3. The Saxons.—This was one of the small original tribes, settled in Holstein: the name is derived from their peculiar weapon, a short sword, called sahs. We find them now occupying nearly all the territory between the Hartz Mountains and the North Sea, from the Elbe westward to the Rhine. The Cherusci, the Chauci, and other tribes named by Tacitus, were evidently incorporated with the Saxons, who exhibit the same characteristics. There appears to have been a natural enmity—no doubt bequeathed from the earlier tribes out of which both grew—between them and the Franks.
250—300.
4. The Goths.—The traditions of the Goths state that they were settled in Sweden before they were found by the Greek navigators on the southern shore of the Baltic, in 330 BC It is probable that only a portion of the tribe migrated, and that the present Scandinavian race is descended from the remainder. As the Baltic Goths increased in numbers, they gradually ascended the Vistula, pressed eastward along the base of the Carpathians and reached the Black Sea, in the course of the second century after Christ. They thus possessed a broad belt of territory, separating the rest of Europe from the wilder Slavonic races who occupied Central Russia. The Vandals and Alans, with the Heruli, Rugii and other smaller tribes, all Germanic, as well as a portion of the Slavonic Sarmatians, were incorporated with them; and it was probably the great extent of territory they controlled which occasioned their separation into Ostrogoths (East-Goths) and Visigoths (West-Goths). They first came in contact with the Romans, beyond the mouth of the Danube, about the beginning of the third century.
5. The Thuringians.—This branch had only a short national existence. It was composed of the Hermunduri, with fragments of other tribes, united under one king, and occupied all of Central Germany, from the Hartz southward to the Danube.
6. The Burgundians.—Leaving their original home in Prussia, between the Oder and the Vistula, the Burgundians crossed the greater part of Germany in a south-western direction, and first settled in a portion of what is now Franconia, between the Thuringians and the Alemanni. Not long afterwards, however, they passed through the latter, and took possession of the country on the west bank of the Rhine, between Strasburg and Mayence.
270. INCURSIONS OF THE GOTHS.
Caracalla came into collision with the Alemanni in the year 213, and the Emperor Maximin, who was a Goth on his father's side, laid waste their territory, in 236. About the latter period, the Franks began to make predatory incursions into Gaul, and the Goths became troublesome to the Romans, on the lower Danube. In 251 the Emperor Decius found his death among the marshes of Dacia, while trying to stay the Gothic invasion, and his successor, Gallus, only obtained a temporary peace by agreeing to pay an annual sum of money, thus really making Rome a tributary power. But the Empire had become impoverished, and the payment soon ceased. Thereupon the Goths built fleets, and made voyages of plunder, first to Trebizond and the other towns on the Asiatic shore of the Black Sea; then they passed the Hellespont, took and plundered the great city of Nicomedia, Ephesus with its famous temple, the Grecian isles, and even Corinth, Argos and Athens. In the meantime the Alemanni had resumed the offensive: they came through Rhætiæ, and descended to the Garda lake, in Northern Italy.
The Emperor, Claudius II., turned back this double invasion. He defeated and drove back the Alemanni, and then, in the year 270, won a great victory over the Goths, in the neighborhood of Thessalonica. His successor, Aurelian, followed up the advantage, and in the following year made a treaty with the Goths, by which the Danube became the frontier between them and the Romans. The latter gave up to them the province of Dacia, lying north of the river, and withdrew their colonists and military garrisons to the southern side.
Both the Franks and Saxons profited by these events. They let their mutual hostility rest for awhile, built fleets, and sailed forth in the West on voyages of plunder, like their relatives, the Goths, in the East. The Saxons descended on the coasts of Britain and Gaul; the Franks sailed to Spain, and are said to have even entered the Mediterranean. When Probus became Emperor, in the year 276, he found a great part of Gaul overrun and ravaged by them and by the Alemanni, on the Upper Rhine. He succeeded, after a hard struggle, in driving back the German invaders, restored the line of stockade from the Rhine to the Danube, and built new fortresses along the frontier. On the other hand, he introduced into Germany the cultivation of the vine, which the previous Emperors had not permitted, and thus laid the foundation of the famous vineyards of the Rhine and the Moselle.
300.
Probus endeavored to weaken the power of the Germans, by separating and colonizing them, wherever it was possible. One of his experiments, however, had a very different result from what he expected. He transported a large number of Frank captives to the shore of the Black Sea; but, instead of quietly settling there, they got possession of some vessels, soon formed a large fleet, sailed into the Mediterranean, plundered the coasts of Asia Minor, Greece and Sicily, where they even captured the city of Syracuse, and at last, after many losses and marvellous adventures, made their way by sea to their homes on the Lower Rhine.
Towards the close of the third century, Constantine, during the reign of his father, Constantius, suppressed an insurrection of the Franks, and even for a time drove them from their islands on the coast of Holland. He afterward crossed the Rhine, but found it expedient not to attempt an expedition into the interior. He appears to have had no war with the Alemanni, but he founded the city of Constance, on the lake of the same name, for the purpose of keeping them in check.
The boundaries between Germany and Rome still remained the Rhine and the Danube, but on the east they were extended to the Black Sea, and in place of the invasions of Cæsar, Drusus and Germanicus, the Empire was obliged to be content when it succeeded in repelling the invasions made upon its own soil. Three hundred years of very slow, but healthy growth on the one side, and of luxury, corruption and despotism on the other, had thus changed the relative position of the two races.
CHAPTER V.
THE RISE AND MIGRATIONS OF THE GOTHS.
(300—412.)
Rise of the Goths.
—German Invasions of Gaul.
—Victories of Julian.
—The Ostrogoths and Visigoths.
—Bishop Ulfila.
—The Gothic Language.
—The Gothic King, Athanaric.
—The Coming of the Huns.
—Death of Hermanric.
—The Goths take refuge in Thrace.
—Their Revolt.
—Defeat of Valens.
—The Goths under Theodosius.
—The Franks and Goths meet in Battle.
—Alaric, the Visigoth.
—He invades Greece.
—Battle with Stilicho.
—Alaric besieges Rome.
—He enters Rome, A. D. 410.
—His Death and Burial.
—Succession of Ataulf.
—The Visigoths settle in Southern Gaul.
—Beginning of other Migrations.
325. RISE OF THE GOTHS.
Rome, as the