X.

all confessed the superior valour of the Suevi; CHAP. and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, 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 unequal.

Snevi as

sume the name of Aleman

ni,

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an in- A mixed numerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the body of banks of the Mein, and in the neighbourhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. 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 retreat."

• Cæsar in Bello Gallico, iv, 7.

Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, Ixvii, p. 1350.

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.

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

CHAP.
X.

invade Gaul and Italy,

This warlike people of Germans had been astonished 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 ensused 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 the Danube, and through the Rhætian Alps, into the 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 seare repul- nate some sparks of their ancient virtue. Both Rome by the emperors were engaged in far distant wars; and peo- Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine.

sed from

the senate

ple.

All the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In this emergency, the senators resumed the defence 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 unwar like Romans.'

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

X.

tors ex

Gallienns

service.

When Gallienus received the intelligence that CHAP. ' his capital was delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted, than alarmed, with The senathe courage of the senate, since it might one cluded by day prompt them to rescue the public from do- from the mestic tyranny, as well as from foreign invasion. military 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 the 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 vallas, they cheerfully resigned the more dangerous cares of empire, to the rough hands of peasants and soldiers."

an alli

the Ale

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

"Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints breathe an uncommon spirit of freedom.

* Zonaras, l. xii, p. 631.

X.

CHAP. 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 stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious title of concubine of Gallienus."

Inroads of

III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths, the 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 aud Gallienus, the frontier of the lastmentioned 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

y One of the Victors calls him king of the Marcomanni; the other, of the Germans.

See Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom, iii. n. 308 &c

X.

attained the station, and displayed the abilities, CHAP.
of a general. Though flying parties of the barba-
rians, who incessantly hovered on the banks of
the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the con-
fines of Italy and Macedonia, their progress was
commonly checked, or their return intercepted,
by the imperial lieutenants. But the great
stream of the Gothic hostilities was diverted
into a very different channel. The Goths, in
their new settlement of the Ukraine, soon be-
came 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 no-
thing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

Goths;

The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty Conquest miles distant from the narrow entrance of the of the Bosphopeninsula of Crim Tartary, known to the ancients rus by the under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. On that hospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most affecting tragedies. 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,

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

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

c

M. de Peyssonel, who had been French consul at Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, qui ont habité les hords du Danube.