Teksten over Nederland

Ken jij nog een klassieke tekst over ons mooie landje aan de Noordzee? Topicstarter trapt af met Plinius maior:

diximus et in oriente quidem iuxta oceanum complures ea in necessitate gentes. sunt vero et in septentrione visae nobis chaucorum, qui maiores minoresque appellantur. vasto ibi meatu bis dierum noctiumque singularum intervallis effusus in inmensum agitur oceanus, operiens aeternam rerum naturae controversiam dubiamque terrae sit an partem maris. illic, misera gens, tumulos optinent altos aut tribunalia exstructa manibus ad experimenta altissimi aestus, casis ita inpositis navigantibus similes, cum integant aquae circumdata, naufragis vero, cum recesserint, fugientesque cum mari pisces circa tuguria venantur. non pecudem his habere, non lacte ali, ut finitimis, ne cum feris quidem dimicare contingit omni procul abacto frutice. ulva et palustri iunco funes nectunt ad praetexenda piscibus retia captumque manibus lutum ventis magis quam sole siccantes terra cibos et rigentia septentrione viscera sua urunt. potus non nisi ex imbre servato scrobibus in vestibulo domus. et hae gentes, si vincantur hodie a populo romano, servire se dicunt! ita est profecto: multis fortuna parcit in poenam.

//

I have already stated that in the East many nations that dwell on the shores of the ocean are placed in this necessitous state; and I myself have personally witnessed the condition of the Chauci [Friezen], both the Greater and the Lesser, situate in the regions of the far North. In those climates a vast tract of land, invaded twice each day and night by the overflowing waves of the ocean, opens a question that is eternally proposed to us by Nature, whether these regions are to be looked upon as belonging to the land, or whether as forming a portion of the sea?

Here a wretched race is found, inhabiting either the more elevated spots of land [terpen], or else eminences artificially constructed, and of a height to which they know by experience that the highest tides will never reach. Here they pitch their cabins; and when the waves cover the surrounding country far and wide, like so many mariners on board ship are they: when, again, the tide recedes, their condition is that of so many shipwrecked men, and around their cottages they pursue the fishes as they make their escape with the receding tide. It is not their lot, like the adjoining nations, to keep any flocks for sustenance by their milk, nor even to maintain a warfare with wild beasts, every shrub, even, being banished afar. With the sedge and the rushes of the marsh they make cords, and with these they weave the nets employed in the capture of the fish; they fashion the mud, too, with their hands, and drying it by the help of the winds more than of the sun, cook their food by its aid, and so warm their entrails, frozen as they are by the northern blasts; their only drink, too, is rainwater, which they collect in holes dug at the entrance of their abodes: and yet these nations, if this very day they were vanquished by the Roman people, would exclaim against being reduced to slavery! Be it so, then--Fortune is most kind to many, just when she means to punish them.

Plinius de oude, Naturalis Historia, 16.2
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin...lin.+Nat.+16.2

[Caligo]

Heeft Caesar niet ook iets geschreven over Nederlanders? In ieder geval wel over Belgen, maar toen was er toch nog niet zoveel verschil tussen Belgen en Nederlanders..?
Ik zoek het nog wel even op..

[Chaucus]

Snees schreef op 02-11-2005 @ 21:51 :
chaucorum

Eens denken of ik nog meer kan bedenken