Note 611 — Chapter XII · HEATHENDOM.

What Tacitus says of the Germans (Germ, ix.) not having temples or images is to be taken with great caution. It is clear from other passages of his own work that some tribes had such, even in his time; yet if rare then, they may easily have become universal in the course of two or three centuries, particularly among those tribes whom military service or commerce had gradually rendered familiar with the religious rites of Rome.