The World War and What was Behind It | Page 9

that the Romans may have had of conquering all Germany. For the next one hundred and fifty years, Germans and Romans lived apart, each afraid of the other. Then came a time when the Germans again became the attacking party. Other fiercer and wilder peoples, like the Huns, were assailing them in the east and pushing them forward. They finally broke over the Rhine-Danube boundary and poured across the Roman Empire in wave after wave. Some of these tribes were the Vandals, Burgundians, Goths, Franks, and Lombards. The Roman Empire went to pieces under their savage attacks.
Questions for Review
1. Why is it that after nations become civilized, people need less land to live on? 2. Are barbarous tribes more likely to engage in war than civilized peoples? 3. Explain why clubs were the earliest weapons and why the more civilized tribes were better armed than the barbarians. 4. Can a people be said to be civilized when they enjoy bloodshed and are not moved by the sufferings of others? 5. What was it that lowered the morals of the Roman republic? 6. In what way were the Germans better men than the later Romans? 7. What was the religion of the Moors and the Arabs? 8. Why did the German tribes invade the Roman empire?
CHAPTER III
From Chiefs to Kings
The early chief a fighter.--The club the sign of power.--Free men led by a chief of their own choosing.--The first slaves.--Barbarians conquer civilized nations.--A ruling class among conquered people.--All men no longer free and equal.--The value of arms and armor.--The robber chiefs.--How kings first came.--Treaties between tribes follow constant wars.--Tribes unite for protection against enemies.--A king is chosen for the time being.--Some kings refuse to resign their office when the danger is past.--New generations grow up which never knew a kingless state.--The word "king" becomes sacred.
The chiefs of the invading tribes knew no law except the rule of the sword. If they saw anything which they wanted, they took it. Rich cities were plundered at will. They did not admit any man's ownership of anything. In the old days when the tribes were roaming around, there was no private ownership of land. Everything belonged to the tribe in common. Each man had a vote in the council of the tribe.
Among these invaders, as with all barbarous tribes, there was no such thing as an absolute rule. A chief was obeyed because the greater part of his people considered him the best leader in war. Often, no doubt, when a chief had lost a battle and the majority of the tribe had lost confidence in him, he resigned and let them choose a new chief. (For the same reason we frequently hear today that the prime minister, or leader of the government, of some European country has resigned.) In spite of the fact, then, that the chief was stronger than any other man in the tribe, if the majority of his warriors had combined against him to put another man in his place he could not have withstood them. Government, in its beginning, was based upon the consent of the governed. All men in the primitive tribe were equal in rank, except as one was a better fighter than another, and the chief held the leadership in war only because the members of his tribe allowed him to keep it.
[Illustration: A Frankish Chief.]
It must be remembered that in these early days, the people had no fixed place of abode. Their only homes were rude huts which they could put up or tear down at very short notice; and so when they heard of more fertile lands or a warmer climate across the mountains to the south they used to pull up stakes and migrate in a body, never to return. It was always the more savage and uncivilized peoples who were most likely to migrate. The lands which they wished to seize they generally found already settled by other tribes, more civilized and hence more peaceful, occupied in trade and agriculture, having gradually turned to these pursuits from their former habits of hunting and fighting. Sometimes these more civilized and peace-loving people were able, by their better weapons and superior knowledge of the art of fortifying, to beat back the invasion of the immigrating barbarians. Oftener, though, the rougher, ruder tribes were the victors, and settled down among the people they had conquered, to rule them, doing no work themselves, but forcing the conquered ones to feed and clothe them.
[Illustration: Movable Huts of Early Germans]
History is full of instances of such conquests, and they were taking place, no doubt, ages before the times from which our earliest records date. The best examples, however, are to be found in the invasions of the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes to which we have referred