EXPANSION OF THE TEUTONS

 

THE race which played the leading part in history after the break-up of the Roman Empire was the race known as the Teutons. Their early history is shrouded in obscurity, an obscurity which only begins to be lightened about the end of the second century of our era. Such information as we have we owe to Greeks and Romans; and what they give us is almost exclusively contemporary history, and the few fragmentary statements referring to earlier conditions, invaluable as they are to us, do not go far behind their own time. Archaeology alone enables us to penetrate further back. Without its aid it would be vain to think of attempting to answer the question of the origin and original distribution of the Germanic race.

The earliest home of the Teutons was in the countries surrounding the western extremity of the Baltic Sea, comprising what is now the south of Sweden, Jutland with Schleswig-Holstein, the German Baltic coast to about the Oder, and the islands with which the sea is studded as far as Gothland. This, not Asia, is the region which, with a certain extension south, as far, say, as the great mountain chain of central Germany, may be described as the cradle of the Indo-Germanic race. According to all appearance, this was the centre from which it impelled its successive waves of population towards the west, south, and south-east, to take possession, in the end, of all Europe and even of a part of Asia. A portion of the Indo-Germanic race, however, remained behind in the north, to emerge after the lapse of two thousand years into the light of history as a new people of wonderful homogeneity and remarkable uniformity of physical type, the people which we know as the Teutons. The expansion of the Indo-Germanic race and its division into various nations and groups of nations had in the main been completed during the Neolithic Period, so that in the Bronze Age — roughly, for the northern races, 1500-500 B.C. — the territories which we have indicated above belonged exclusively to the Teutons who formed a distinct race with its own special characteristics and language.

 

The Teutons   600-500 B.C.

 

The distinctive feature of the civilisation of these prehistoric Teutons is the working of bronze. It is well known that in the North a region where the Bronze Age was of long duration — a remarkable degree of skill was attained in this art. The Northern Teutonic Bronze Age forms therefore in every respect a striking phenomenon in the general history of human progress. On the other hand, the advance in culture which followed the introduction of the use of iron was not at first shared by the Northern peoples. It was only about 500 B.C., that is to say quite five hundred years later than in Greece and Italy, in the South of France and the upper part of the Danube basin, that the use of iron was introduced among the Teutons. The period of civilisation usually known as the Hallstatt period, of which the latter portion (from about 600 B.C. onwards) was not less brilliant than the Later Bronze Age, remained practically unknown to the Teutons.

The nearest neighbours of the Teutons in this earliest period were, to the south the Kelts, to the east the Baltic peoples (Letts, Lithuanians, Prussians) and the Slavs, in the extreme north the Finns. How far the Teutonic territories extended northward, it is difficult to say. The southern extremity of Scandinavia, that is to say the present Sweden up to about the lakes, certainly always belonged to them. This is put beyond doubt by archaeological discoveries. The Teutons therefore have as good a claim to be considered the original inhabitants of Scandinavia as their northern neighbours the great Finnish people. It is certain that even in the earliest times they were expanding in a northerly direction, and that they settled in the Swedish lake district, as far north as the Dal Elf, and the southern part of Norway, long before we have any historical information about these countries. Whether they found them unoccupied, or whether they drove the Finns steadily backward, cannot be certainly decided, although the latter is the more probable. The Sitones whom Tacitus mentions along with the Suiones as the nations dwelling furthest to the north were certainly Finns.

On the east, the Teutonic territory, which as we saw did not originally extend beyond the Oder, touched on that of the Baltic peoples who were later known collectively, by a name which is doubtless of Teutonic derivation, as Aists (Aestii in Tacitus, Germ. 45). To the south and east of these lay the numerous Slavonic tribes (called Venedi or Veneti by ancient writers). The land between the Oder and the Vistula was therefore in the earliest times inhabited, in the north by peoples of the Letto-Lithuanian linguistic group, and southward by Slavs. On this side also the Teutons in quite early times forced their way beyond the boundaries of their original territory. In the sixth century B.C., as can be determined with considerable certainty from archaeological discoveries, the settlement of these territories by the Teutons was to a large extent accomplished, the Baltic peoples being forced to retire eastward, beyond the Vistula, and the Slavs towards the south-east. It is likely that the conquerors came from the north, from Scandinavia; that they sought a new home on the south coast of the Baltic and towards the east and south-east. To this points also the fact (otherwise hard to explain) that the tribes which in historic times are settled in these districts, Goths, Gepidae, Rugii, Lemovii, Burgundii, Charini, Varini and Vandals, form a separate group, substantially distinguished in customs and speech from the Western Teutons, but showing numerous points of affinity, especially in language and legal usage, to the Northern Teutons. When, further, a series of Eastern Teutonic names of peoples appear again in Scandinavia, those for instance of the Goths: Gauthigoth (Gautar, Gothland); Greutungi: Greotingi; Rugians: Rugi (Rygir, Rogaland); Burgundiones: Borgundarholmr; and when we find in Jordanes the legend of the Gothic migration asserting that this people came from Scandinavia (Scandza insula) as the officina gentium aut certe velut vagina nationum the evidence in favour of a gradual settlement of eastern Germany by immigrants from the north seems irresistible.

By the year 400 B.C., at latest, the Teutons must have reached the northern base of the Sudetes. It was only a step further to the settlement of the upper Vistula; and if the Bastarnae, the first Germanic tribe which comes into the light of history, had their seat here about 300 B.C., the settlement of the whole basin of the upper Vistula, right up to the Carpathians, must have been carried out by the Teutons in the course of the fourth century B.C.

It was with Kelts that the Teutons came in contact towards the sources of the Oder in the mountains which form the boundary of Bohemia. Now there is no race to which the Teutons owe so much as to the Kelts. The whole development of their civilization was most strongly influenced by the latter — so much so that in the centuries next before the Christian era the whole Teutonic race shared a common civilization with the Kelts, to whom they stood in a relation of intel­lectual dependence; in every aspect of public and private life Keltic influence was reflected. How came it then that a people whose civiliza­tion shows such marked characteristics as that of the Teutons of the Later Bronze Age could lose these with such surprising rapidity —perhaps in the course of a single century?

The earliest habitat of the Teutons extended, as we have seen, on the south as far as the Elbe. This river also marks the northern boundary of the Kelts. All Germany west of the Elbe from the North Sea to the Alps was in the possession of the Kelts, at the time when the Teutons occupied the western shores of the Baltic basin. The vigorous power of expansion which this race displayed in the last thousand years of the prehistoric age has left its traces throughout Europe, and even in Asia; and that is what gives it such importance in the history of the world. The whole of Western Europe — France with Belgium and Holland, the British Isles and the greater part of the Pyrenaean peninsula, in the south the region of the Alps and the plains of the Po — has been at one time or another subject to their rule. Eastward, migratory swarms of Kelts pushed their way down the Danube to the Black Sea and even into Asia Minor.

