CHAPTER II.
SOME of the accounts which we receive respecting the
Cimbri are not worthy of credit, while others seem likely
enough: for instance, no one could accept the reason given
for their wandering life and piracy, that, dwelling on a peninsula, they were driven out of their settlements by a very high
tide;
1 for they still to this day possess the country which
they had in former times, and have sent as a present to Au-
gustus the caldron held most sacred by them, supplicating his
friendship, and an amnesty for past offences; and having obtained their request, they returned home. Indeed, it would
have been ridiculous for them to have departed from their
country in a pet, on account of a natural and constant phenomenon, which recurs twice every day. It is likewise evidently a fiction, that there ever occurred an overwhelming
flood-tide, for the ocean, in the influences of this kind which
it experiences, receives a certain settled and periodical increase and decrease.
2 Neither is it true, as has been related,
3 that the Cimbri take arms against the flood-tides, or that the
Kelts, as an exercise of their intrepidity, suffer their houses
to be washed away by them, and afterwards rebuild them;
and that a greater number of them perish by water than by
war, as Ephorus relates. For the regular order the flood-tides
observe, and the notoriety of the extent of the country subject to inundation by them, could never have given occasion
for such absurd actions. For the tide flowing twice every
day, how could any one think for an instant that it was not
a natural and harmless phenomenon, and that it occurs not
only on their coasts, but on all others bordering on the ocean?
Is not this quite incredible? Neither is Clitarchus to be
trusted,
4 when he says that their cavalry, on seeing the sea
flowing in, rode off at full speed, and yet scarcely escaped by
flight from being overtaken by the flood; for we know, by
experience, that the tide does not come in with such impetuosity, but that the sea advances stealthily by slow degrees.
And we should think, besides, that a phenomenon of daily
occurrence, which would naturally strike the ear of such as
approached it, before even they could see it with their eyes,
could not by any means terrify them so as to put them to
flight, as if they had been surprised by some unexpected
catastrophe.
[
2]
For such fables as these, Posidonius justly blames these
writers, and not inaptly conjectures that the Cimbri, on account of their wandering life and habits of piracy, might
have made an expedition as far as the countries around the
Palus Mæotis, and that from them has been derived the name
of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, or what we should more correctly denominate the Cimbrian Bosphorus, for the Greeks
call the Cimbri Cimmerii.
He likewise tells us that the Boii formerly inhabited the
Hercynian Forest, and that the Cimbri, having made an incursion into those parts, were repulsed by them, and driven
towards the Danube, and the country occupied by the Scordisci, a Galatic tribe, and from thence to the Tauristæ, or
Taurisci, a people likewise of Galatic origin, and farther to the
Helvetii, who were at that time a rich and peaceful people;
but, perceiving that the wealth of these freebooters far exceeded their own, the Helvetii, and more especially the Tigureni and the Toygeni, associated themselves with their expeditions. But both the Cimbri and their auxiliaries were
vanquished by the Romans, the one part when they crossed
the Alps and came down upon Italy, the others on the other
side of the Alps.
[
3]
It is reported that the Cimbri had a peculiar custom.
They were accompanied in their expeditions by their wives;
these were followed by hoary-headed priestesses,
5 clad in
white, with cloaks of carbasus
6 fastened on with clasps, girt
with brazen girdles, and bare-footed. These individuals,
bearing drawn swords, went to meet the captives throughout
the camp, and, having crowned them, led them to a brazen
vessel containing about 20 amphoræ, and placed on a raised
platform, which one of the priestesses having ascended, and
holding the prisoner above the vessel, cut his throat; then,
from the manner in which the blood flowed into the vessel,
some drew certain divinations; while others, having opened
the corpse, and inspected the entrails, prophesied victory to
their army. In battle too they beat skins stretched on the
wicker sides of chariots, which produces a stunning noise.
[
4]
As we have before stated, the northernmost of the Germans inhabit a country bordering on the ocean; but we are
only acquainted with those situated between the mouths of
the Rhine and the Elbe, of which the Sicambri
7 and Cimbri
8
are the most generally known: those dwelling along the coast
9
beyond the Elbe are entirely unknown to us; for none of the
ancients with whom I am acquainted have prosecuted this
voyage towards the east as far as the mouths of the Caspian
Sea, neither have the Romans as yet sailed coastwise beyond
the Elbe, nor has any one travelling on foot penetrated farther
into this country. But it is evident, by the
climates and the
parallels of distances, that in following a longitudinal course
towards the east we must come to the countries near the
Dnieper, and the regions on the north side of the Euxine.
But as for any particulars as to Germany beyond the Elbe,
or of the countries which lie beyond it in order, whether we
should call them the Bastarnæ, as most geographers suppose,
or whether other nations intervene, such as the Jazyges,
10 or
the Roxolani,
11 or any others of the tribes dwelling in waggons,
it is not easy to give any account. Neither can we say whether these nations extend as far as the [Northern] Ocean,
along the whole distance, or whether [between them and the
Ocean] there are countries rendered unfit for habitation by
the cold or by any other cause; or whether men of a different
race are situated between the sea and the most eastern of the
Germans.
The same uncertainty prevails with regard to the other
nations
12 of the north, for we know neither the Bastarnæ nor
the Sauromatæ;
13 nor, in a word, any of those tribes situate
above the Euxine: we are ignorant as to what distance they
lie from the Atlantic,
14 or even whether they extend as far as
that sea.