[12] A later law of the Salian Franks imposed a fine of 120 denarii upon any man who should accuse another of throwing down his shield and running away, without being able to prove it [see [p. 64]].
[13] Many of the western tribes at the time Tacitus wrote did not have kings, though in eastern Germany the institution of kingship seems to have been quite general. The office, where it existed, was elective, but the people rarely chose a king outside of a privileged family, assumed to be of divine origin.
[14] Evidently these were not images of their gods, for in another place (Chap. 9) Tacitus tells us that the Germans deemed it a dishonor to their deities to represent them in human form. The images were probably those of wild beasts, as the wolf of Woden (or Odin), or the ram of Tyr, and were national standards preserved with religious care in the sacred groves, whence they were brought forth when the tribe was on the point of going to war.
[15] The German popular assembly was simply the periodical gathering of free men in arms for the discussion and decision of important points of tribal policy. It was not a legislative body in the modern sense. Law among the Germans was immemorial custom, which, like religion, could be changed only by a gradual shifting of popular belief and practice. It was not "made" by any process of deliberate and immediate choice. Nevertheless, the assembly constituted an important democratic element in the government, which operated in a measure to offset the aristocratic element represented by the principes and comitatus [see [p. 28]]. Its principal functions were the declaring of war and peace, the election of the kings, and, apparently, the hearing and deciding of graver cases at law.
[16] This relation of principes (chiefs) and comites (companions) is mentioned by Cæsar [see [p. 22]]. The name by which the Romans designated the band of companions, or followers, of a German chieftain was comitatus.
[17] Apparently the Germans did not now care much more for agriculture than in the time of Cæsar. The women, slaves, and old men sowed some seeds and gathered small harvests, but the warrior class held itself above such humble and unexciting employment. The raising of cattle afforded a principal means of subsistence, though hunting and fishing contributed considerably.
[18] Compare the Germans and the North American Indians in this respect. The great contrast between these two peoples lay in the capacity of the one and the comparative incapacity of the other for development.
[19] The Germans had no system of taxation on land or other property, such as the Romans had and such as we have to-day. It was not until well toward the close of the Middle Ages that the governments of kingdoms built up by Germanic peoples in western Europe came to be maintained by anything like what we would call taxes in the modern sense.
[20] The lack of cities and city life among the Germans struck Tacitus with the greater force because of the complete dominance of city organization to which he, as a Roman, was accustomed. The Greek and Roman world was made up, in the last analysis, of an aggregation of civitates, or city states. Among the ancient Greeks these had usually been independent; among the Romans they were correlated under the greater or lesser control of a centralized government; but among the Germans of Tacitus's time, and long after, the mixed agricultural and nomadic character of the people effectually prevented the development of anything even approaching urban organization. Their life was that of the forest and the pasture, not that of forum, theatre, and circus.
[21] That is, on the Rhine, where traders from the south brought in wines and other Roman products. The drink which the Germans themselves manufactured was, of course, a kind of beer.