Tacitus wrote a century and a half after Julius Caesar when the tribes had become better known the Romans; hence we get from him more detailed information. From him we learn that both the Sitones--a people of northern Germany--and the British often bestowed the royal power on women, a circumstance which aroused the strong contempt of Tacitus, who was in this respect of a conservative mind.[291] The Romans had, indeed, good reason to remember with sorrow the valiant Boadicea, queen of the Britons.[292] Regarding the Germans Tacitus wrote a whole book in which he idealises that nation as a contrast to the lax morality of civilised Rome, much as Rousseau in the eighteenth century extolled the virtues of savages in a state of nature. What Tacitus says in regard to lofty morals we shall do well to take with a pinch of salt; but we may with more safety trust his accuracy when he depicts national customs. From Tacitus we learn that the Germans believed something divine resided in women[293]; hence their respect for them as prophetesses.[294] One Velaeda by her soothsaying ruled the tribe of Bructeri completely[295] and was regarded as a goddess,[296] as were many others.[297] The German warrior fought his best that he might protect and please his wife.[298] The standard of conjugal fidelity was strict[299]; men were content with one wife, although high nobles were sometimes allowed several wives as an increase to the family prestige.[300] The dowry was brought not by the wife to the husband, but to the wife by the husband--evidently a survival of the custom of wife purchase; but the wife was accustomed to present her husband with arms and the accoutrements of war.[301] She was reminded that she took her husband for better and worse, to be a faithful partner in joy and sorrow until death.[302] A woman guilty of adultery was shorn and her husband drove her naked through the village with blows.[303] [Sidenote: The written laws of the barbarians.]