Note 2887 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

Tacitus speaks of three great groups of the German tribes, the Ingævones forming the first thereof, and consisting of those which dwelt on the margin of the ocean, the Hermiones in the interior, and the Istævones in the east and south of Germany. We shall presently find that Pliny adds two groups, the Vandili as the fourth, and the Peucini and Basternæ as the fifth. This classification however is thought to originate in a mistake, for Zeuss has satisfactorily shown that the Vandili belonged to the Hermiones, and that Peucini and Basternæ are only names of individual tribes and not of groups of tribes.