Alting supposes the Chauci had their name from Kauken,
signifying
persons eminent for valor and fidelity, which agrees with the character Tacitus gives them.
Tacitus
Among these nations, Furstenburg (Monum.
Paderborn.
) enumerates the Ambrones, borderers upon the river Ambrus, now Emmeren.
]
182 (return)
[ The Frieslanders. The lesser Frisii were settled on this side, the greater, on the other, of the Flevum (Zuyderzee). ]
183 (return)
[ In the time of the Romans this country was covered by vast meres, or lakes; which were made still larger by frequent inundations of the sea. Of these, one so late as 1530 overwhelmed seventy-two villages; and another, still more terrible, in 1569, laid under water great part of the sea-coast of Holland, and almost all Friesland, in which alone 20,000 persons were drowned. ]
184 (return)
[ Wherever the land seemed to terminate, and it appeared impossible to proceed further, maritime nations have feigned pillars of Hercules. Those celebrated by the Frisians must have been at the extremity of Friesland, and not in Sweden and the Cimmerian promontory, as Rudbeck supposes. ]
185 (return)
[ Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, and father of Germanicus, imposed a tribute on the Frisians, as mentioned in the Annals, iv. 72, and performed other eminent services in Germany; himself styled Germanicus. ]
186 (return)
[ The Chauci extended along the seacoast from the Ems to the Elbe (Albis); whence they bordered on all the fore-mentioned nations, between which and the Cherusci they came round to the Catti. The Chauci were distinguished into Greater and Lesser. The Greater, according to Ptolemy, inhabited the country between the Weser and the Elbe; the Lesser, that between the Weser and Ems; but Tacitus (Annals xi. 19) seems to reverse this order.
Alting supposes the Chauci had their name from Kauken, signifying persons eminent for valor and fidelity, which agrees with the character Tacitus gives them. Others derive it from Kauk, an owl, with a reference to the enmity of that animal to cats (Catti). Others, from Kaiten, daws, of which there are great numbers on their coast. Pliny has admirably described the country and manners of the maritime Chauci, in his account of people who live without any trees or fruit-bearing vegetables:—"In the North are the nations of Chauci, who are divided into Greater and Lesser. Here, the ocean, having a prodigious flux and reflux twice in the space of every day and night, rolls over an immense tract, leaving it a matter of perpetual doubt whether it is part of the land or sea. In this spot, the wretched natives, occupying either the tops of hills, or artificial mounds of turf, raised out of reach of the highest tides, build their small cottages; which appear like sailing vessels when the water covers the circumjacent ground, and like wrecks when it has retired. Here from their huts they pursue the fish, continually flying from them with the waves. They do not, like their neighbors, possess cattle, and feed on milk; nor have they a warfare to maintain against wild beasts, for every fruit of the earth is far removed from them. With flags and seaweed they twist cordage for their fishing-nets. For fuel they use a kind of mud, taken up by hand, and dried, rather in the wind than the sun: with this earth they heat their food, and warm their bodies, stiffened by the rigorous north. Their only drink is rain-water collected in ditches at the thresholds of their doors. Yet this miserable people, if conquered to-day by the Roman arms, would call themselves slaves. Thus it is that fortune spares many to their own punishment. "—Hist. Nat. xvi.
182 (return)
[ The Frieslanders. The lesser Frisii were settled on this side, the greater, on the other, of the Flevum (Zuyderzee). ]
183 (return)
[ In the time of the Romans this country was covered by vast meres, or lakes; which were made still larger by frequent inundations of the sea. Of these, one so late as 1530 overwhelmed seventy-two villages; and another, still more terrible, in 1569, laid under water great part of the sea-coast of Holland, and almost all Friesland, in which alone 20,000 persons were drowned. ]
184 (return)
[ Wherever the land seemed to terminate, and it appeared impossible to proceed further, maritime nations have feigned pillars of Hercules. Those celebrated by the Frisians must have been at the extremity of Friesland, and not in Sweden and the Cimmerian promontory, as Rudbeck supposes. ]
185 (return)
[ Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, and father of Germanicus, imposed a tribute on the Frisians, as mentioned in the Annals, iv. 72, and performed other eminent services in Germany; himself styled Germanicus. ]
186 (return)
[ The Chauci extended along the seacoast from the Ems to the Elbe (Albis); whence they bordered on all the fore-mentioned nations, between which and the Cherusci they came round to the Catti. The Chauci were distinguished into Greater and Lesser. The Greater, according to Ptolemy, inhabited the country between the Weser and the Elbe; the Lesser, that between the Weser and Ems; but Tacitus (Annals xi. 19) seems to reverse this order.
Alting supposes the Chauci had their name from Kauken, signifying persons eminent for valor and fidelity, which agrees with the character Tacitus gives them. Others derive it from Kauk, an owl, with a reference to the enmity of that animal to cats (Catti). Others, from Kaiten, daws, of which there are great numbers on their coast. Pliny has admirably described the country and manners of the maritime Chauci, in his account of people who live without any trees or fruit-bearing vegetables:—"In the North are the nations of Chauci, who are divided into Greater and Lesser. Here, the ocean, having a prodigious flux and reflux twice in the space of every day and night, rolls over an immense tract, leaving it a matter of perpetual doubt whether it is part of the land or sea. In this spot, the wretched natives, occupying either the tops of hills, or artificial mounds of turf, raised out of reach of the highest tides, build their small cottages; which appear like sailing vessels when the water covers the circumjacent ground, and like wrecks when it has retired. Here from their huts they pursue the fish, continually flying from them with the waves. They do not, like their neighbors, possess cattle, and feed on milk; nor have they a warfare to maintain against wild beasts, for every fruit of the earth is far removed from them. With flags and seaweed they twist cordage for their fishing-nets. For fuel they use a kind of mud, taken up by hand, and dried, rather in the wind than the sun: with this earth they heat their food, and warm their bodies, stiffened by the rigorous north. Their only drink is rain-water collected in ditches at the thresholds of their doors. Yet this miserable people, if conquered to-day by the Roman arms, would call themselves slaves. Thus it is that fortune spares many to their own punishment. "—Hist. Nat. xvi.