 

Migrations of the Kelts. 1000 B.C

 

The starting-point of this movement was probably in what is now north-western Germany and the Netherlands, and this region is therefore to be regarded as the original home of the Keltic race. Place-names and river-names, the study of which is a most valuable means of elucidating prehistoric conditions, enable us to prove the existence in many districts of this original Keltic population. They are scattered over the whole of western Germany and as far as Brabant and Flanders, but occur with especial frequency between the Rhine and the Weser. In the north the Wörpe-Bach (north-east of Bremen) marks the limits of their distribution, in the east the course of the Leine, down to Rosoppe; in the south they extend as far as the Main where the Aschaff (anciently Ascapha) at Aschaffenburg forms the last outpost of their territory. They are not found on the strip of coast along the North Sea, occupied later by the Chauci and Frisians, nor on the western side of the Elbe. From this we may safely conclude that these districts were abandoned by their original Keltic population earlier, indeed considerably earlier, than those to the west of the Weser, and also that the expansion of the Teutons westwards proceeded along two distinct lines, though doubtless almost contemporaneously one westward along the North Sea and one in a more southerly direction up the Elbe along both its banks.

With this view the results of prehistoric archaeology are in complete agreement. We have determined the area of distribution of the Northern Bronze Age — which we saw to be specifically Teutonic — as consisting, in the earlier period (up to c. 1000 B.C.), of Scandinavia and the Danish islands, and also Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg and West‑Pomerania, and therefore bounded on the south-west by the Elbe. But in the Later Bronze Age (c. 1000-600 B.C.) this territory is enlarged in all directions. On the south and west especially, to judge from the evidence of excavations, it extends from the point at which the Wartha flows into the Oder, in a south-westerly direction through the Spreewald and Fläming districts to the Elbe; then further west to the Harz, and from there northwards along the Oker and Aller to about the estuary of the Weser, and finally along the coast-line as far as Holland. In Thuringia the Keltic peoples maintained their hold somewhat longer. The northern part of it — above the Unstrut — may have received a Teutonic population in the course of the fifth century B.C.; the southern in the course of the fourth. On the other hand, the whole region westward from the Weser and the Thuringian Forest as far as the Rhine was still in the possession of the Kelts about the year 300 B.c., and was only conquered by the Teutons in the course of the following century. It may be taken as the assured result of all the linguistic and archaeological data, that only about the year 200 B.C. the whole of north-western Germany was held by the Teutons, who had now reached the frontier-lines formed by the Rhine and the Main.

About the close of the fifth century B.C., a new civilization appears in the Keltic domain, a civilisation which, from the fine taste and technical perfection of its productions, deserves in more than one respect to rank with that of the classical nations. This is the so-called La Tène Civilization, which takes its name from a place on the north side of the Lake of Neuchatel where especially numerous and varied remains of it have come to light. Where its centre is to be located we do not know—somewhere, we may conjecture, in the South of France or in Switzerland. Starting from this point it spread through all the parts of Europe, which were not under the sway of the Greek and Roman civilization. Following the course of the Rhone, of the Rhine, and of the Danube, it rapidly conquered all the countries in which Gallic tongues were spoken and maintained its supremacy until the Graeco-Roman civilization deposed it from its primacy.

It was with this highly developed civilization — so far superior, especially in its highly advanced knowledge of the working of iron, to the Northern, which still only made use of bronze — that the Teutons came in contact in their advance towards the south-west. It is quite intelligible that the Teutons in the course of their two hundred years of struggle with the Kelts for the possession of north-western Germany, should have eagerly adopted the higher civilization of the Kelts.

Vague reminiscences of the former supremacy of the Keltic race survived into historic times. Ac fuit antea teinpus cum Germanos Galli virtute superarent, ultra bella inferrent, propter hominum multitudinem agrigue inopiam trans Rhenum colonias mitterent, writes Caesar — a piece of information which he must have derived from Gaulish sources. Here belongs also the Gallic tradition reported by Timagenes according to which a part of the nation was said ab insulis extimis confluxisse et tractibus Transrhenanis crebritate bellorum et adluvione fervidi maris sedibus suis expulsos. Caesar himself mentions a Keltic tribe, the Menapii, on the right bank of the lower Rhine.

It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Keltic Teuriscans of northern Hungary were originally settled in south-central Germany between the Erzgebirge and the Harz, but later (about 400 B.C.) were forced out of this district by the pressure of the advancing Germans, and retired in two sections towards the south and south-east.

About the year 200 B.C. the Teuton occupation of north-west Germany was, as we have seen, completed, having reached the Rhine on the west and the Main on the south. But the great forward movement towards the south-west was not to be stayed by these rivers. Vast waves of population kept pressing downward from the north, and giving fresh impetus to the movement. The whole Germanic world must at that time have been in constant ferment and unrest. Nations were born and perished. Everywhere there was pressure and counter-pressure. Any people that had not the strength to maintain itself against its neighbours, or to strike out a new path for itself, was swept away. The tension thus set up first found relief on the Rhenish frontier. About the middle of the second century B.C. Teutonic hordes swept across the river and occupied the whole country westward of the lower Rhine as far as the Ardennes and the Eifel. These hordes were the ancestors of the later tribes and clans which meet us here in the first dawn of history, the Eburones, Condrusi, Caeroesi, Paemani, Segni, Nervii, Grudii, and also of the Texuandri, Sunuci, Baetusii, Caraces, who appear later, as well as of the Tungri, who after the annihilation of the Eburones by Caesar succeeded to their territory and position of influence. The Treveri, on the other hand, who had their seat further to the south beyond the Eifel, were doubtless Kelts.

 

Teutonic Invasion of Gaul . 58-9 B.C.

 

The Teutonic invasion of Gaul must have taken place mainly in the second half of the second century B.C., but it was still in progress in Caesar's time. It may suffice briefly to recall in this connexion the successful campaign of Ariovistus; the incursion immediately before Caesar entered upon his province, of 24,000 Harudi into the country of the Sequani; the invasion of the Suebi under Nasua and Cimberius in the year 58; and of the Usipetes and Tencteri at the beginning of the year B.C. 55. That there were even later immigrations of Teutonic hosts into north-eastern Gaul may be conjectured from the absence of any mention by Caesar of several of the tribes which were settled here in the time by the Empire, and this conjecture is raised almost to a certainty by the known instance of the Tungri.

It was only later, in the time of the migrations of the Cimbri, and doubtless in connexion therewith, that the frontier formed by the Main was crossed. It was — to the best of our information—a portion of the Suebi, previously settled on the northern bank of this river, who were the first to push across it, and after driving out the Helveti, established themselves firmly to the south of the river, and were here known under the name of Marcomanni (Men of the Marches) — the name first meets us in Caesar, in the enumeration of the peoples led by Ariovistus. Their country, the Marca, extended south to the Danube. That the Tulingi (mentioned by Caesar as finetini of the Helveti) were of Germanic origin is put beyond doubt by their name, which is good German and forms a pendant to that of the Thuringi. But it will doubtless be near the truth to see in them not the whole nation of the Marcomanni, but only a tribe or local division of it, and doubtless its advanceguard towards the south. In any case it is evident from Caesar's account that numbering as they did a round 36,000, of whom about 8000 were warriors, they formed a united whole with a definite territory and were not merely a migratory body of Marcomanni gathered together ad hoc.

A remnant of the old Marcomanni of South Germany, who in the year 9 B.C. migrated to Bohemia, is doubtless to be found in the Suebi Nicretes whom we meet with in the time of the Empire on the lower Neckar. Further to the north, on the southern bank of the Main, near Mittenberg, we find the name of the Toutoni in an inscription which came to light in the year 1878. Hereupon certain scholars  have arrived at the conviction that this locality was the original home of the Teutones whom we hear of in association with the Cimbri, and so that they were not of Germanic but of Keltic origin, being of Helvetic race and identified with the Helvetic local clan of the Touyev of Strabo. This hypothesis must be absolutely rejected. There must have been some connection between those Toutoni and the Teutoni of history. But to conclude without more ado that the Teutoni were Helveti, South-German Kelts, is to do direct violence to the whole body of ancient tradition, which consistently represents the Teutoni as a people whose original home was in the North. The simplest solution of the difficulty is that the Mittenberg Toutoni were a fragment which split off from the Teutonic peoples during their migration southward, and settled in this district, just as in north-eastern Gaul a portion of the Cimbri and Teutones maintained itself as the tribe of the Aduatuci.

The whole process of the expulsion of the Kelts from South Germany must have been accomplished between 100 B.C. and 70, for Caesar knows of no Gauls on the right bank of the upper Rhine, and the Helveti had been living for a considerable time to the south of the head-waters of the river which, as Caesar tells us, divides Helvetic from German territory.

 

The Bastarnae. 182 B.C.

 

The first collision between the Teutons and the Graeco-Roman world took place far to the east of Gaul. It resulted from a great migration of the eastern Teutonic tribes in the neighbourhood of the Vistula, which had carried some of them as far as the shore of the Black Sea. The chief of these tribes was that of the Bastarnae. Settled, it would seem, before their exodus near the head-waters of the Vistula they appear, as early as the beginning of the second century B.C., near the estuary of the Danube. The whole region north of the Pruth, from the Black Sea to the northern slope of the Carpathians, was in their possession and remained so during all the time that they are known to history. Another Germanic tribe, doubtless dependent upon them, meets us in the same district, namely the Sciri from the lower Vistula. The well-known and much discussed "psephisma"of the town of Olbia in honour of Protogenes mentions them as allied with the Galatai, and there has been much debate as to what nation is to be understood by these Galatai, and they have sometimes been conjectured to be Illyrian Kelts (Scordisci), sometimes Thracian, sometimes the — also Keltic — Britolages, or the Teutonic Bastarnae, or even the Goths. The majority of scholars has however decided that these "Galatians" are the Bastarnae, whose presence in the neighbourhood of Olbia in the year 182 B.C. is attested by Polybius. There is, indeed, much in favour of this hypothesis and nothing against it. The inscription then, which is proved by the character of the writing to be one of the oldest found in this locality, would have been written about the time of the arrival of the Bastarnae at the estuary of the Danube, that is to say, about 200 –180 B. C., and would therefore be the earliest documentary evidence for the entrance of the Germanic tribes on the field of general history.

As early as the year 182 B.C. we find the Bastarnae in negotiations with Philip of Macedon. Philip's plan was to get rid of the Dardanians, and after settling his allies on the territory thus vacated to use it as a base for an expedition against Italy. After long negotiations, the Bastarnae in 179 abandoned their lately-won territory, crossed the Danube and advanced into Thrace. At this point King Philip died, and after an unsuccessful battle with the Thracians the Bastarnae began a retreat to the settlement which they had abandoned; but a detachment of some 30,000 men under Clondicus pressed on into Dardania. With the aid of the Thracians and Scordiscans and with the connivance of Philip's successor, Perseus, he pressed the Dardanians hard for a time, but at last in the winter of 175 he also decided to retire. In Rome the intrigues of the Macedonian kings had been watched with growing mistrust and displeasure, which found expression in the despatch of a commission to investigate the situation in Macedonia and especially on the Dardanian border. This, therefore, is the first occasion on which the Roman State had to concern itself with Teutonic affairs. At that time, it is true, the racial difference between Kelts and Teutons was not yet recognised and the Bastarnae were therefore supposed to be Gauls. Before very long (168), we find the Bastarnae again in relations with the King of Macedon. Twenty thousand men, again under the command of Clondicus, were to join him in his struggle with the Romans in Paeonia. But Perseus was blinded by avarice, and failed to keep his promises. Clondicus therefore, who had already reached the country of the Maedi, promptly turned to the right-about and marched home through Thrace. From this point they disappear from history for a time, only to reappear in the Mithradatic wars as allies of that King, and they consequently appear also in the list of the nations over whom Pompey triumphed in the year 61.

 

Cimbri and Teutons - 182-100 B.C.

 

In the East, on the frontiers of Europe and Asia, the Germanic race attracted little notice; but in the West, about the close of the second century B.C., it shook the edifice of the Roman State to its foundations and spread the terror of its name over the whole of Western Europe. It was the Cimbri, along with their allies the Teutones and Ambrones, who for half a score of years kept the world in suspense. All three peoples were doubtless of Germanic stock. We may take it as established that the original home of the Cimbri was on the Jutish peninsula, that of the Teutones somewhere between the Ems and the Weser, and that of the Ambrones in the same neighbourhood, also on the North Sea coast. The cause of their migration was the constant encroachment of the sea upon their coasts, the occasion being an inundation which devastated their territory, great stretches of it being engulfed by the sea. This is the account given by ancient writers and we have no reason to doubt its truth.   The exodus of all three peoples took place about the same time, and obviously in such a way that from the first they went forward in close touch with one another. First they turned southwards, probably following the line of the Elbe, crossed the Erzgebirge and pressed on into Bohemia, the land of the Boii. Driven back by the latter, they seem to have made their way along the valley of the March, southwards to the Danube, and then through Pannonia into the country of the Scordisci. Here, too, they encountered (in the year 114) such vigorous opposition that they preferred to turn westwards. That brought them into contact with the Taurisci who had just (115 B.C.) formed a close alliance with the Romans. In the Carnic Alps was stationed a Roman army under the command of the Consul Cn. Papirius Carbo, which immediately advanced into Noricum. Carbo's attempt by means of a treacherous attack to annihilate the Teutons ended in a severe defeat. The way into Italy now lay open to the victors. But so great was the awe in which they still held the Roman name, that they promptly turned away towards the north. Their route led them to the territory of the Helveti, which then extended from the Lake of Constance as far as the Main. The Helveti do not seem to have offered any resistance; indeed a considerable section of the Helveti — the Tigurini and Toygeni — attached themselves to the Teutonic migrants. The Germanic hosts then crossed the Rhine and pressed on southwards, plundering as they went.

In 109 B.C. they halted in the valley of the Rhone, on the frontier of the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, for the protection of which a strong army under the Consul M. Junius Silanus had taken the field. The Romans attacked, but were defeated for the second time. Again the Germans shrank from invading Roman territory and preferred to plunder and ravage the Gallic districts, which they completely laid waste. Finally, in the year 105 they appeared once more on the frontier of "the Province," this time resolved to attack the Romans. Of the three armies which opposed them that of the Legate M. Aurelius Scaurus was first defeated in the territory of the Allobroges. On 6 October followed the bloody battle of Arausio in which the other two armies, under the Consul Cn. Mallius Maximus and the Proconsul Q. Servilius Caepio, in all some 60,000 troops, were completely annihilated. But instead of marching into Italy, the barbarians once again let the favourable moment slip, and thus lost the fruits of their victory. They divided their forces. The Cimbri marched away westwards, first into the country of the Volcae, then on over the Pyrenees into Spain where they carried on a desultory and indecisive struggle with the Celtiberi; the Teutons and Helveti turned northwards to continue the work of plundering Gaul. In 103 the Cimbrian hosts made their way back to Gaul and reunited, in the territory of South-Belgic Veliocasses, with their comrades who had remained behind.

Now at last they prepared a march upon Italy. In the spring of 102 the main mass of the united hordes began to move southwards. Only one section, of about 6000 men — the nucleus of the later tribe of the Aduatuci — remained behind in Belgica to guard the spoils. Doubtless with a view to the difficulties of the passage of the Alps, especially in the matter of supply, the invading host was before long divided into three columns. The plan was that the Teutones and Ambrones should make their way into the plain of the Po from the western side, crossing the Maritime Alps, while the Cimbri and the Tigurini should make a wide flanking movement and enter from the north, the former by way of the Tridentine, the latter by way of the Noric Alps. But the attempt was planned on too vast a scale, and was wrecked by the military skill of Marius. The Ambrones and Teutones were annihilated in the double battle near Aquae Sextiae (summer 102), while the fate of the Cimbri overtook them in the following year. They had already reached the soil of Italy, into which they had forced their way after a victorious encounter with Quintus Lutatius Catulus on the Adige, when (30 July 101), on the plains of Vercellae, the so-called Campi Raudii, they were utterly routed by the united forces of Marius and Catulus. The Tigurini, who were to form the third invading force, received the news of the defeat of the Cimbri when they were still on the Noric Alps, and immediately turned round and retired to their own country. Thus the great invasion of the northern barbarians was defeated, and Western Europe could once more breathe freely.

We saw above that about 100, B.c. doubtless in connexion with the appearance of the Cimbri and Teutones in South Germany, the line of the Main was crossed by the Germanic peoples, and the settlement of the territory between that and the Danube began. Less than a generation later there was another attempt to extend the Germanic sphere of influence westward over Gaul. About the year 71 B.c. on the invitation of the powerful tribe of the Sequani, Ariovistus chief of the Suebi crossed the Rhine with 15,000 warriors to serve as mercenaries to the Sequani against their neighbours the Aedui. But after the victory was won, the strangers did not return to their own land but remained on the western side of the Rhine and established themselves in the territory of their employers, taking possession of about a third of it, presumably at its northern extremity. Strengthened by large accessions from the homeland this Germanic settlement on Gaulish territory — it consisted of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci, and finally extended over the whole of the left side of the Rhine valley, eastward of the Vosges — soon became a menace to all the surrounding tribes. A united attempt, in which the Aedui took a leading part, to expel the intruders by force of arms ended after months of indecisive fighting in a crushing defeat of the Gauls (at Admagetobrgia), apparently in the year 61. B.C. Gaul lay defenceless at the feet of the victors, and they did not fail to make the most of their success. The Aedui and all their adherents were forced to give hostages and to pay a yearly tribute. None dared to oppose the conquerors, who already regarded the whole of Gaul as their prey. They pursued their work deliberately and systematically, constantly bringing in new swarms of their compatriots, chiefly Suebi and Marcomanni, and assigning them lands in the territories which they had subjugated. Settlers came even from Jutland, Endusi and Harudes 24,000 strong, and on their arrival the Sequani were forced to give up another third of their territory to the new-comers. Thus the power of Ariovistus became very formidable. The establishment of a great Germanic Empire over the whole of Gaul seemed not far distant.

 

Ariovistus and Caesar . 61-58 B.C.

 

At other points also the Teutons were preparing to cross the Rhine. It seemed as if the example set by Ariovistus would lead to a general invasion of Gaul, flood the whole country with Germans, and overwhelm the Gaulish race. The movement began on the upper Rhine, on the Helvetic border. The Helveti had been obliged, as we have already seen, to retire further and further before the pressure of the Germans, until finally all the country north of the Lake of Constance was lost to them, and the Rhine became their northern frontier. Even here they were not allowed to rest. A short time after the appearance of Ariovistus the Teutons had again endeavoured to enlarge their border towards the south, and there ensued a long struggle upon the Rhine frontier. It was only by their utmost efforts that the Helveti were able to beat off the attacks of their opponents. Weary of the constant struggle, they at last resolved to leave their territory. This, as we have seen, they did three years later, when some smaller tribes, among them the Germanic Tulingi., threw in their lot with them. The Jura region, the entrance to southern Gaul, thus lay open to the Teutons. In the same year there appeared on the middle Rhine, probably in the Taunus region, a powerful Suebian army — a hundred "gau's" under the leadership of two brothers named Nasua (perhaps Masua) and Cimberius — and threatened to invade from this point the territory of the Treveri on the opposite bank. Finally, there was great restlessness also on the lower Rhine, among the tribes inhabiting the right bank, especially among the Usipetes and Tencteri, in consequence especially of the repeated aggressions of the warlike Suebi.

This was the condition of affairs when Caesar (58 B.C.) took up his command in Gaul. He was well aware of the danger to the Roman occupation which lay in these wholesale immigrations of Germanic hordes into Gaulish territory, and it was consequently his first care to take prompt measures to meet the Teutonic peril. It is well known how he performed this task, how he removed the haunting dread of a general irruption of the Germanic peoples into Keltic territory, and at the same time established security and order upon the Rhine frontier. The restoration of the conquered Helveti to their abandoned territory in order that they might continue to serve, but now in the Roman interest, as a buffer-state, secured Gaul, and especially the valley of the Rhone, against incursions from the direction of the upper Rhine. His victory over Ariovistus destroyed the latter's vast levies and with them his ascendancy, but not — and herein we see again the far-sighted policy of the conqueror — the work of colonization begun by the Germanic ruler. The tribes of the Vangiones, Nemetes and Tribocci which he had settled in Gaul were allowed to remain where they were, and, like the Helveti, were placed under the Roman suzerainty while retaining their racial independence. But while Caesar allowed these settlements to remain, he repressed with all the greater energy all further efforts of expansion on the part of the dwellers on the upper Rhine. True, the Suebian bands which in 58 had mustered on the right bank of the river, had retired on receiving news of the defeat of Ariovistus, so that there was no fighting with them, but the attempt of Usipetes and Tencteri, in the following year, to find a new home for themselves in Gaul led to a battle, in which a large portion of them perished, and the rest were flung back across the Rhine.

Augustus assumed the offensive against the Teutons. Even though the extension of the Roman dominion as far as the Elbe effected by the brilliant military successes of the two step-sons of the Emperor was of short duration — the year 9 A.D. witnessed the loss of the territory won by the expenditure of so much blood, of which it had been proposed to make a new province of Germania Magna—yet the Rhine frontier was secured for a considerable time to come by a belt of fortresses garrisoned by an army of nearly 80,000 men. This frontier was not seriously threatened for two hundred years thereafter. Throughout that period, except for a few insignificant raids, Gaul's eastern neighbour remained quiescent. It was only in the third century that unrest shewed itself again, thereafter steadily increasing as time went on. And the cause of this was the appearance of two powerful confederacies which thenceforward dominated the history of the Rhineland — the Alemans and the Franks.

While the expansion of the Teutons towards the west was thus barred by the Romans, it proceeded the more vigorously in a southward and south-eastward direction. It is true that but little certain information has come down to us. The movements of population, implied by the appearance of the Marcomanni in Bohemia, of the Quadi in Moravia, of the Naristi between the Böhmer-Wald and the Danube, of the Bun, Lacringi, Victovali in the north of the Hungarian lowlands, are all more or less shrouded in obscurity, and it is but rarely possible to find a clue to their relations. About 60 B.C. the Boii had been forced by the advance of the Germanic races from the north to abandon their ancestral possessions. A portion of them found a dwelling-place in Pannonia, another portion, on its way from Noricum, joined the Helvetic migration. The north of the country thus left unoccupied was immediately taken up by Hermunduric, Semnonic, and Vandalic bands, offshoots of the three great tribes which flanked Bohemia on the north. From them were doubtless sprung the peoples who at a later time are met with here at the southern base of the Sudetes, the Sudini, Bativi, and Corconti. They were followed by the Marcomanni, who, doubtless in consequence of the military successes of Drusus in Germany, made their way, under the lead of their chief Marbod, to the further side of the Böhmer-Wald and occupied the main portion of the former country of the Boii.

 

Marbod  6-14 A.D.

 

The powerful kingdom which this Germanic prince established by bringing in further masses of settlers and by subjugating the surround­ing tribes—even the powerful Semnones, the Langobards, the Goths, and the Lugi (Vandals) are said to have acknowledged his suzerainty — had no rival in northern Europe, and with its trained army of 70,000 footmen and 4000 horse soon became a menace to the Roman Empire. The importance which was attached to it, and to the commanding personality of its ruler by the Romans themselves, is evident from the extraordinary military preparations which Tiberius set on foot (6 A.D.). As is well known, the intervention of the Roman arms was not in the end called for. But what even they might not have been able to accomplish was effected by inner dissension. In the struggle for the supremacy of Germany against Arminius at the head of the Cherusci, and of all the other peoples who flocked to the standard of the liberator Germaniac, Marbod was defeated, and the fate of his kingdom was thereby decided. First the Semnones and Langobards ranged themselves on the side of his adversaries, then one tribe after another, so that he found his dominions in the end reduced to their original extent, the country of the Marcomanni. With the ruin of his Empire his own fate overtook him. Treachery in his own camp forced him to seek the protection of the Romans. The fall of its founder did not, however, affect the stability of the Bohemian kingdom of the Suebi. Although the Marcomanni were never afterwards able to regain their ascendancy, they held their own far on into the decline of the ancient world, in the country which they had occupied under Marbod's leadership. Indeed after a time their power was so far revived that, in alliance with the Quadi, they were able to dominate the upper Danube frontier for fully a century.

The earliest mention of the Quadi occurs in the geographer Strabo. He names them among the Suebian tribes who settled within the Hercynian Forest, the mountains which form the frontier of Bohemia. The country which they inhabited is nearly the present Moravia. Its eastern frontier was formed by the March, the ancient Marus. That they were of Suebian origin is clear from the express testimony of Strabo, as well as on linguistic grounds. The only point which remains doubtful is whether even before their coming into Moravia they had formed a political unit, or whether they were a migratory band sent out by one of the great Suebian peoples, perhaps the Semnoncs, which only developed into a united and independent national community after settling in Moravia. The former, however, is the more probable.

Like their western neighbours the Marcomanni, the Quadi were the successors of a Keltic people. As the Boii had been settled in Bohemia, so in Moravia, from a remote period and down to Caesar's day had been settled the Volcae Tectosages. Seeing that about 60 B.C., the advance of the Teutons from the north over the Erzgebirge and Sudetes caused the Boii to leave their territory, it is probable that at the same time, or a little later, the peoples further to the east became involved in a struggle with the invaders. But whereas the Boii by their prompt retirement escaped the danger, the Tectosages, it would appear, were utterly destroyed. We find the Quadi soon after in possession of their territory; and since we get no hint of the fate of the Moravian Tectosages, the Romans cannot yet have been in possession of the neighbouring country of Noricum. Their destruction must therefore have fallen before 15 B.C., when Noricum passed under the dominion of Rome. If this hypothesis is correct the irruption of the Quadi into Moravia took place shortly after the Boii had left Bohemia; in any case a considerable time before the occupation of that country by the Marcomanni.

To the west of the Marcomanni, between the Böhmer-Wald and the Danube as far up as the river Naab, were settled the Naristi. It is equally uncertain whence they came and when they appeared in this region. It is possible, though that is the most that can be said, that like their eastern neighbours they belonged to the Suebian confederacy — Tacitus certainly counts them as members of it — and that they are to be numbered among those peoples which, according to Strabo, Marbod had settled in the region of the Hercynia Sylva.

Guarding the flanks, as it were, of the southern territories of the Teutons lay two settlements planted by the Romans; in the west the Hermunduri between the upper Main and the Danube, and in the east the Vannianic kingdom of the Suebi. The former came into being 6-2 B.C., the Roman general, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, having assigned to a band of Hermunduri the eastern part of the territory left free by the migration of the Marcomanni into Bohemia; the latter was created by the settlement of bands of Suebian warriors belonging to the following of the fallen Suebian leaders, Marbod and Casvalda.

The Marus is of course the March, the Cusus, as this Suebian settlement cannot have been very extensive, was probably the Waag, though it may have been the Gran, which lies further to the east. The Batizot of Ptolemy are probably identical with these Suebians of northern Hungary, who come into notice several times in the course of the first century. As they disappear later, they were probably absorbed by the Quadi. Further towards the north-east, in the Hungarian Erzgebirge, and beyond in the upper region of the Vistula, we find in the first century of our era the Buri and Sidones. The former, who are men­tioned as early as Strabo, were probably of Bastarnian, and the latter of Lugian origin; further still, abutting on the eastern flank of the Sidones, were the Burgiones, Ambrones, and Frugundiones, doubtless also Bastarnian.

 

Germany in the First Century   14-167 A.D.

 

If we now review the ethnographic situation in ancient Germany about the close of the first century A.D., we find on its western frontier, in the eastern basin of the lower Rhine, the Chamavi, the Bructeri, the Usipii, the Tencteri, the Chattuarii and Tubantes; further in the interior, on both sides of the Weser, the great tribes of the Chatti and Cherusci; further to the north, the Angrivarii; and, on the North Sea coast, the Chauci and Frisians. In the heart of the country three powerful Suebian populations have their seat: on the western bank of the middle Elbe, extending as far south as the Rhaetian frontier, the Hermunduri; north of them, on the western bank of the lower Elbe, the Langobards, and beyond that river, in the basins of the Havel and the Spree, the Semnones, who were held to be the primitive stock of the Suebi. The eastern part of the country was mainly occupied by the Lugii. The tribes too which appear later, in the wars of the Marcomanni (the Victovali, Asdingi, and Lacringi), were doubtless also Vandalic. Northward in the region of the Wartha and Netze, dwelt the Bur­gundiones or Burgundi; further north still, on the Pomeranian Baltic coast, the Rugii and Lemovi, next to whom on the western side came (with some other smaller tribes) the Saxons. North of these again, on the Jutish peninsula, lay the Anglii and Varini. Turning back to the Vistula again, we find on its eastern bank the Goths, who, apparently by the beginning of our era, had spread from the shores of its estuary to its upper waters. In the south, the portion of the Hermunduri which had its seat between the Main and the Danube formed the first link in a long chain consisting of Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Buri, and finally, beyond the confinium Germanorum, the numerous branches of the Bastarnae.

