THE CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE TEUTONIC KINGDOMS
CHAPTER VII
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 BC—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 BC
The distinctive feature of the civilization 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 BC, 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 civilization usually known as the Hallstatt period, of which the latter portion (from about
600 BC onwards) was not less
brilliant than the Later Bronze Age, remained practically unknown to the
Teutons.
The nearest neighbors of the Teutons in this earliest period were, to
the south the Celts, 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 neighbors 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 favor of a gradual settlement of eastern Germany by immigrants
from the north seems irresistible.
By the year 400 BC, 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 BC, 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 BC.
It was with Celts 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 Celts. 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 Celts, to whom they stood in a relation
of intellectual dependence; in every aspect of public and private life Celtic
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
Celts. All Germany west of the Elbe from the North Sea to the Alps was in the
possession of the Celts, 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 Pyrenean 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 Celts
pushed their way down the Danube to the Black Sea and even into Asia Minor.
Migrations
of the Celts. 1000 BC
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 Celtic 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
Celtic 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 Celtic 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 BC), of
Scandinavia and the Danish islands, and also Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg
and WestPomerania, and therefore bounded on the
south-west by the Elbe. But in the Later Bronze Age (c. 1000-600 BC) 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 Celtic 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 BC; 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 Celts about the
year 300 BC, 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 BC 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 BC, a new civilization appears in
the Celtic domain, a civilization 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 Celts for
the possession of north-western Germany, should have eagerly adopted the higher
civilization of the Celts.
Vague reminiscences of the former supremacy of the Keltic race survived into historic times. Ac fuit antea tempus cum Germanos Galli virtute superarent, ultro 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 Celtic tribe,
the Menapii, on the right bank of the lower Rhine.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the Celtic Teuriscans of northern Hungary were originally settled in
south-central Germany between the Erzgebirge and the Harz, but later (about 400 BC) 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 BC 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 neighbors, 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 BC.
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 Celts.
Teutonic
Invasion of Gaul. 58-9 BC
The Teutonic invasion of Gaul must have taken place mainly in the second
half of the second century BC, but it
was still in progress in Caesar’s time. It may suffice briefly to recall in
this connection 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 BC 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 connection 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
advance guard 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 BC 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 Celtic
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 Celts, 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 Teutoni 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 Celts from South Germany must
have been accomplished between 100 BC and 70 BC, 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 BC
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 neighborhood 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 BC, 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 honor 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 Celtic—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 neighborhood of Olbia in the year 182 BC is attested by Polybius. There is,
indeed, much in favor 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 BC, 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 BC 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 dispatch 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 Celts
and Teutons was not yet recognized 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 BC
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
BC, 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 neighborhood, 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 BC) 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 BC 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 favorable 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 BC,
doubtless in connection 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 BC 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 neighbors 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 BC Gaul lay defenseless 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 BC
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 endeavored 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 BC) 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 Celtic 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 AD 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 neighbor remained quiescent. It was only in the third century
that unrest showed 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 BC 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
AD
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 AD). 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 Germaniae, 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 Semnones,
which only developed into a united and independent national community after
settling in Moravia. The former, however, is the more probable.
Like their western neighbors the Marcomanni, the Quadi were the
successors of a Celtic 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 BC, 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 neighboring country of
Noricum. Their destruction must therefore have fallen before 15 BC, 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 neighbors 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 62 BC, 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 AD
If we now review the ethnographic situation in ancient Germany about the
close of the first century AD, 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 AD
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 disorganized 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 favor of the gods, and were inspired to
fight with splendid valor, 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 AD
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 defenses. 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 defenseless, 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 AD
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 neighborhood 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 BC 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 connection 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 AD
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 dispatched a plundering party into Macedonia. One
division of the Gothic army, after vainly assaulting Novae and Nicopolis, was defeated in the neighborhood 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 Beroë
(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 defenseless 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 neighbors of the Empire, their
territory being divided from it only by the river.
Claudius
and Aurelian. 268-284 AD
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 honorable 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.
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 neighbors 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 neighbors 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 AD
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
defense 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 organization 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 labor that was sorely needed,
and to aid in the defense of the frontier. The country rapidly recovered, trade
and commerce began to flourish again, and the ancient prosperity returned.
