The physical beauty of the ancient German woman was heightened by the fashion of her garments, though Tacitus relates that these were not essentially different from those of man. Despite the assertion of the historian, we do not doubt that a touch of innocent vanity was present: a cloak of skin or fur, held together by a gold buckle, or, in the case of the poor and lowly, by a thorn, constituted the outer garment. This usually covered a linen, purple-edged undergarment, somewhat like the Roman tunic, which, by its cut, left the arms, neck, and the upper breast uncovered. The question of dress is so interesting and so indicative not only of the state of civilization of any people, but also of their moral characteristics and habits, that works like Weiss's _Kostumkunde_, and Falke's _Deutsche Trachten und Modenwelt_, with the object lessons of good pictures, shed a flood of light upon the subsequent stages of the evolution of dress. The scanty clothing of the early historical period was chiefly for out-of-door use; it gave way to absolute nakedness at the hearth-fire of home, as well as at the common bathing of the two sexes. Cæsar's account of the sexual life of the Germans of his time is of great importance to our theme. Says the imperial historian: "It is a matter of the highest praise to the youth of a people whose minds, from early childhood, had been directed to strenuous conditions and warlike efforts, to remain sexually undeveloped as long as possible, since this made the body stately and vigorous, and strengthened the muscles. It was a disgrace for a youth to know a woman before his twentieth year. Nor could such things be kept secret, since both sexes bathed together in the rivers, and had only furs as garments, which left the body, to a large part, naked." Their garments, as described above, remained, on the whole, unchanged for centuries; even until about the time of the Prankish kings. The upper body was free, though often cloaked, the lower body clothed in trousers, _braccce_, the genuine manly German garment, and it is thus clothed that we meet their men in the first historic records. In winter a sagum, mantle, was added, according to Tacitus and Pomponius Mela. We have in plastic art only two pictorial reproductions: the so-called _Vienna gemma_, Augustus's Pannonian triumph, and the _Parisian gemma_, Germanicus's triumph, to show us objectively the vestments of the ancient Germans.