
“No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.”
Source: Germania (98), Chapter 19
The Germania, written by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus around 98 AD and originally entitled On the Origin and Situation of the Germans , was a historical and ethnographic work on the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire.
“No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.”
Source: Germania (98), Chapter 19
“All this is unauthenticated, and I shall leave it open.”
Source: Germania (98), Chapter 46 (last text line)
“However the marriage is there severe.”
Quanquam severa illic matrimonia
Start of chapter 18
This is in the sense that the matrimonial bond was strictly observed by the Germanic peoples, this being compared favorably against licentiousness in Rome. Tacitus appears to hold the fairly strict monogamy (with some exceptions among nobles who marry again) between Germanic husbands and wives, and the chastity among the unmarried to be worthy of the highest praise. (Ch. 18).
Germania (98)
“Good habits are here more effectual than good laws elsewhere.”
…ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges. [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus-germ-latin.html#19]
End of chapter 19, http://www.unrv.com/tacitus/tacitus-germania-5.php
Germania (98)
“To abandon your shield is the basest of crimes; nor may a man thus disgraced be present at the sacred rites, or enter their council; many, indeed, after escaping from battle, have ended their infamy with the halter.”
Scutum reliquisse praecipuum flagitium, nec aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso fas; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt.
Source: Germania (98), Chapter 6