Constantine
and Constantius. 299-353 AD
It was in this hopeful condition that the Western provinces came into
the hands of Constantine when (25 July 306) he was called by the will of the
army to take up the reins of government. During a reign of thirty-one years he
thoroughly fulfilled the promise of his youth. From the first day of his rule
he devoted all his efforts to the securing and wellbeing of the provinces. The
Franks who were again on the move were energetically repressed; in the process
two of their chiefs were taken prisoners, and given to the beasts. Similarly
four years later a combined attack of the Bructeri, Chamavi, Cherusci, Lanciones, Alemans, and Tubantes was repulsed with heavy loss. These were the only
occasions during Constantine's long reign on which the Germanic peoples of the
Rhine-district made any expeditions on a large scale.
As regards the actual defense of the frontier, the number of troops was
increased, the flotilla on the Rhine was reorganized and raised to a
considerable strength, and the belt of fortresses along the frontier was
improved. In this connection took place the reoccupation and refortification of Divitia (Deutz), the old
bridge-head of Cologne, which once more gave the Romans a firm foothold on the
right bank of the Rhine on what had now become Frankish soil.
The coast defense of Gaul and Britain likewise underwent further
improvements. The establishment of a special military command in the latter
country, mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum under the title comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam, most probably goes back to
Constantine. When the Emperor towards the end of 316 left Gaul for the last
time, the land was in the enjoyment of complete peace, and this happy state of
affairs continued so long as the internal peace of the Empire was preserved.
The enemy on the further side of the Rhine was thoroughly overawed, and
ventured on nothing more than small violations of the frontier.
Julian.
354-368 AD
Nevertheless the peace did not endure. When Magnentius, a Frank by race,
set himself up as Emperor (350), the security of the Rhine was immediately
imperiled, since the eastern Emperor Constantius himself incited the Teutons to
attack the usurper and so to invade the Empire. All that had been accomplished
by Constantine was rapidly lost in the disastrous years of civil war between
351 and 353. The left bank of the Rhine was again overrun by the Teutons, the
fortified positions, denuded of their garrisons, were almost all captured and
destroyed and the open country far into the interior of the province was
plundered till there was nothing left to plunder. Although Constantius, after
the suppression of the pestifera tyrannis,
himself made two campaigns against the Alemans, in
the first (spring 354) against the kings Gundomad and Vadomar, in the second (summer 355) against the Lentienses, he effected practically nothing. It was only
when the young Caesar Julian took up the command in Gaul that the situation
began to improve. The whole year 356 was taken up in fighting against the Alemans, who were driven back on all sides. A great number
of towns, including Cologne, which had been captured by the Franks, were won
back again. A serious defeat incurred in 357 by the magister peditum Barbatio was retrieved
by the brilliant victory of the Caesar over the united forces of Chnodomar, Serapio, Vestralp, and other kings—in all 35,000 men under seven ‘kings’
(reges) and
ten ‘sub-kings"’ (regales)—at Argentoratum (Strasburg). Two further campaigns against the Alemans, in 359 and 361, were equally successful. On
the lower Rhine also Julian defeated the Franks, the Chauci,
and the Chamavi (358-360); the tracts between the
Scheldt and the Meuse were cleared of the enemy, seven towns, among them the
old fortresses of Bingium, Antunnacum, Bonna, Novaesium, and Vetera (all on the Rhine) were retaken, and again put in a
state of defense. Thus the young Caesar seemed in the way of bringing about a
complete pacification of the Rhine country, when he was compelled to leave Gaul
by the outbreak of the conflict with Constantius (361).