It was therefore a vast territory which the Germanic races claimed for their own, and yet, as was soon to appear, it was too narrow for the energies of these young and vigorous nations. On their north foamed the sea, to the east yawned the desert steppes of southern Russia: thus any further expansion could only take a westward or southward direction. But on the one side as on the other lay the unbroken line of the Roman frontier. Any attempt at expansion in either of these directions must inevitably lead to an immediate collision with the Roman Empire.

 

Marcus Aurelius    167-1741 A.D.

 

The storm which lowered upon the Bohemian mountains was soon to burst. Mighty forces were doubtless at work in the interior of Germany which shortly after the accession of Marcus Aurelius stirred up the whole mass of nations from the Böhmer-Wald to the Carpathians, and let loose a tempest such as the Roman Empire had never before encountered on its frontiers. In the summer of 167 hosts of barbarians mustered along the line of the Danube, ready to make an inroad into Roman territory. The Praetorian Praefect, Furius Victorinus, was defeated, and slain with most of his troops; and the invading flood poured forward over the unprotected provinces. Not until the two Emperors reached the seat of war (spring 168) was the plundering and ravaging stopped. The barbarians then withdrew to the further side of the Danube and declared their readiness to enter into negotiations. There, in the winter of 168-9 the plague broke out with fearful violence in the Roman camp, and at once the complexion of events changed for the worse. In the spring, in the absence of the Emperors, who on the outbreak of the epidemic had returned to the capital, the army, weakened and disorganised by disease, suffered another severe defeat, and the Praetorian Praefect, Macrinius Vindex, met his death. Following up their victory, the Teutons assumed the offensive all along the line. A surging mass of peoples —Hermunduri, Naristi, Marcomanni, Quadi, Lacringi, Buri, Victovali, Asdingi and other tribes Germanic and Iazygic — swept over the provinces of Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, and Daeid. Some detached bands even pushed their way into North Italy, laid siege to Aquileia, and destroyed Opitergium, further to the west.

But the danger passed as quickly as it had arisen. Effective measures were instantly taken. The flood of invasion was stemmed, and as it receded the Romans, led by the Emperor in person, took the aggressive. All the Teutons and Iazyges who remained on the south bank were forced back across the river. So successful were the Roman arms that by the year 171 the Quadi sued for peace. In the following year the Roman army crossed the Danube, and laid waste the country of the Marcomanni. Thus the two most dangerous adversaries had been subdued and the war seemed over. But by the year 174 the Emperor again found himself obliged to return to Germany. Scarcely had he entered the country of the Quadi, when the army was placed in a highly dangerous position by an enveloping movement of the enemy, and by want of water. Suddenly a torrent of rain descended, and legionaries saw in the "miracle" a proof of the favour of the gods, and were inspired to fight with splendid valour, and gained a complete victory. This broke the resistance of the Quadi, and the Marcomanni also were forced to make peace. In 176 the Emperor returned to Rome, and there celebrated, along with his son Commodus, a well-deserved triumph. In 177 Marcus rejoined his army with the purpose of completing the work of conquest. Two new provinces, Marcomania and Sarmatia, were to be added to his Empire and were to round off his northern boundary. The war began (apparently before the end of 177) with an attack upon the Quadi, after which the Marcomanni were to be dealt with. In the course of the three-years' war both peoples were so thoroughly exhausted that when the Emperor suddenly died (17 March 180) their military strength was already broken.

 

Commodus . 176-235 A.D.

 

One of the first acts of Commodus, an unworthy successor of his father, was to make peace which surrendered to the all but beaten enemy every advantage that had been wrested from them. The struggle for the lands to the north of the Danube was at an end. Meanwhile the Romans were confronted, about the close of the century, with a new and dangerous enemy in the west, in the angle between the Main and the frontier of upper Germany and Rhaetia —by the Alemans. As their name indicates, the Alemans were not a single tribe but a union of tribes —a confederacy. We hear (somewhat later) the names of several of the component tribes, the Juthungi, the Brisigavi, the Bucinobantes, and the Lentienses. Whence did they come? No doubt the nucleus of this confederacy was formed by the southern divisions of the Hermunduri. To these there may have attached themselves various fragments of peoples which had split off before and after the Marcomannic war, just as later, towards the middle of the third century, the Semnones, in the course of a migration southward, probably joined this confederacy and were absorbed by it.

Before long—as early as 213 —the new nation came in contact with the Romans. So far as can be made out from the confused account which is given us of their first appearance  they had invaded Rhaetia, whereupon the Emperor Caracalla took the field against them, flung them back across the frontier and advanced into their territory carrying all be­fore him. Before twenty years had passed the Teutons — presumably the Alemans again — renewed the attack upon the Roman frontier defences. So threatening was the situation that the Emperor Severus Alexander felt himself obliged to break off his campaign against the Persians, and take over in person the direction of the operations on the Rhine. Negotia­tions had already begun before his assassination (March 235), but his successor, the rough and soldierly Maximin, brought new life into the campaign. Advancing by forced marches into the country of the Alemans he drove the barbarians before him without serious resistance, laid waste their fields and dwellings far and wide, and finally defeated them far in the interior of their territory.

The result of this campaign, the last war of offence on a large scale which the Romans waged on the Rhine, was the restoration of security to the frontier for a period of twenty years. Under Gallienus—probably about the year 258—the storm broke. With irresistible force the armies of the Alemans broke through the great chain of frontier fortifications between the Main and the Danube, and after overpowering the scattered Roman garrisons, poured like a flood across the whole of the Agri Decumates, and established themselves permanently in the conquered territory. At the same time Rhaetia became a prey to them; nay more, a strong force even crossed the Alps and penetrated as far as Ravenna. The invaders were, it is true, defeated by Gallienus near Milan, and forced to retreat, but the country at the northern base of the Alps was lost, and its loss threw open to the Germanic hordes the gates of Italy.

In addition to the Alemans of the upper Rhine, there now appeared, on the lower course of that river, another dangerous enemy, namely the Franks. The frontier had scarcely ever been seriously threatened at this point since the days of Augustus, but now under Gallienus the situation was altered. Here also there had quietly grown up a confederacy which, under the name of Franci, the Free, presumably comprised the tribes formerly met with in these regions, the Chamavi, Sugambri, and other smaller clans. Their name, first heard in the time of Gallienus, was soon to become even more terrible in the ears of the Romans than that of the Alemans. The first attack of the new league of peoples upon the Rhine frontier occurred in 253. The districts on the Gaulish bank of the Rhine soon fell into the hands of the enemy. With great difficulty Gallienus succeeded in forcing them back across the Rhine. But others followed them, and there ensued a series of desperate struggles which lasted till 258. On the whole the Romans had the best of it, even though their army was not large enough to prevent isolated bands of Franks from establishing themselves upon the left bank of the Rhine.

In 258 Gallienus was called away to the lower Danube, which urgently demanded his presence. The confusion which was created in the Rhine district by the assassination in the following year of the Emperor's son Valerian who had been left behind as Imperial Resident at Cologne, by the ambitious general Cassianus Postumus, gave the Franks a welcome opportunity to make a new inroad into Gaul. Their bands ranged almost unresisted through the whole country from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, devastating as they went. Then they pushed on, as the Cimbri had done before them, across the mountains into Spain, and made havoc of that country for several years, reducing to subjection even great cities like Tarraco, while, like the Vandals after them, they also made a foray into Africa. As at the time of the Cimbrian war, the terror of the Germans spread through all the countries of Western Europe. Only after a considerable time Postumus — a capable soldier and a well-intentioned administrator — was able to force the Germanic hordes out of Gaul and restore peace and security. But the Rhine became the frontier of the Empire and remained so as long as the Empire lasted.

