Ch. vi. Inhabitants of the North of Europe. 105 



he had not erred much in this respect, and that 

 it was a foresight of the frequent necessity of 

 thus discharging their redundant population, 

 which gave occasion to that law among the Ger- 

 mans, taken notice of by Caesar and Tacitus, of 

 not permitting their cultivated lands to remain 

 longer than a year under the same possessors.* 

 The reasons, which Caesar mentions as being 

 assigned for this custom, seem to be hardly ade- 

 quate; but if we add to them the prospect of 

 emigration in the manner described by Machiavel, 

 the custom will appear to be highly useful, and 

 a double weight will be given to one of the rea- 

 sons that Caesar mentions ; namely, lest they 

 should be led, by being accustomed to one spot, 

 to exchange the toils of war for the business of 

 agriculture.-f 



Gibbon very justly rejects, with Hume and 

 Robertson, the improbable supposition that the 

 inhabitants of the north were far more numerous 

 formerly than at present ; J but he thinks himself 

 obliged at the same time to deny the strong ten- 

 dency to increase in the northern nations,^ as if 



relictura, ut novas sedes exquirerent, sorte disquirunt. Igitur ea 

 pars, cui sors dederit genitale solum excedere exteraque arva sec- 

 tari, constitutis supra se duobus ducibus, Ibore scilicet et Agione, 

 qui et Germani erant et juvenili state floridi, ceterisque praestan- 

 tiores, ad exquirandas quas possint incolere terras, sedesque sta- 

 tuere, valedicentes suis simul et patriae, iter arripiunt. (C. ii.) 



• De Bello Gallico, vi. 22. De Moribus German, s. xxvi. 



t De Bello Gallico, vi. 22. 



X Gibbon, vol. i. c. ix. p. 3G1. 



§ Id. p. 348. 