Once again the country was left defenseless before the barbarians, who
did not fail to profit by the situation. It was indeed high time when, after
the death of Jovian (Feb. 364), the new Emperor Valentinian entered the
threatened province in the late autumn of 365, and took up his headquarters at
Paris. So much had the situation altered for the worse since the departure of
Julian that the Alemans could venture in January 366
to cross the frozen Rhine, and penetrate to the neighborhood of
Chalons-sur-Marne. Here, indeed, they were defeated by the general Jovinus who
had hastened from Paris to intercept them, and were compelled to beat a
retreat. But the danger was not done with. The guerrilla warfare continued on
the frontier, with its forays and surprises. Several years of vigorous action
were needed before any change was apparent. Following the old and well-tried
maxim that attack is the best defense, Valentinian in 368 himself crossed the
Rhine at the head of a considerable army reinforced by contingents of Illyrian
and Italian troops. Advancing into the country of the Alemans he came upon the enemy at Solicinium (Sulz on the upper Neckar?) and defeated them in a bloody
battle. Two smaller expeditions beyond the Rhine followed in the years 371 and
374. The result of this successful assumption of the aggressive by the Romans
was, broadly speaking, the recovery of the Rhine frontier, which remained for
the present exempt from serious attack.
Valentinian.
282-383 AD
During this time of military activity the defenses along the whole line
of the Rhine were strengthened. The existing castles and watchtowers were
improved and many new ones were built; indeed a vigorous development of this
old and well-tried system of frontier defense is the special merit of
Valentinian. Taken generally, his reign marks a revival of the strength of the
Empire, inward as well as outward, and the results of his work upon the Rhine
could be felt for a generation after his death. Thus his son and successor,
Gratian (375-383), found for the most part his ways made plain and a more
peaceful situation obtaining on his arrival in Gaul than that which had
confronted his father ten years earlier. Nevertheless he too had to draw the sword
against the Alemans, who—mainly the tribe of the Lentienses—in the spring of 378 crossed the Rhine with a
considerable force. A battle took place near Argentaria (Horburg near Colmar) in which the Romans gained a
complete victory, destroying the greater part of the enemy.
Thus, here on the
Rhine frontier the year 378 brought the Romans once more a
complete success—the same year which in the East witnessed the
breakdown of the Roman military
power and the disastrous fall of the Emperor Valens.
In contrast to the Rhine countries, the Danubian provinces had, since the death of the Emperor Probus, enjoyed comparative
peace. The power of the most dangerous neighbor of the Empire, the Goths, had
been crippled for a long time, as we have seen, by Claudius and Aurelian, and
more especially by the dissensions and struggles between the different tribes.
The East Goths in particular had, since the close of the third century, been
fully occupied with their own affairs, and completely disappear for nearly a
century. In the fourth century it is always the western division, the Tervingi, of whom we hear; as is indeed natural, seeing
that their conquest of Trans-Danubian Moesia under
Gallienus had made them the immediate neighbors of the Empire.
No events of any great importance on the Danubian frontier are recorded down to the time of Constantine. True, an inscription of
Diocletian and his colleagues of a date shortly before 301, celebrates a
victory over hostile tribes on the lower Danube, which doubtless means the
Goths, but these battles can hardly have been of any considerable importance.
On the other hand Constantine frequently had trouble with the Goths. After some
inroads in 314 the frontier defenses were strengthened by the building of the
fortress Tropaeum Traiani (Adamelissi). The removal of troops from the frontier during
preparations of Licinius for another civil war gave the signal at the
beginning of 323 for a new incursion of the Goths. Thanks to the rapid advance
of Constantine—which brought him into his colleague's territory—the
invaders were intercepted before they had done any great damage, and after
severe losses, including the death of their leader, Rausimod, were forced back
across the Danube.
After the end of the civil war Constantine strove with unwearying zeal to improve the defenses of the frontier.
The line was protected by castles, and although the number of the frontier
troops to whom was especially assigned the duty of garrisoning them—the milites limitanei or riparienses—was
considerably reduced, there was no diminution, but, on the contrary, a distinct
increase of military security, gained by the creation at the same time of a
mobile field force. So strong did the Roman Empire feel itself at this period
that towards the close of the reign of Constantine it even ventured to
interfere in events on the further side of the Danube where the Goths and Taifali were encroaching on the Sarmatians who occupied the
tract between the Theiss and the Danube. In response
to an appeal of the Sarmatians for help, the Emperor's eldest son Constantine
crossed the river at the head of an army and, in conjunction with the
Sarmatians, thoroughly routed the Teutons (20 April 332).
