But so deeply does the possession of land enter into the principle of all the Teutonic institutions, that I cannot bring myself to believe in the accuracy of Caesar’s statement. Like his previous rash and most unfounded assertion respecting the German gods, this may rest only upon the incorrect information of Gallic provincials: at the utmost it can be applied only to the Suevi and their warlike allies[68], if it be not even intended to be confined to the predatory bands of Ariovistus, encamped among the defeated yet hostile Sequani[69]. The equally well-known passage of Tacitus,—“arva per annos mutant, et superest ager[70],”—may be most safely rendered as applying to the common mode of culture; “they change the arable from year to year, and there is land to spare;” that is, for commons and pasture: but it does not amount to a proof that settled property in land was not a part of the Teutonic scheme; it implies no more than this, that within the Mark which was the property of all, what was this year one man’s corn-land, might the next be another man’s fallow; a process very intelligible to those who know anything of the system of cultivation yet prevalent in parts of Germany, or have ever had any interest in what we call Lammas Meadows. Footnote 68: Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes and Sedusii. Bell. Gall. i. 51. Footnote 69: Bell. Gall. i. 31. Footnote 70: Tac. Germ. 26. Zeuss, whose admirable work[71] is indispensable to the student of Teutonic antiquity, brings together various passages to show that at some early period, the account given by Caesar may have conveyed a just description of the mode of life in Germany[72]. He represents its inhabitants to himself as something between a settled and an unsettled people. What they may have been in periods previous to the dawn of authentic history, it is impossible to say; but all that we really know of them not only implies a much more advanced state of civilization, but the long continuance and tradition of such a state. We cannot admit the validity of Zeuss’ reasoning, or escape from the conviction that it mainly results from a desire to establish his etymology of the names borne by the several confederations, and which requires the hypothesis of wandering and unsettled tribes[73]. Footnote 71: Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, von Kaspar Zeuss. München. 1837. Footnote 72: