30 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. 



the primitive Germans were essentially democratic. This is 

 also the conclusion at which we should arrive by the analogy 

 of other primitive peoples, especially those of the Indo-Eu- 

 ropean family. Most of them established a kingly office, 

 most of them had slaves, or serfs, or imperfectly qualified 

 citizens to whom they stood in the relation of a ruling aris- 

 tocracy; but as a rule all authority is regarded as emanating 

 from the body of the citizens. 



There was, however, an institution of the Germans, not 

 inconsistent in its original character with the democratic 

 theory of their institutions, which, nevertheless, must have 

 interfered materially with the democratic working of these 

 institutions, and which in the end effected a complete revo- 

 lution in them of a strongly aristocratic character. This 

 was the so-called comitatus, the body of personal followers. 

 It appears to have been of relatively recent origin, for as 

 Csesar describes it,* it was quite imperfectly developed, con- 

 sisting simply in the custom of voluntary leaders in times of 

 war, around whom gathered a group of voluntary followers, 

 the relation apparently continuing only for the period of the 

 war. In the time of Tacitus, one hundred and fifty years 

 later, it has been converted from a citsfow? into an zw.sf2'f7.ifiO«; 

 the relation is a permanent one. The followers live at the 

 expense of their chief in peace as well as war.f There are 

 grades in dignity among them, and the several chiefs emu- 

 lously rival one another in the number and prowess of their 

 followers. J 



Both Csesar and Tacitus use the wordprmce^^s, "chief," to 

 designate the leader of the comitatus, and this is the same 

 word which is used by both writers to designate also the per- 

 manent magistrates who have been already described. The 

 question has naturally arisen, and has been debated with 



* Uhi quis ex principibus in concilio dixit se ducem fore, qui sequi velint 

 profiteantur, consurgimt ii, etc. Cass. B. G. vi. 23. 



f Epidae et quaviquam incompti largi tamen apparatus pro stipendiis 

 eedunt. Tac. Germ. 14. 



X Chradus quin etiavi et ipse comitatus hdbet judicio ejus quern sectantur; 

 magnaque et comitum aemulatio, quihus primus ajnidprincipem suuvi locus, 

 et princixnim cui pliirimi et acerrimi comites. Id. 13. 



