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CHAP. enemy. Jealous, as the Germans were, of military X. renown, they all confessed the superior valour of the Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Teneteri, who, with a vast army encountered the dictator Cæsar, declared that they esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people, to whose arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal84.

A mixed

Suevi as

Alemanni,

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerbody of able swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the sume the Mein, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman proname of vinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory85. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, or All-men; to denote at once their various lineage, and their common bravery.The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had enured to accompany the horseman in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreats.

invade

Italy,

This warlike people of Germans had been astonishGaul and ed by the immense preparations of Alexander Severus, they were dismayed by the arms of his successor, a barbarian equal in valour and fierceness to themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy.A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across

tur.

83 Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suevorum ingenui a servis separanA proud separation!

84 Casar in Bello Gallico. iv. 7.

85 Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.

86 This etymology (far different from those which amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.

87 The Suevi engaged Cæsar in this manner, and the manœuvre deserv. ed the approbation of the conqueror (in Bello Gallico, i. 48.)

X.

Rome by

the Danube, and through the Rhætian Alps, into the CHAP. plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far distant wars, are repulValerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine. All sed from the hopes and resources of the Romans were in them- the senate selves. In this emergency, the senators resumed the and peodefence of the republic, drew out the Prætorian guards, who had been left to garrison the capital, and filled up their numbers by inlisting into the public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians. The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans89

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When Gallienus received the intelligence that his The sena capital was delivered from the barbarians, he was cluded by much less delighted, than alarmed, with the courage Gallienus of the senate, since it might one day prompt them to rescue the public from domestic tyranny, as well as service. from foreign invasion. His timid ingratitude was published to his subjects, in an edict which prohibited the senators from exercising any military employment, and even from approaching the camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless. The rich and luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character, accepted, as a favour, this disgraceful exemption from military service; and as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths, their theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the more dangerous cares of empire, to the rough hands of peasants and soldiers.

an alliance

Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formi- Gallienus dable aspect, but more glorious event, is mentioned by contracts a writer of the lower empire. Three hundred thousand with the of that warlike people are said to have been vanquish- Alemanni. ed, in a battle near Milan, by Gallienus in person, at

88 Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.

89 Zosimus, 1. i. p. 34.

90 Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints breathe an un. common spirit of freedom.

X.

CHAP. the head of only ten thousand Romans. We may, however, with great probability, ascribe this incredible victory, either to the credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated exploits of one of the emperor's lieutenants. It was by arms of a very different nature, that Gallienus endeavoured to protect Italy from the fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king of the Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded with the Alemanni in their wars and conquests. To the father, as the price of his alliance, he granted an ample settlement in Pannonia. The native charms of unpolished beauty seem to have fixed the daughter in the affections of the inconstant emperor, and the bands of policy were more firmly connected by those of love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still refused the name of marriage, to the profane mixture of a citizen and a barbarian; and has stigmatised the German princess with the opprobrious title of concubine of Gallienus93.

Inroads of

III. We have already traced the emigration of the the Goths. Goths from Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the Borysthenes, and have followed their victorious arms from the Borysthenes to the Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the frontier of the last mentioned river was perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans and Sarmatians; but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual firmness and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy soldiers; and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained the station, and displayed the abilities, of a general. Though flying parties of the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the banks of the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the confines of Italy and Macedonia; their progress was commonly checked, or their return intercepted, by the Imperial lieutenants. But the great stream of the Gothic

91 Zonaras, 1. xii, p. 631.

92 One of the Victors calls him King of the Marcomanni; the other, of the Germans.

93 See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 398, &c.

94 See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in the Augustan History.

X.

hostilities was diverted into a very different channel. CHAP. The Goths, in their new settlement of the Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of the Euxine: to the south of that inland sea, were situated the soft and wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could attract, and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles Conquest distant from the narrow entrance of the peninsula of of the Bosphorus Crim Tartary, known to the ancients under the name by the of Chersonesus Taurica. On that inhospitable shore, Goths, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most affecting tragedies97. The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and religion over savage fierceness, serve to represent an historical truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula, were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal manners, by a gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which settled along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus, whose capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Mæotis communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate Greeks, and halfcivilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war, was at last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, and, with the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman arms. From the reign of Augustus100, the kings of Bosphorus were the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents, by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the Isthmus, they effectually guarded against the roving plunderers of Sarmatia, the access of a country, which, from its

95 It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 598.

96 M. de Peyssonel, who had been French consul at Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, qui ont habité les bords du Danube. 97 Euripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.

98 Strabo, 1. vii. p. 309. The first kings of Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.

99 Appian. in Mithridat.

100 It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius, vi. 21. Eutropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three days march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.

X.

CHAP. peculiar situation and convenient harbours, commanded the Euxine sea and Asia Minor. As long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste of fertile soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force, sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. The ships used quire a na-in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very singuval force. lar construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks

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framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a tempest103. In these floating houses, the Goths carelessly trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the conduct of sailors pressed into the service, and whose skill and fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of plunder had banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness of temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence, which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of such a daring spirit must have often murmured against the cowardice of their guides, who required the strongest assurances of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at least, is the practice of the modern Turks104; and they are probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient inhabitants of Bosphorus. The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia val expe- on the left hand, first appeared before Pityus105, the the Goths. utmost limits of the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port and fortified with a strong wall.

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dition of

101 See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the sincerity and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great war of his nation against the kings of Bosphorus.

102 Zosimus, 1. i. p. 28.

103 Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were called Camara.

104 See a very natural picture of the Euxine navigation, in the sixteenth letter of Tournefort.

105 Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias, or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine.

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