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An account of the principal gods and some practices from Tacitus’s Germania.
text
Germania ch. 9
9.
| Deorum maxime Mercurium colunt, cui certis diebus humanis quoque hostiis litare fas habent. Herculem et Martem concessis animalibus placant. Pars Sueborum et Isidi sacrificat: unde causa et origo peregrino sacro, parum comperi, nisi quod signum ipsum in modum liburnae figuratum docet advectam religionem. Ceterum nec cohibere parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrantur: lucos ac nemora consecrant deorumque nominibus appellant secretum illud, quod sola reverentia vident. | Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims. Hercules and Mars they appease with more lawful offerings. Some of the Suevi also sacrifice to Isis. Of the occasion and origin of this foreign rite I have discovered nothing, but that the image, which is fashioned like a light galley, indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance. They consecrate woods and groves, and they apply the names of deities to the abstraction which they see only in spiritual worship. |
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commentary
context
commentary
For various reasons we can probably equate Mercury here with Óðinn, Hercules with Þórr, Mars with Týr and Isis perhaps with Frigg, but this is probably only because she is the main goddess in other groupings of four (such as the names of days of the week).
(Contributed by Tarrin Wills.)
tags
Main text: Germania
Attributes: Sacrifice Ship Grove
Named things: Mercury Mars Hercules Isis
Text sections: Tacitus, Germania ch. 9