Laudator Temporis Acti

Tacitus, Germania 46.3 (tr. A.R. Birley):

The Fenni are remarkably savage and wretchedly poor. They have no weapons, no horses, and no homes. They feed on wild plants, wear skins, and sleep on the ground. Their only hope is their arrows, which for lack of iron they tip with bone. Men and women alike live by hunting. The women accompany the men everywhere and insist on taking a share in the spoils. Their only way of protecting infants against wild beasts or rain is a shelter made from interwoven branches. This is what the young men come back to and where the old men take refuge. Yet they think this is a happier lot than to groan over the tillage of the fields, toiling over house-building, or speculating between hope and fear with their own and other people's money. Having nothing to fear at the hands of men or gods, they have reached a state that is very difficult to attain: they do not even need to pray for anything.

Fennis mira feritas, foeda paupertas: non arma, non equi, non penates; victui herba, vestitui pelles, cubile humus: solae in sagittis spes, quas inopia ferri ossibus asperant. idemque venatus viros pariter ac feminas alit; passim enim comitantur partemque praedae petunt. nec aliud infantibus ferarum imbriumque suffugium quam ut in aliquo ramorum nexu contegantur: huc redeunt iuvenes, hoc senum receptaculum. sed beatius arbitrantur quam ingemere agris, inlaborare domibus, suas alienasque fortunas spe metuque versare: securi adversus homines, securi adversus deos rem difficillimam adsecuti sunt, ut illis ne voto quidem opus esset.

An excerpt from J.B. Rives' excellent commentary ad loc.:

Unlike the Germani, who are merely barbaric, the Fenni represent the absolute antithesis of civilization. Like nomads, they lack settled homes; but unlike nomads, they lack even horses and wagons: they are ignorant not only of agriculture, but even of pastoralism. From the Roman perspective they are virtually the same as animals. Ovid describes primitive humanity in very similar terms: 'for houses they knew boughs, for food they knew herbs' (Fast. 2.293; cf. Ars 2.475). Tacitus carefully develops this image of the Fenni as people living almost totally in a state of nature, and caps it with a philosophical reflection: since possessions bring concerns, the complete lack of possessions leads to a life free from all concerns. In the same way, Seneca had earlier argued that nature provides for all human needs: 'are not the skins of beasts and other animals a sufficient, even abundant, defence against cold? ... Those whom some dense grove shielded from the sun, who against the severity of winter and rain lived safely under a bough as a cheap retreat, would pass peaceful nights without sighs' (Ep. 90.16 and 41). It is with this philosophical commonplace that Tacitus is here most concerned. Even the striking sententia with which he concludes is not entirely original: Seneca again provides a precedent in his assertion that philosophy brings 'perpetual freedom, fear of neither man nor god' (Ep. 17.6).