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common. The mark and the hundred, as well as the district, had each its own stated open-air assembly, where were settled the petty local disputes; its members sat together in the tribal assembly, and fought side by side in battle (compare with Greeks, p. 192).

The General Assembly of the tribe was also held in the open air, near some sacred tree, at new or full moon. Hither flocked all the freemen in full armor. The night was spent in noisy discussion and festive carousal. As the great ox-horns of ale or mead were passed from hand to hand, measures of gravest importance were adopted by a ringing clash of weapons or rejected with cries and groans, till the whole forest resounded with the tumult. When the din became intolerable, silence was proclaimed in the name of the gods. The next day the few who were still sober reconsidered the night's debate, and gave a final decision.

The Family was the unit of German society. Every household was a little republic, its head being responsible to the community for its acts. The person and the home were sacred, and no law could seize a man in his own house; in extreme cases, his well might be choked up, and his dwelling fired or unroofed, but no one presumed to break open his door. As each family redressed its own wrongs, a slain kinsman was an appeal to every member for vengeance. The bloody complications to which this system led were in later times mitigated by the weregeld, a legal tariff of compensations by which even a murderer (if not willful) might "stop the feud" by paying a prescribed sum to the injured family (p. 348).

Fellowship in Arms.-The stubbornness with which the German resisted personal coercion was equaled by his zeal as a voluntary follower. From him came the idea of giving service for reward, which afterward expanded into feudalism (p. 408), and influenced European society for hundreds of years. In time of war, young freemen were wont to bind themselves together under a chosen leader, whom they hoisted on a shield, and thus, amid the clash of arms and smoke of sacrifice, formally adopted as their chief. Henceforth they rendered him an unswerving devotion. On the field they were his body-guard, and in peace they lived upon his bounty, sharing in the rewards of victory. For a warrior to return alive from a battle in which his leader was slain was a lifelong disgrace.-These voluntary unions formed the strength of the army. The renown of a successful chief spread to other tribes; presents and embassies were sent to him; his followers multiplied, and his conquests extended until, at last, -as in the Saxon invasions of England, he won for himself a kingdom, and made princes of his bravest liegemen.

The Germans fought with clubs, lances, axes, arrows, and spears. They roused themselves to action with a boisterous war-song, increas

ing the frightful clamor by placing their hollow shields before their faces. Metal armor and helmets were scarce, and shields were made of wood or platted twigs.1 Yet when Julius Cæsar crossed the Rhine, even his iron-clad legions did not daunt these sturdy warriors, who boasted that they upheld the heavens with their lances, and had

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not slept under a roof for years. They fiercely resisted the encroachments of their southern invaders, and when, at the close of the 2d century A. D., the emperor Commodus bought with gold the peace he could not win with the sword, he found that one tribe alone had taken fifty thousand, and another one hundred thousand, Roman prisoners.

The Teutonic Religion encouraged bravery and even recklessness in battle, for it taught that only those who fell by the sword could enter Walhalla, the palace of the great god Woden, whither they

1 What they lacked in armor they made up in pluck and endurance. When the Cimbri invaded Italy by way of the Tyrol (102 B. C.), they stripped their huge bodies and plunged into the frozen snow, or, sitting on their gaudy shields, coasted down the dangerous descents with shouts of savage laughter, while the Romans in the passes below looked on in wondering dismay.

mounted on the rainbow, and where they fought and feasted forever. Those who died of illness or old age went to a land of ice and fogs. The gods-including the sun, moon, and other powers of nature-were worshiped in sacred groves, on heaths and holy mountains, or under single gigantic trees. Human sacrifices were sometimes offered; but the favorite victim, as in ancient Persia, was a horse, the flesh of which was cooked and eaten by the worshipers. In later times the eating of horseflesh became a mark of distinction between heathen and Christian. Our week-days perpetuate the names under which some of the chief Teutonic gods were known. Thus we have the Sun-day, the Moon-day, Tui's day, Woden's day, Thor's day, Freya-day, and Sæter-day.

