Upon the funeral pile they accumulate neither apparel nor
perfumes. Into the fire, are always thrown the arms of the dead, and
sometimes his horse. With sods of earth only the sepulchre is raised. The
pomp of tedious and elaborate monuments they contemn, as things grievous
to the deceased. Tears and wailings they soon dismiss: their affliction
and woe they long retain. In women, it is reckoned becoming to bewail
their loss; in men, to remember it. This is what in general we have
learned, in the original and customs of the whole people of Germany. I
shall now deduce the institutions and usages of the several people, as far
as they vary one from another; as also an account of what nations from
thence removed, to settle themselves in Gaul.
That the Gauls were in times past more puissant and formidable, is related
by the Prince of authors, the deified Julius; [Footnote: Julius Caesar.]
and hence it is probable that they too have passed into Germany. For what
a small obstacle must be a river, to restrain any nation, as each grew
more potent, from seizing or changing habitations; when as yet all
habitations were common, and not parted or appropriated by the founding
and terror of Monarchies? The region therefore between the Hercynian
Forest and the rivers Moenus [Footnote: Main.
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