To state it as in the pedigree of the individual, the Aryan was the
founder, the father of the family; Slav, Teuton, and Kelt the three
sons. Gaul and Briton were sons of the Kelt; Saxon, Angle, Helvetian,
etc., sons of the Teuton; and all alike grandchildren of the Aryan;
whom--to carry the illustration farther--we may imagine to have had
older children, who long ago had left the paternal home and settled
about the Caspian and Mediterranean seas: Mede, Persian, Greek, Roman;
apparently bearing few marks of kinship to these uncouth younger
brothers whom we have found in Europe in the fourth century B.C., but
with nevertheless the same cradle and the same ancestral roots.
It is the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family with which we have to do
now, between whom and their Keltic brothers there flowed the River
Rhine.
Greece and Rome were unaware of the existence of the Teuton until about
the year 330 B.C., when Pythias, a Greek navigator, came home from a
voyage to the Baltic with terrible tales of the Goths whom he had met.
Nearly one century before Christ the inhabitants of Italy were enabled
to judge for themselves of the accuracy of the description. Driven
from their homes by the inroads of the sea, the Goths poured in a
hungry torrent down into the tempting vineyards of Northern Italy.
Gigantic in stature, with long yellow hair, eyes blue but fierce--what
wonder that the people thought they were scarcely human, and fled
affrighted, leaving them to enjoy the vineyards at their leisure!
Accounts of this uncanny host reached Rome, which soon knew of their
breastplates of iron, their helmets crowned with heads of wild beasts,
their white shields glistening in the sun, and, more terrible than all,
of their priestesses, clad in white linen, who prophesied and offered
human sacrifices to their gods.
But the sacrifices did not avail against the legions which the great
Consul Marius led against them. The ponderous Goth was not yet a match
for the finer skill of the Roman, and the invaders were exterminated on
the plain near Aix, 102 B.C. The women, in despair, slew first their
children, then themselves, a few only surviving to be paraded in chains
at the triumph accorded to Marius on his return to Rome. Such was the
first appearance of the Teuton in the Eternal City, and the last until
five hundred years later, when the conditions were changed.
CHAPTER II.
At the time of this first invasion the German race was divided into
tribes with no affinity for each other, who were indeed much of the
time in fierce conflict among themselves. One of these tribes, called
the Cherusci, occupied the southern part of what is now Hanover. Their
chief, Hermann, had in his youth been taken to Rome as a hostage, and
there had been educated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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