eir neck, wearing no helmets and without missile weapons
of any sort, but furnished instead with an immense shield, a long
ill-tempered sword, a dagger and a lance, all ornamented with gold,
for they were not unskilful in working in metals. Everything was made
subservient to ostentation--even wounds, which were often enlarged for
the purpose of boasting a broader scar. Usually they fought on foot,
but certain tribes on horseback, in which case every free man was
followed by two attendants, likewise mounted. War-chariots were early
in use, as they were among the Libyans and Hellenes in the earliest
times. Many a trait reminds us of the chivalry of the middle ages,
particularly the custom of single combat, which was foreign to the
Greeks and Romans. Not only were they accustomed in war to challenge
a single enemy to fight, after having previously insulted him by words
and gestures; in peace also they fought with each other in splendid
equipments, as for life or death. After such feats carousals followed
in due course. In this way they led, whether under their own or
a foreign banner, a restless soldier life, constantly occupied in
fighting and in their so-called feats of heroism. They were dispersed
from _Ireland_ and Spain to Asia Minor, but all their enterprises
melted away like snow in spring, and they nowhere created a great
state or developed a distinctive culture of their own.' Such were
the people who once almost terminated the existence of Rome, and were
afterwards with difficulty repulsed from Greece, who became masters of
the most fertile part of Italy and of a fair province in the heart
of Asia Minor, who, after their Italian province had been subdued,
inflicted disastrous blows on successive Roman generals, and were only
at last subjugated by Caesar himself in nine critical and sometimes
most dangerous campaigns, B.C. 51.

Niebuhr observes that at that time the form of government was
everywhere an hereditary monarchy, which, when Caesar went into Gaul,
had been swallowed up, as had the authority of the Senate, in the
anarchy of the nobles. Their freedom was lawlessness; an inherent
incapacity of living under the dominion of laws distinguishes them as
barbarians from the Greeks and Italians. As individuals had to procure
the protection of some magnate in order to live in safety, so the
weaker tribes took shelter under the patronage of a more powerful one.
For they were a disjointed multitude; and when any peopl