Agriculture, Arts, and Letters.-Among the forests and the marshes of Germany, the Romans found cultivated fields and rich pastures. There were neither roads nor bridges, but for months in the year the great rivers were frozen so deeply that an army could pass on the ice. From the iron in the mountains the men made domestic, farming, and war utensils, and from the flax in the field the women spun and wove garments. There were rude plows for the farm, chariots for religious rites, and cars for the war-march; but beyond these few simple arts, the Germans were little better than savages.-The time of Christ was near. Over four centuries had passed since the brilliant age of Pericles in Athens, and three centuries since the founding of the Alexandrian library; Virgil and Horace had laid down their pens, and Livy was still at work on his closely written parchments; Rome, rich in the splendor of the Augustan age, was founding libraries, establishing museums, and bringing forth poets, orators, and statesmen; yet the great nation whose descendants were to include Goethe, Shakspere, and Mendelssohn, had not a native book, knew nothing of writing, and shouted its savage war-song to the uproar of rude drums and great blasts on the painted horns of a wild bull.

The Germans in Later Times.-Before even the era of the Great Migration (p. 266), the fifty scattered tribes had become united in vast confederations, chief among which were the Saxons, Allemanni, Burgundians, Goths, Franks, Vandals, and Longobards (Lombards). Led sometimes by their hard forest fare, sometimes by the love of adventure, they constantly sent forth their surplus population to attack and pillage foreign lands. For centuries Germany was like a hive whence ever and anon swarmed vast hordes of hardy warriors, who set out with their families and goods to find a new home. Legions of German soldiers were constantly enlisted to fight under the Roman eagles. The veterans returned home with new habits of thought and life. Their stories of the magnificence and grandeur of the Mistress of the World excited the imagination and kindled the ardor of their listeners. Gradually the Roman civilization and the glory of the Roman

name accomplished what the sword had failed to effect. Around the forts along the Rhine, cities grew up, such as Mayence, Worms, Baden, Cologne, and Strasburg. The frontier provinces slowly took on the habits of luxurious Rome. Merchants came thither with the rich fabrics and ornaments of the south and east, and took thence amber, fur, and human hair,-for, now that so many Germans had acquired fame and power in the imperial army, yellow wigs had become the Roman fashion. Commerce thus steadily filtered down through the northern forests, until at last it reached the Baltic Sea.

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Mohammed.-Now for the first time since the overthrow of Carthage by Scipio (p. 235), a Semitic people comes to the front in history. Early in the 7th century there arose in Arabia a reformer named Mohammed,1 who

1 Mohammed, or Mahomet, was born at Mecca about 570 A. D. Left an orphan at an early age, he became a camel-driver, and finally entered the service of a rich widow named Khadijah. She was so pleased with his fidelity, that she offered him her hand, although she was forty, and he but twenty-five, years old. He was now free to indulge his taste for meditation, and often retired to the desert, spending whole nights in revery. At the age of forty-a mystic number in the East-he declared that the angel Gabriel had appeared to him in a vision, commissioning him to preach a new faith. Khadijah was his first convert. After a time he publicly renounced idol-worship, and proclaimed himself a prophet. Persecution waxed hot, and he was forced to flee for his life. This era is known among the Moslems as the Hegira. Mohammed now took refuge in a cave. His enemies came to the mouth, but, seeing a spider's web across the entrance, passed on in pursuit. The fugitive secured an asylum in Medina, where the new faith spread rapidly, and Mohammed soon found himself at the head of an army. Full of courage and enthusiasm, he aroused his followers to a fanatical devotion. Thus, in the battle of Muta, Jaafer,

taught a new religion. Its substance was, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet." Converts were made by force of arms. "Paradise," said Mohammed, "will be found in the shadow of the crossing of swords." The only choice given the vanquished was the Koran, tribute, or death. Before the close of his stormy life (632), the greenrobed warrior-prophet had subdued the scattered tribes of Arabia, destroyed their idols, and united the people in one nation.

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The Caliphs, or successors of Mohammed, rapidly followed up the triumphs of the new faith. Syria and Palestine were conquered. When Jerusalem opened its gates, Omar, the second caliph, stern and ascetic, rode thither from Medina upon a red-haired camel, carrying a bag of rice, one of dates, and a leathern bottle of water. The mosque bear

when his right hand was struck off, seized the banner in his left, and, when the left was severed, still embraced the flag with the bleeding stumps, keeping his place till he was pierced by fifty wounds.-Mohammed made known his doctrines in fragments, which his followers wrote upon sheep-bones and palm-leaves. His successor, Abou Beker, collected these so-called revelations into the Koran,-the sacred book of the Mohammedans.

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