Doubtless in consequence of this defeat, which clearly brought home to
them the military superiority of the Empire, the warlike ardor of the Tervingi and Taifali was
extinguished for a long time. Their impulse to expand, the driving force of all
their undertakings, was exhausted for the present. The barbarians began to busy
themselves with agriculture and cattle-raising. As regards their relation to
the Empire, former conditions were reversed. By the treaty of peace concluded
after their defeat they nominally surrendered their independence and recognized
the suzerainty of the Roman government, being pledged as foederati, in return for yearly
subsidies (annonae foederaticae),
to share in the defense of the frontier, and in case of war to serve as
auxiliary troops. The peace continued for more than thirty years. From time to
time there may have been slight disturbances of the peace—of this, indeed,
there is inscriptional evidence from the period of the joint rule of the three
sons of Constantine (337-340), but on the whole both sides strictly observed
their compact.
During this long period of peace the West Goths underwent a revolution,
primarily religious but one which in its consequences affected the whole
mental, social, and political life of the people—the introduction of Christianity.
As early as the second half of the third century Christian teaching had
obtained an entrance among them through Cappadocian prisoners, taken in the sea-expeditions against Asia Minor. There is no reason
to doubt this fact; and it is equally certain that a century later there were
among the Goths representatives of the most various schools of belief,
Catholics, Arians, and (since about 350) Audians.
Accordingly, the beginnings of Christianity among the Goths of the Danube reach
far back, and its diffusion among them took place under the most various and
independent influences. Of a conversion of the nation there can be no question,
at least as far down as the middle of the fourth century. Their conversion only
begins with the appearance of Ulfila.
Born of Christian parents about the year 310-11 in the country of the
Goths, he grew up as a Goth among the Goths, although Greek blood flowed in his
veins. One or other of his parents came of a Christian family from the
neighborhood of Parnasus in Cappadocia which had been
carried into captivity by the Goths in the time of Gallienus (264?). First
employed as a Reader, he was, at the age of about 30, that is to say about the
year 341, consecrated as bishop of the Christian community in the land of the
Goths, by Eusebius (of Nicomedia), the famous leader of the Arian party, at
that time bishop of Constantinople. Equally efficient as missionary and as
organizer, Ulfila gathered and united the scattered
confessors of the Christian faith, and, by his enthusiastic preaching of the
Gospel he won for it many new adherents. For seven years he worked with great
success among his fellow-countrymen, and then he was suddenly obliged (c. 348)
to interrupt his work. A “godless and impious prince”, probably Athanarich, inflicted cruel persecution on the Christians
who dwelt within his dominion, by which the newly organized church was
scattered and its bishop compelled to leave his home. Ulfila gathered together his adherents or as many of them as had escaped the
persecution and fled with them across the Danube into Roman territory, where
the Emperor Constantius gave him shelter. Here he lived and worked (in the
neighborhood of Nicopolis) as the priestly, and also
as the political, head of the Goths who had accompanied him in his flight,
until 380 or 381—in very truth the apostle of the Goths, and not least so in
virtue of his great work of translating the Bible, by which he transmitted to
his people the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures for all time; and although his
missionary activity in his native land had early been brought to a close, yet
the conversion of the whole Gothic race to Arian Christianity was nothing else
than the harvest of that seed which he had sown in those first years of his
work among them.
Soon after the death of Constantius (361) the friendly relations between
the West Goths and the Empire began to change. Scarcely had Valentinian and
Valens ascended the throne when there was an open rupture. First, towards the
end of 364, predatory bands of Goths devastated Thrace—at the same time there
was an incursion of the Quadi and Sarmatians into Pannonia—then in the spring
of 365 the whole Gothic nation prepared for a great expedition against the
Roman territory. Once more the danger was averted; Valens, although he was on
the march for Syria and had already reached Bithynia, at once took vigorous
measures to cope with it. Two years later however came the long-expected
collision. Valens himself advanced to the attack. He found a pretext in the
ambiguous attitude of the Goths in recent years, especially in their having
aided the usurper Procopius with a contingent of 3000 men (winter of 365-6). In
the summer of 367 the Roman army crossed the Danube. Yet no events of decisive
importance took place, either in this or the two following years—for the war
lasted till 369. The Goths, who had chosen as their leader Athanarich,
skillfully avoided a pitched battle, and they withdrew into the fastnesses of
the Transylvanian highlands. In the end both sides were weary of the war and
negotiations were set on foot, which resulted in a treaty of peace whereby the
alliance with the Tervingi was formally annulled and
the Danube was established as the boundary between the two powers.
