TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

GROVES. 71
nemus, dicatumque in eo vehiculum veste contectum. cap. 43 :
apud Naharvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur . , .
numini nomen Aids, nulla simulacra, cap 7 :
effigies et signa (i.e.
effigiata signa) quaedam detractae lucis in proelium ferunt ; with
which connect a passage in Hist. 4, 22 : inde depromptse silvis
lucisqiie ferarum imagines, ut cuique genti inire proelium mos est.
Ann. 2, 12 : Caesar transgressus Visurgim indicio perfugae
cognoscit delectum ab Arminio locum pugnae,
convenisse et
alias nationes in silvam Herculi sacram. Ann. 4, 73 : mox
conpertum a transfugis, nongentos Komanorum apud lucum,
quern Baduhennae vocant, pugna in posterum extracta con-
fectos ; though it does not appear that this grove was a con
secrated one. 1 Ann. 1, 61 : lucis propinquis barbarae arae, apud
quas tribunes mactaverant ; conf. 2, 25 : propinquo
luco defossam
Varianae legionis aquilam modico praesidio servari. Hist. 4, 14 :
Civilis primores gentis . . . sacrum in nemus vocatos. These
expressions can be matched by
others from Claudian three
centuries later, Cons. Stilich. 1, 288 :
Ut procul Hercyniae per vasta silentia silvae
De bello Get. 545 :
venari tuto liceat, lucosquQ vetusta
religione truces, et robora numinis instar
larlarici nostrae feriant impune bipennes.
liortantes his adde dcos. Non somnia nobis,
nee volucres, sed clam palam vox edita luco est :
rumpe omnes, Alarice, moras !
It is not pure nature- worship that we are told of here ;
could have had no eye for the mores Germanorum/
but Tacitus
if their most
essential feature had escaped him. Gods dwell in these groves ; no
images (simulacra, in human form) are mentioned by name as being
set up, no temple walls are reared. 2 But sacred vessels and altars
himself on his legs, but must finish the fight on his knees, Danske viser 1, 115 ;
so in certain places a stranger s carriage, if overturned, must not be set upright
again, RA. 554. What is fabled of an idol called Sompar at Gorlitz (neue
lausitz. monatsschr. 1805, p. 1-18) has evidently been spun out of this passage
in Tac. ; the Semnones are placed in the Lausitz country, as they had been
previously by Aventin (Fraiikf. 1580, p. 27b ), who only puts a king Schwab in
the place of Sompar.
1 Baduhenna, perhaps the name of a place, like Arduenna. Miillenhoff
adds Badvinna, Patunna (Haupts zeitschr. 9, 241).
2 Brissonius de regno Pers. 2, 28 ; Persae diis suis nulla templa vel altaria
constituunt, nulla simulacra ; after Herodot. 1, 131.