In this belief our oldest common ancestors, the parent nation of
civilization, the Teutons whom the Romans called Germans, boldly
opposed the advancing world-dominion of the Romans. Did they not then
see before their eyes the higher bloom of the Roman provinces near
them, the more refined enjoyments in them, and, in addition, laws,
judgment-seats, rods, and axes in superabundance? Were not the Romans
willing enough to allow them to share in all these blessings? Did they
not experience, in the case of several of their own princes who had
allowed themselves to be persuaded that war against such benefactors
of humanity was rebellion, proofs of the lauded Roman clemency,
since Rome adorned these submissive lords with kingly titles, with
generalships in their armies, and with Roman fillets, and gave
them, if, perchance, they had been driven out by their compatriots,
maintenance and a place of refuge in their colonies? Had they no
feeling for the advantages of Roman culture, as, for example, for the
better organization of their armies, in which even an Arminius did
not disdain to learn the trade of war? None of all these ignorances
or negligences is to be charged against them. Their descendents even
adopted the culture of the Romans as soon as they could do it without
loss of their freedom and in so far as it was possible without
impairment of their individuality. Why did they, then, thus struggle
for several generations in sanguinary war, ever renewed with the same
virulence? A Roman author makes their leaders ask "whether anything
was then left for them except either to assert their freedom or to die
before they became slaves?" Freedom meant to them that they remained
Germans, that they continued to decide their affairs independently,
in conformity with their national genius, and, likewise in conformity
with this spirit, that they continued to go forward in their
development and transmitted this independence to their posterity;
slavery meant to them all the blessings which the Romans offered them,
because in that case they must be something else than Germans--they
might be half Romans.
Pages:
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126