Athanarich and Fritigern 370-375
AD
Immediately after the war, which had restored the status quo of the beginning of the century,—and therewith the complete
liberty of the Goths,—the Romans set to work on a thorough restoration of the
frontier defenses. Numerous burgi (barrier-forts) were erected along the line of the
Danube, as we learn in part from the evidence of inscriptions. Yet at first the
frontier remained undisturbed. Internal dissensions and strife (chiefly due to
a general persecution of the Christians stirred up by Athanarich about the year 370) withdrew his attention from external affairs. The Gothic
prince showed the utmost ferocity against all Christians, without distinction
of high or low, Arian, Catholic, or Audian, with the
avowed intention of extirpating Christianity as dangerous to the State and
deleterious to the strength and vigor of the nation.
Probably in connection with this, there arose (c. 370) a violent
conflict between the two most influential chiefs, Athanarich and Fritigern, which finally led to an open schism
between two portions of the race. Fritigern was
worsted, retired with his whole following into Roman territory, and placed
himself under the protection of the Emperor, who readily accorded him all
possible succor and support. This step had an important result for the cause of
the persecuted Christians, inasmuch as Fritigern with
all his followers went over to Christianity and adopted the Arian creed. This
conversion of Fritigern to Christianity, and,
moreover, to Arian Christianity, powerfully influenced the further development
of events, since, on the one hand, it prepared the way for the wider extension
and final victory of Christianity among the Goths, and on the other hand it
became a serious danger to the political existence of the nation when Arianism
had been suppressed among the Romans, for it had acquired a virtually national
significance for the Goths.
The sojourn of Fritigern in Roman territory
was not of long duration. Confident in the support of the Roman government, he
returned with his followers to his own country and succeeded in maintaining his
position against Athanarich; there seems indeed to
have been a reconciliation between the rivals. Alongside of them, though
doubtless inferior to them in power and influence, a whole series of important
chiefs are mentioned by name in this period, among them Alavio, Munderich, Eriwulf, and Fravitta. At the same time, however, Athanarich continued to exercise a certain primacy, although his position was not in any sense
constitutionally defined—among the Romans he always bears the title of judex not rex.
The East Goths, of whom we have so long lost sight, had in the meantime
extended their dominions far and wide. A mighty empire extending from the Don
to the Dniester, from the Black Sea to the marshes of the Pripet and the
head-waters of the Dnieper and the Volga, had emerged from their continual wars
of conquest against their neighbors, Germanic (such as the Heruli), Slavonic,
and Finnish. The main portion of these conquests is doubtless to be ascribed to
King Ermanarich, who had ruled over the Greutungi since the middle of the century. In contrast with
the West Goths who, as we have seen, down to the end of their residence on the
Danube, were ruled according to ancient Germanic custom by principes or local chiefs, the
East Goths had early developed a monarchy embracing the whole nation. It is
doubtless to the inner strength which belongs to a firm and undivided exercise
of authority, that we are to attribute the rapid rise of the young Ostrogothic State under its kings from Ostrogotha to Ermanarich, a monarch under whose vigorous rule it
enjoyed its period of greatest prosperity—and also met its fall.
The Huns.
370-376 AD
Such was the state of affairs when a nation of untamed savages, horrible
in aspect and terrible from their countless numbers and ferocious courage,
broke forth from the interior of Asia and threatened the whole of the West with
destruction. These were the Huns. They were doubtless of Mongolian race, and
were probably natives of the great expanse of steppes which lies to the north
and east of the Caspian Sea. Soon after 370 they penetrated into Europe, and
threw themselves with irresistible fury upon the peoples which came in their
way. The Alani, who had to bear the first brunt of
their attack, were soon overpowered, and compelled to join their conquerors,
and the same fate befell the smaller peoples whose settlements lay further
north, on the right bank of the Volga.
