man ladies of fashion. Ovid and other poets
mention how the Roman ladies tried to change their black hair to German
blond. The _rutilce comce_ of Tacitus, became a valued Roman article of
trade. In Heinrich von Kleist's drama, _Die Hermannschlacht_,
Thusnelda's revenge upon the Roman general Ventidius hinges upon an
intercepted letter of his, containing a lock of her golden hair obtained
by ruse, and sent to his Roman princess:

"Varus, O princess, stands with seven legions
Victorious on Cheruscan land:
Cheruscan land, mind well, where those locks do grow,
Shining like gold and soft like Roman silk.
Now mindful of the word spoken in jest by thee,
When last thou saw'st me parting for the war:
I send a lock of hair destined for thee,
When Hermann falls, to clip from his queen's head.
By Styx! the trader by the capitol can't offer it:
It's a love token from the foremost lady of the land:
The Princess of Cheruscia herself."
(H. S.)

The blue eyes, described by the Roman witnesses as full of fire and
chaste defiance, the white rose cheeks and the strong, well-proportioned
form make almost ideal the beauty of the German woman when undefiled by
foreign admixture. Emphatically does Tacitus state that the German
tribes not taking in foreign blood became a genuine, unmixed nation,
similar only to themselves (_Germanice populos, nullis aliis aliarum
nationum connubiis infectos, propriam et sinceram et tantum sui simikm
gentem exstitisse._)

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 pictu