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).