Costume of the Early Teuton

The personal appearance of these barbarians was as rude and simple as were their manners.  Says Tacitus: 

“The clothing in use is a loose mantle, made fast with a clasp, or, when that cannot be had, with a thorn.  Naked in other respects, they loiter away whole days by the fireside.  The rich wear a garment, not, indeed, displayed and flowing, like the Parthians or the people of Sarmatia, but drawn so tight that the form of the limbs is palpably expressed.  The skins of wild animals are also much in use.  Near the frontier, on the borders of the Rhine, the inhabitants wear them, but with an air of neglect that shows them altogether indifferent about the choice, The people who live more remote, near the northern seas, and have not acquired by commerce a taste for new-fashioned apparel, are more curious in the selection.  They choose particular beasts and, having stripped off the furs, clothe themselves with the spoil, decorated with parti-coloured spots, or fragments taken from the skins of fish that swim the ocean 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