n as yet unexplored by the Romans. In point of dress there
is no distinction between the sexes, except that the garment of the
women is frequently made of linen, adorned with purple stains, but
without sleeves, leaving the arms and part of the bosom uncovered."

The Germanic Tribes

It is also from Tacitus that we glean what were the names and
descriptions of those tribes who occupied the territory adjacent to the
Rhine. The basin of the river between Strassburg and Mainz was inhabited
by the Tribacci, Nemetes, and Vangiones, further south by the Matiacci
near Wiesbaden, and the Ubii in the district of Cologne. Further north
lay the Sugambri, and the delta of the river in the Low Countries was
the seat of the brave Batavii, from whom came the bulk of the legions by
means of which Agricola obtained a footing in far Caledonia. Before the
Roman invasion of their territories these tribes were constantly engaged
in internecine warfare, a condition of affairs not to be marvelled at
when we learn that at their tribal councils the warrior regarded as
an inspired speaker was he who was most powerfully affected by the
potations in which all habitually indulged to an extent which seemed to
the cultured Roman as bestial in the last degree. The constant bearing
of arms, added to their frequent addiction to powerful liquors, also
seemed to render the Germanic warriors quarrelsome to excess, and to
provoke intertribal strife.

The Romans in the Rhine Country

Caesar is the first Roman writer to give us any historical data
concerning the peoples who inhabited the basin of the Rhine. He
conquered the tribes on the left bank, and was followed a generation or
so later by Augustus, who established numerous fortified posts on the
river. But the Romans never succeeded in obtaining a firm occupancy of
the right bank. Their chief object in colonizing the Rhine territory
was to form an effective barrier between themselves and the restless
barbarian tribes of the Teutonic North, the constant menace of whose
invasion lay as a canker at the heart of rich and fruitful Italy. With
the terror of a barbarian inroad ever before their eyes, the cohorts of
the Imperial City constructed a formidable vallum, or earthen wall, from
the vicinity of Linz to Regensburg, on the Danube, a distance of three
hundred and fifty miles, for the purpose of raising a barrier against
the advance of the warlike men of the North. They further planted a
colony of veteran