Tacitus, Germania. Chapter 9.
9. 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, whichis fashioned like a light galley, indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent witht he 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.
9. 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, whichis fashioned like a light galley, indicates an imported worship. The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent witht he 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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Tacitus, Germania - translated by Alfred Lord Church and William Jackson Brodribb.
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place time topic people language
Ancient Germany - Ancient/1st century CE - General history - Germans - Latin translation
Ancient Germany - Ancient/1st century CE - General history - Germans - Latin translation
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