2. The people of Germany appear to me indigenous,  12 and free from intermixture with foreigners, either as settlers or casual visitants. For the emigrants of former ages performed their expeditions not by land, but by water;  13 and that immense, and, if I may so call it, hostile ocean, is rarely navigated by ships from our world.  14 Then, besides the danger of a boisterous and unknown sea, who would relinquish Asia, Africa, or Italy, for Germany, a land rude in its surface, rigorous in its climate, cheerless to every beholder and cultivator, except a native? In their ancient songs,  15 which are their only records or annals, they celebrate the god Tuisto,  16 sprung from the earth, and his son Mannus, as the fathers and founders of their race. To Mannus they ascribe three sons, from whose names  17 the people bordering on the ocean are called Ingaevones; those inhabiting the central parts, Herminones; the rest, Istaevones. Some,  18 however, assuming the licence of antiquity, affirm that there were more descendants of the god, from whom more appellations were derived; as those of the Marsi,  19 Gambrivii,  20 Suevi,  21 and Vandali;  22 and that these are the genuine and original names.  23 That of Germany, on the other hand, they assert to be a modern addition;  24 for that the people who first crossed the Rhine, and expelled the Gauls, and are now called Tungri, were then named Germans; which appellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually prevailed; so that the title of Germans, first assumed by the victors in order to excite terror, was afterwards adopted by the nation in general.  25 They have likewise the tradition of a Hercules  26 of their country, whose praises they sing before those of all other heroes as they advance to battle.