Igitur Tencteri, Rheno discreta gens, missis legatis mandata apud concilium Agrippinensium edi iubent, quae ferocissimus e legatis in hunc modum protulit: redisse vos in corpus nomenque Germaniae communibus deis et praecipuo deorum Marti grates agimus, vobisque gratulamur quod tandem liberi inter liberos eritis; nam ad hunc diem flumina ac terras et caelum quodam modo ipsum clauserant Romani ut conloquia congressusque nostros arcerent, vel, quod contumeliosius est viris ad arma natis, inermes ac prope nudi sub custode et pretio coiremus.
So the Tencteri, a tribe separated from the colony by the Rhine, sent an embassy with orders to present their demands in an assembly of the people of Cologne. These demands the most violent of the delegates set forth thus: We give thanks to our common gods and to Mars before all others that you have returned to the body of the German peoples and to the German name, and we congratulate you that at last you are going to be free men among free men; for until to-day the Romans have closed rivers and lands, and in a fashion heaven itself, to keep us from meeting and conferring together, or else'and this is a severer insult to men born to arms'to make us meet unarmed and almost naked, under guard and paying a price for the privilege.
final_alignments\Tacitus_Histories_Book4.json