The fate of the Ostrogothic Empire was now
imminent. For a considerable time they succeeded in holding the enemy at the
sword's point, but finally their strength broke down before the weight of the
Asiatic hordes. Ermanarich himself died by his own
hand rather than live to see the downfall of his kingdom; his successor, Withimir, after several bloody defeats, met his death on
the field of battle. All resistance ceased, and the whole people surrendered
itself to the Huns.
The invading flood rolled westward to encounter the Tervingi (375). At the first tidings of the events in the neighboring country, Athanarich called his people to arms and marched with a
part of his forces to meet the Huns. The Gothic leader took his stand on the
bank of the Dniester; but finding himself compelled to abandon this position by
a crafty turning-movement of the enemy, Athanarich gave up thenceforward all thought of resistance in the field, and betook
himself to the impenetrable ravines of the Transylvanian highlands. But only
some of the Goths followed him thither. The mass of the people, weary of
hardship and privation, separated themselves and resolved to abandon their
country. Under the leadership of their local chiefs Alavio and Fritigern they mustered their forces in the
spring of 376 on the north bank of the Danube and besought permission to enter the Roman Empire, in the hope of finding a dwelling-place
in the rich plains of Thrace. The Emperor Valens graciously received their
request and gave orders to the commanders on the frontier to take measures for
the shelter and provisioning of this huge mass of people. The Goths passed the
river. In boats, and rafts, and hollowed tree-trunks they made their way across
and covered all the country round “like the rain of ashes from an eruption of
Etna”. At first all went well. The new-comers maintained an exemplary attitude:
not so the Roman officials—the chief of whom was the Thracian comes Lupicinus.
They used the precarious position of the barbarians to their own profit, taking
advantage of them in every possible way. It was not long before their shameless
injustice aroused the deep resentment of the Goths, among whom famine had
already set in.
Battle of Hadrianople. 376-378 AD
Things soon came to open rupture. In the immediate neighborhood of Marcianople a bloody battle was fought between the
infuriated Goths and the soldiers of Lupicinus. The
Romans were almost annihilated, their leader took refuge behind the strong
walls of the town, which was immediately invested by the main body of the Tervingian forces. Other divisions scattered over the
plains, plundering as they went. All attempts of the barbarians failed to take
the town by storm. So Fritigern “made his peace with
stone walls”. A strong force remained before the place as an army of
observation, while the main body turned, as detachments of it had done before,
to the plundering of the adjoining districts of Moesia. Once more the country
suffered fearfully, and to complete its misery other bands of plunderers now
joined the Goths. Taifali, Alani,
and even Huns were drawn across the Danube by the hope of plundering and
ravaging these fertile provinces. This was in the summer of 377.
Troops were hurried up from all sides for the defense of the threatened
provinces; even Gratian sent aid from the West. Meanwhile the Goths had overrun
all Moesia. Not only had the bloody battle fought at a place called Salices (late summer 377) been indecisive and cost the
Romans heavy losses, but a strong detachment of Roman troops under the tribune Barzimeres, a Teuton by race, had
been cut to pieces at Dibaltus. A success which the
dux Frigeridus, likewise of Teutonic birth, gained
over the Taifali and a company of the Greutungi under their chief Farnobius was not much to balance this and did not alter the fact that Thrace, which
after the battle of Salices had been overrun by the
Teutons, remained a prey to them.
Finally (30 May 378) Valens arrived at Constantinople. As soon as Fritigern, who lay in the neighborhood of Hadrianople, heard of the Emperor's arrival, he gave the
order for the widely scattered Gothic forces to unite. From this point onward
events followed in quick succession. At first the fortune of war seemed to
smile upon the Romans. Making Hadrianople his base,
Sebastianus, the commander of reinforcements sent by Gratian, succeeded in
inflicting a reverse upon the Goths. Fritigern thereupon retired to the neighborhood of Cabyle and
there concentrated his forces. Thereupon Valens, on his part, advanced to Hadrianople, resolved to venture upon a decisive stroke. He
had set his heart upon meeting his nephew Gratian, who was hastening up from
the West, with the news of a great victory. And so (9 Aug. 378) battle was
joined near Hadrianople. It resulted in a terrible
defeat of the Romans, in which the Emperor himself was slain. More than
two-thirds of his army, the flower of the military forces of the East, was left
upon the field of battle.