The Germania of Tacitus Author:Cornelius Tacitus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: I PROLEGOMENA. xi rest put together. In such a case, it regains its importance; its relative value being thus heightened. And such is the fact. No di... more »fferences of physical appearance, intellectual habits, or moral characteristics will give us the same elements of classification that we find in the study of the Germanic languages and dialects. They may, perhaps, have done so once, when there was a variety of Pagan creeds and several self-evolved and, consequently, characteristic laws. But they do not do so now. A value they have, but that value is a subordinate one. § V. PRESENT DISTRIBUTION AND CLASSIFICATION OF FAMILIES AND NATIONS DESCENDED FROM, OR ALLIED TO, THE s i. l A I r. OF TACITUS. The three great recognized families from which Tacitus separates the Germans, and with which he contrasts them, are —1. The Gauls or Kelts—2. The Finns—3. The Sarmatians : this last term being used, by the present writer, in a more definite sense than the one which it bore with the ancients. Here it comprises the Slavonians of Bohemia, Silesia, Poland, Gal- licia, Russia, Servia, Croatia, Carniola, Hungary, Prussia, and Bulgaria, and something more. It comprises the Lithuanians, Courlanders, Livonians, and Old Prussians as well. The Sarmatians, Finns, and Gauls are the three great recognized families from which Tacitus separates, and with which he contrasts, the Germans. But are they not the only ones ? He notices the Dacians, the Pannonians, and the I H, Hj],tff as well. It is only, however, the Sarmatiaus that at present require a special preliminary investigation. The two primary divisions into which the great Sarmatian stock falls are—1. The Slavonic—2. The Lithuanic. The details of the Lithuanic branch will be found in the sequel. The details of the Slavonic ...« less