History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
improvements sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of
the cold. These immense woods have been gradually cleared, which
intercepted from the earth the rays of the sun. The morasses have
been drained, and, in proportion as the soil has been cultivated,
the air has become more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an
exact picture of ancient Germany. Although situated in the same
parallel with the finest provinces of France and England, that
country experiences the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very
numerous, the ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and
the great river of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season
when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from
ice.
It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the
influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and
bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have
allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,
that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life
and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the
human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate
climates. We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen
air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the
natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the
people of the South, gave them a kind of strength better adapted
to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired them
with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves and
spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the
courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy
children of the North, who, in their turn, were unable to resist
the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and sickness
under the beams of an Italian sun.
Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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