HKB
the day seems to follow the night." (Bell. Gall. vi. 18.) The vestiges of this method of computation still appear in the English language, in the terms se'nnight and fort'night.
[73] Ut turbae placuit. Doederlein interprets this passage as representing the confused way in which the people took their seats in the national assembly, without reference to order, rank, age, &c. It rather represents, however, that the people, not the chieftains, determined when the business of the council should begin.--White.
[74] And in an open plain. Vast heaps of stone still remaining, denote the scenes of these national councils. (See Mallet's Introduct. to Hist. of Denmark.) The English Stonehenge has been supposed a relic of this kind. In these assemblies are seen the origin of those which, under the Merovingian race of French kings, were called the Fields of March; under the Carlovingian, the Fields of May; then, the Plenary Courts of Christmas and Easter; and lastly, the States General.
[75] The speech of Civilis was received with this expression of applause. Tacitus, Hist. iv. 15.
[76] Gibbeted alive. Heavy penalties were denounced against those who should take them down, alive or dead. These are particularized in the Salic law.
[77] By cowards and dastards, in this passage, are probably meant those who, being summoned to war, refused or neglected to go. Caesar (Bell. Gall. vi. 22) mentions, that those who refused to follow their chiefs to war were considered as deserters and traitors. And, afterwards, the emperor Clothaire made the following edict, preserved in the Lombard law: "Whatever freeman, summoned to the defence of his country by his Count, or his officers, shall neglect to go, and the enemy enter the country to lay it waste, or otherwise damage our liege subjects, he shall incur a capital punishment." As the crimes of cowardice, treachery, and desertion were so odious and ignominious among the Germans, we find by the Salic law, that penalties were annexed to the unjust imputation of them.
[78] These were so rare and so infamous among the Germans, that barely calling a person by a name significant of them was severely punished.
[79] Incestuous people were buried alive in bogs in Scotland. Pennant's Tour in Scotland, 1772; part i. p. 351; and part ii. p. 421.
[80] Among these slighter offences, however, were reckoned homicide, adultery, theft, and many others of a similar kind. This appears from the laws of the Germans, and from a subsequent passage of Tacitus himself.
[81] These were at that time the only riches of the country, as was already observed in this treatise. Afterwards gold and silver became plentiful: hence all the mulcts required by the Salic law are pecuniary. Money, however, still bore a fixed proportion to cattle; as appears from the Saxon law (Tit. xviii.): "The Solidus is of two kinds; one contains two tremisses, that is, a beeve of twelve months, or a sheep with its lamb; the other, three tremisses, or a beeve of sixteen months. Homicide is compounded for by the lesser solidus; other crimes by the greater." The Saxons had their Weregeld,--the Scotch their Cro, Galnes, and Kelchin,--and the Welsh their Gwerth, and Galanus, or compensations for injuries; and cattle were likewise the usual fine. Vide Pennant's Tour in Wales of 1773, pp. 273, 274.
[82] This mulct is frequently in the Salic law called "fred," that is, peace; because it was paid to the king or state, as guardians of the public peace.