ABSTRACT
THE views which have hitherto prevailed concerning primitive Germanic civilization, even in the first centuries of the Christian era, were chiefly based on descriptions of the age of the so-called Great Migrations (Völkerwanderung) which took place after the time of Cæsar and Tacitus. As a rule this was represented as a time of restless wandering, of purposeless roving from place to place by the Germans, who settled here and there, but for the most part pressed forward eager for conquest in order to plunder and to destroy all that stood in the way of their advance. They were thus not only nomads but barbarians, destroying the civilization of others, and possessing none of their own.
