest edge, and little patches of barley were grown. Then the people had meat, rough cheese, and a porridge of barley, and berries — there was no bread. The chief food was meat. In a bad winter, however, many cattle died of starvation, there was no corn, the people suffered. Then the warriors hunted, or lay inert by the hearth, drinking barley beer while it lasted, or gambling with one another in the chief’s house, or lying motionless in a sort of despair. The poor often dug out underground dwellings where they could huddle in winter for warmth, lying long days without moving, when cold and starvation was upon them. But the wiser and richer made suitable provision of meat and barley, and could keep warm and merry in their houses.
The German love of freedom and separateness would not endure either service or control. What chiefs they had were war-leaders, chosen from among the bravest warriors. In times of peace the people did as they liked. They only had councils to decide what was to be done on some important occasion. To the council came the warriors, fully armed. They sat in a circle in the open air, drinking from wooden pots filled with beer, and listening to the chief, or the old wise man, or the priest, who was speaking in the centre. When the speech was warlike and fierce, they clashed their spears on their shields in approval. When it was peace-provoking, cowardly as they termed it, a low, harsh ‘ burrr ...” of displeasure went round the circle. And so they settled the questions of war and peace, life and death.
War was the great business, fame the chief reward. The warriors cared little for possessions. They wanted to own famous weapons, good horses, a few slaves: for the rest, they kept hold on nothing. The land belonged to everybody and nobody, it was shared afresh every year. Agriculture was scorned. Fighting was the business of life: after that, hunting: after that, feasting and drinking and hearing songs of bravery. Nothing else mattered. Life was not made for producing. It was made for fierce contest and struggle of destruction, the glory of the struggle of opposition.
The women were the same as the men. Marriage was sacred, and the woman was deeply respected, even revered. But she, too, cared only for the glory won in battle. The greatest warrior, the man who had killed most enemies in battle, he was the greatest man, and to him the women looked with the greatest admiration or respect.
The warriors were by turns lazy and violent. Half their time they would he by the hearth in the huts, or on the grass out of doors, drinking their beer till they were drunk, or gambling together, or feasting, eating huge masses of meat in the wooden hall of the chief man, or watching the naked youths dance amid sharp spears, swift and agile in the dangerous play. And then, at length, suddenly sick or surfeited of this stupid business, they would leap up, sound the horn, and dash out to the hunt of bears, boars, or deer; or better still, they would gather for war.
Above all things, they loved fighting. They were wild with joy when the signal came, and they could gather together to go to war with some other tribe, or some other race, or with the Romans. Then, naked, or wearing little cloaks, and carrying the precious shield and spear, they marched through the forest tracks, or over the plains or hills. Their shields of wood or osier were painted bright in different colours, and were the most treasured possessions. If a warrior lost his shield he was disgraced for ever. He had far better lose his life. Spears also were valuable. Iron was scarce, and therefore a narrow, sharp spear-head was a thing to treasure.
Sometimes a number of warriors rode on their rough horses, to form the cavalry; and if the journey was a long one, the wives with their children followed behind, to attend to their husbands. For the women were trained to be as brave and fierce as their warriors. Honour was everything; and honour in a man meant having killed the greatest number of enemies. To be brave, to be feared as a terrible fighter, to have honourable wounds, this was the best a man could hope for. Nothing else really counted. The bravest and fiercest and most cunning in war were chosen chiefs, the young men served their chief with their lives. If he died they were all killed fighting round him. If he survived they went with him to his house, and feasted with him.
When they drew near the enemy they formed their battle-array. In front were all the picked youth of all the nation. These would fight on foot along with the cavalry. The army began to sound its battle chant, a loud, harsh kind of song, droning and rising to a loud roar. The warriors would put their concave shields to their mouths, to make the sound reverberate more fully. And then, with a great cry, suddenly they would fling their spears with wild force on the enemy, hurling themselves forward. The naked youths of the front were swift as the horses; they leapt and swerved like the wind, darting and stabbing with their spears, and sheltering themselves with their shields, ever surging after the wild, fearless leader. But it is terrible to think what must have happened as they hurled their naked bodies against the iron wall of Roman shields, and their spears against the iron helmets and cuirasses of the legions. The wonder is that they achieved as much success as they did, through their fearless, terrible daring, and their onrush like the wind.
Feeling themselves repulsed, they would flee as swiftly as they advanced, only to form again, and whirl once more wildly to the attack. If they broke, however, and came running towards the women and followers in the rear, then the German wives would bare their bosoms and ask for death rather than disgrace. They would drive their husbands back to the battle, and even fight fiercely along with the men. When it was over, wives and mothers would command their husbands to show their wounds. And the women rejoiced when they had to dress many honourable wounds on the bodies of their fighters; they mourned if their sons were unscathed.
These battles would sometimes follow one another in swift succession, and the losses were enormous. How could they be otherwise. The naked dead piled the fields. But there was little lamentation. It was honour, after all, to die fighting. The men were silent, thinking of the slain; the women wailed the
death-song. But they did not forget. In the long nights of winter, as they lay round the hearth, the men spoke with praise and regret of the brave dead.
Returning from battle to their homes, the council would give cattle, horses, and land, or slaves, to the chief who was bravest in the war. He, in his turn, would give the blood-stained spear to his bravest young man, to another a horse, or the clasp of a cloak. And the young warriors lived and ate at the chief’s large hut, sleeping on the floor of his hall. This was all their reward, all their earning. For there was no money or riches. The days lapsed into sloth after war, for warriors never worked. They fought, hunted, and feasted: it was for slaves, old people, women, or weak men to labour, tilling the soil, tending cattle, growing flax, making linen, preparing skins, food, fodder, and fire-wood. The brave told tales of battle, or listened to a bard who could sing the stories of heroes. And they drank till they fell all drunk, and woke to drink again, to gamble, to sing, to hear stories, to watch the dance.
Gambling was the greatest vice — that and drunkenness. Men whose lives are not given to some form of production or creation must for ever live by risk, the chance of loss and danger. When the joy of war is taken from them, and they have no more the keen stimulant of the risk of losing their own lives, of taking another life, then they must fight the peaceful contest in gambling, risking their all for a chance of taking all. This is the passion of a non- producing, eternally-opposing people. And the German warriors in their peace days would gamble away house, horses, weapons, slaves, wife, children, clothes, then an arm, then a leg, till they had gambled everything, including their whole person, into slavery. And then they would serve as slaves, until perhaps the chance of war gave them freedom and property again.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 896