From this time onward begins a period of incessant fighting with the Teutons of the Rhine-country: with the Alemans in the south and the Franks in the north. The weakness and exhaustion of the Empire caused by inner dissensions becomes manifest. If Postumus succeeded in keeping the Roman possessions on the Gaulish bank of the Rhine essentially intact, his immediate successors were less successful. The country was left defenceless, and large portions of it were plundered and drained of their resources. Probus indeed, whose short reign (276-282) is a ray of light in these gloomy times, succeeded in clearing them out of Gaul, and even ventured to assume the offensive on the upper Rhine, in a brilliant campaign forcing the Alemans back to the further side of the Neckar. But such successes were but temporary. Only in the time of Diocletian does a durable improvement on the Rhine frontier set in, an improvement which was maintained for the next two or three generations. During this period a third set of invaders, in addition to the Franks and Alemans, appeared towards the close of the century in the Saxons, the terror of the British and Gaulish coasts. In the main, however, Gaul was suffered to enjoy peace; and with peace returned prosperity.

 

The Goths. 230-282 A.D.

 

Meanwhile on the shores of the Euxine, there emerges a people with whose name the world was to ring for centuries, the Goths. Their original home had been, it would appear, in Scandinavia, and after their migration to the German Baltic coast they had at first established themselves about the estuary of the Vistula, then in course of time they had moved further southward along the right bank of that river, so that at the beginning of our era they appear as far south as the neighbourhood of the Bohemian kingdom of the Marcomanni. How long they remained in this region we do not know, but it is not unlikely that their eastward migration falls about the time of the great Marcomannic war. We are equally ignorant of the time occupied by this migration and the details of its progress; the only thing certain is that it reached its close not later than c. 230-240.

(The Gutones on the North Sea coast mentioned by Pytbeas in the fourth century B.e. may have been a branch of this people which had wandered westward, and were absorbed probably by the Frisians.)

 The territory where the Goths at last took up their abode embraced the whole of the northern coast of the Black Sea. In the east it was separated by the Don from that of the Alani, in the west it bordered on the tract of country northward of the Danube Delta and the Dacian frontier which had been settled four hundred years earlier by the Bastarnae and the Sciri. Here the Goths divided into two sections soon after their immigration, that dwelling more to the west being known as the Tervingi, "the inhabitants of the forest region," while the eastern division was known as the Greutungi, "the inhabitants of the Steppes." For the former the name Visigoths (Vesegoti) came into use, at latest c. 350, for the latter the name Ostrogoths, designations however of which the meaning is not absolutely certain, although "the western Goths" and "the eastern Goths" was an interpretation already known to Jordanes. The boundary between them was formed by the Dniester. Before long there appear alongside of them other Germanic peoples, the Gepidae, Taifali, Borani, Urugundi, and Heruli. The two first of these had some original link of connexion with them. The Gepidae indeed appear in the Gothic legend of their migrations as an actual part of the Gothic nation. Whether they migrated to the Black Sea region at the same time as the Goths, or followed them later, must remain an open question.

Towards the end of the reign of Severus Alexander (222-235) the first indications of the appearance on the northern shores of the Black Sea of a new and powerful barbarian race, of a most warlike temper, had already become manifest, when the Greek towns of Olbia and Tyras fell victims to the sudden descent of an unknown enemy from the North. A little later, under Gordian III (238-244), its name is found. In the spring of 238 Gothic war-bands marched southwards, crossed the Danube with the connivance of the Dacian Carpi and broke into the province of Lower Moesia, where they captured and plundered the town of Istrus. The Procurator of the province, Tullius Menophilus (238-241), being unable to repel the invasion by force of arms, induced the Goths to retire by the promise of a yearly subsidy. But by 248 they had renewed their attacks on the Roman frontier in alliance with the Taifali, Asdingi, and Bastarnae. Under the leadership of Argaith and Gunterich their bands again broke into Lower Moesia, assailed without success the fortified town of Marcianople and plundered the unfortunate province again.

 

Decius . 250-265 A.D.

 

But these first exploits of the Goths were completely thrown into the shade by the great invasion of Roman territory made at the beginning of 250 by the half-legendary King Kniwa at the head of a powerful army. While the Carpi flung themselves upon Dacia, the Gothic attack was directed as before upon Moesia. Thence a strong detachment pressed onward over the undefended passes of the Balkans into Thrace, laid siege to Philippopolis, and even despatched a plundering party into Macedonia. One division of the Gothic army, after vainly assaulting Novae and Nicopolis, was defeated in the neighbourhood of the latter town by the Emperor Decius in person, but this success was immediately counterbalanced by a reverse. The Goths, while retiring southwards by way of Beroe (Augusta Traiana), the present Eski-Zaghra, on the southern slope of the Balkans, defeated the Roman troops who were pursuing them. After this battle the victorious Goths effected a junction with their countrymen who were investing Philip­popolis, and that city fell into their hands. The Romans, however, were now making extensive preparations, in view of which the barbarians began their retreat. Decius, eager to wipe out the failure at Beroë, sought to bar their path, and, in the hope of inflicting a crushing defeat upon them, engaged them near Abrittus, about 30 miles south-east of Durostorum (Silistria) in June 251. The day, which began well for the Romans, ended in a fearful disaster, a great part of their army was destroyed, and the Emperor himself and one of his sons were among the slain. The country from which the barbarians had just retired now lay once more defenceless before them. They were finally bought off by the promise of a yearly subsidy.

The Gothic war of 250-251 had revealed in its full extent the danger which had lain hidden behind the mountains of Dacia. Later events did little to remove the terrible impression which the invasion of Kniwa had left behind. On the contrary, the history of the eastern half of the Empire in the reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus is filled with incessant struggles against the Goths and their allies. For even Asia Minor was not exempt from their ravages; besides the bands which swept down by the Balkans and back again there were now others which came by sea from the Crimea and Lake Maeotis to ravage a constantly widening area of the coasts of Asia Minor and which even penetrated to the inland districts. Especially prominent in these piratical raids were the Borani and Heruli, two peoples who here appear in history for the first time side by side with the Goths. The first of these expeditions, made by the Borani in 256 against the town of Pityus (on the eastern shore of the Black Sea), ended in failure, but by the following year these same Borani succeeded in capturing and sacking Pityus and Trapezus. Even more destructive was the expedition which (spring 258) was undertaken by the West Goths, starting by sea and land from the port of Tyras. The whole western coast of Bithynia with the cities of Chalcedon, Nicomedia, Nicaea, Apamea, and Prusa was ravaged. The years 263, 264, and 265 also witnessed the vasting of the coast lands of Asia Minor by similar expeditions of the Pontic Teutons. Ilium, Ephesus with its renowned temple of Artemis, and Chalcedon were this time the victims of the barbarians.

But all these exploits were far surpassed in importance by the great plundering expedition of the Heruli in the year 267. From Lake Maeotis a fleet, said to have been five hundred strong, sailed along the western shore of the Euxine, then through the Bosphorus, where they made a successful coup-de-main against Byzantium, through the Propontis, where Cyzicus was captured, and the Hellespont, and onward past Lemnos and Scyros across the Aegean to Greece. Here on the classic soil of Attica, Argolis, and Laconia the wild hosts of these barbarians made fearful havoc, and it was long enough before the bewildered provincial government ventured to oppose them. The defenders, in whose ranks the historian Dexippus of Athens played a leading part, gradually gained confidence, and when they had succeeded in destroying the ships, the invaders were obliged to retreat by the land route. Beaten by the Roman troops their hosts rolled northwards through Boeotia, Epirus, Macedonia, towards their home, which they succeeded in reaching although hard pressed by their pursuers and at the very last compelled by the Emperor Gallienus to fight a battle, in which they incurred heavy losses, at the river Nestus, on the boundary between Macedonia and Thrace.

We have seen above how the Danube had been constantly threatened since the appearance of the Goths on the Black Sea, how invasion after invasion had descended on Dacia and Moesia. Soon after the accession of Gallienus (probably 256-7), Dacia with the exception of the narrow strip between the Temes and the Danube, which continued to be held down to the time of Aurelian, together with the portion of Lower Moesia which lay to the north of the Danube (the present Great Wallachia), became the prey of the barbarians. Some of the West Goths settled in Great Wallachia and the Taifali in the Banat; the northern districts, especially Transylvania, were occupied by the Victovali and Gepidae, who at this time make their appearance among the enemies of Rome. The consequence of the loss of Dacia and Trans-Danubian Moesia was that the Teutons now became on the lower Danube as well as elsewhere the immediate neighbours of the Empire, their territory being divided from it only by the river.

 

Claudius 267-270 A.D.    

 

Only once in this whole period of inward decay did the imperial power succeed in winning a decisive victory. That was the achievement of the Emperor Claudius, whom his grateful contemporaries and successors have rightly adorned with the honourable title of "Gothicus." In the spring of 269 the Teutons made yet another attack upon the Empire, surpassing all former ones in violence. East Goths and West Goths, whom tradition here first distinguishes, Bastarnae (Peucini), Gepidae, and Heruli united their forces and advanced with a mighty army and fleet — estimated in the sources at 300,000 fighting-men and 2000 ships — against the Danubian frontier. Once more the province of Lower Moesia bore the brunt of their attack. The land army of the Teutons, in which lay their main strength, first made an unsuccessful attempt to take Tomi and Marcianople, then swept like a flood over the interior of the country, wasting and plundering as they went. Meanwhile the fleet, which was manned chiefly by Heruli, sailed past Byzantium and Cyzicus into the Aegean, and appeared before Thessalonica. Part of it remained there and blockaded the city; the remainder made a great plundering expedition which bears eloquent testimony to the seamanship and daring of these Teutons, along the coasts of Macedonia, Greece, and Asia Minor, extending even as far as Crete and Cyprus.

 

Claudius and Aurelian . 268-284 A.D.

 

This was the situation when the Emperor Claudius reached the scene of war. At his approach the besiegers of the hard-pressed Thessalonica had hastily drawn off northwards and effected a junction with their kinsmen in Upper Moesia. The hostile forces met near Naissus. In the desperate struggle which ensued the Teutons suffered a crushing defeat. What remained of their army was in part cut to pieces in the pursuit, in part driven into the inhospitable recesses of the Balkans, where the survivors surrendered. They were partly enrolled in the Roman army, partly, in pursuance of a policy initiated by the Emperor Marcus, settled as coloni in the devastated frontier districts.

Thus the danger was averted from the Empire, and the desire of its restless neighbours beyond the Danube to make expeditions on the great scale was damped for nearly a hundred years. No doubt the inroads and piratical voyages of smaller Gothic war-bands continued; indeed, in the next fourteen years (270–284), there was fighting with bands of this kind under Quintillus, Aurelian, Tacitus, and Probus, but all these incursions were easily repelled by the imperial government, which gained strength under Aurelian and Probus. Just at this time, too, there broke out a severe internal struggle between the Teutons of the Euxine and those of the Danube. The first aid called in by the Goths against the Tervingi was that of the Bastarnae, but the outcome of the struggle was that the Bastarnae were defeated and compelled to abandon the territory which they had held so tenaciously for more than five hundred years. The expelled Bastarnae, said to have numbered 100,000 men, were taken under his protection by the Emperor Probus and settled in Thrace. After that the Tervingi, supported by the Taifali, made war on the allied Gepidae and Vandals, while the East Goths fought with their eastern neighbours the Urugundi, who on their defeat were taken under the protection of the Alani. We can see that the whole of the eastern Germanic world was in a state of wild uproar.

On the middle Danube there had been no fighting worth mention since the Marcomannic war. We hear indeed of an incursion of the Marcomanni in the reign of Valerian, but, broadly speaking, the name of this once so warlike nation may be said to disappear from history. Their old comrades the Quadi often appear in association with the Iazyges, from the time of Gallienus, when they made a descent upon Pannonia. There was further fighting with them in 283, as is proved by a coin of Numerian. However, they are in this period thrown into the shade by the other more dangerous assailants of the Empire; indeed, with the appearance of the Goths the main struggle between the Roman and Germanic powers had shifted from the middle to the lower Danube.

 

Diocletian, Carausius . 282-299 A.D.

 

Shortly after the death of Probus (Oct. 282), the Alemans on the upper Rhine, and the Franks and Saxons on the lower Rhine, had begun their forays again. The eastern districts of Gaul were again overrun, while the coasts of the Channel were harried by Saxon pirates. The Burgundians also had left their home between the Oder and the Vistula, and forced their way through the heart of Germany to the Main. When the government had been taken over by Diocletian, his colleague and (after April 286) co-Emperor Maximian entered Gaul in the beginning of that year; it was his first care, so soon as he had suppressed the insurrection of the Bagaudae, to put a stop to the piracy of the Saxons and Franks. He first cleared the left bank of the Rhine, drove the Heruli and Chaivones, two Baltic tribes who had invaded Gaul, right out of the country, and, basing himself on Mainz, conducted a successful defensive campaign against Alemans and Burgundians. The defence of the coasts was entrusted to a capable officer, Carausius the Menapian, with a strong command and extensive authority. But when Carausius set up for Emperor in Britain towards the end of 286 the Teutons found a fresh opportunity. The usurper even made common cause with the enemies of the Empire and openly helped them. Maximian, indeed, repeatedly (287 and 291) gained successes against them, but the first decided improvement on the Rhine frontier was due to a new development of imperial organisation by which Gaul and Britain became a distinct administrative department with a governor of their own in the person of the general Flavius Constantius (March 293), who was at the same time appointed Caesar. The Franks were decisively defeated within their own borders (summer 293), Britain was reconquered for the Empire (spring 296) — Carausius himself had fallen a victim to a conspiracy in 293 — and finally by two great victories over the Alemans on the upper Rhine peace was at length restored (298-9), and the Rhine was made secure, especially as regards the upper part of its course, by the building of forts and the restoration of the defensive works which had been destroyed by the enemy or had fallen into decay. Following the example of Maximian, Constantius settled large numbers of prisoners of war, Franks, Frisians, and Chamavi, as laeti and coloni, in the wasted and depopulated districts of north-east Gaul. Here they were to cultivate the fields that had been lying fallow, to supply the labour that was sorely needed, and to aid in the defence of the frontier. The country rapidly recovered, trade and commerce began to flourish again, and the ancient prosperity returned.