moment of a Christian festival, Rondo, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine, entered the defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most probably on the side of Rhætia. The emperor in person, accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry of the west. The Allemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost inaccessible, mountain in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger, by the intrepid curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and unguarded path. A troop of barbarians suddenly rose from their ambuscade; and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behindhim his armour-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium on three different sides. Every step which they gained increased their ardour, and abated the resistance of the enemy; and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the hill, they impetuously urged the barbarians down the northern descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their retreat.* After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his winter-quarters at Treves, where he indulged the

* Different opinions respecting the scene of this battle are mentioned in Dean Milman's note; among them is that of Häfelin, who in the Memoirs of the Palatine-Electoral Academy, fixed it at Schwetzingen. It is inconceivable how any one, conversant with the record and acquainted with the country, can have formed such an idea. Most travellers, who have visited what once was the Palatinate of the Rhine, have seen the gardens of Schwetzingen and know their situation in the midst of the wide plain between Heidelberg and Manheim. So far from having a mountain corresponding with Solicinium, as described by the historian, there is not one of any kind within a distance of several miles. In the immediat vicinity of Heidelberg there are

public joy by the exhibition of splendid and triumpha games.* But the wise monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined his attention to the important and laborious defence of the Gallic frontier, aga nst an enemy, whose strength was renewed by a stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the most distant tribes of the north. The banks of the Rhine, from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted with such, and in the neighbouring Berg-Strasse.-ED. * The expedition of Valentinian is related by Ammianus (27, 10), and celebrated by Ausonius (Mosell. 421, &c.), who foolishly supposes that the Romans were ignorant of the sources of the Danube. + Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis varietate casuum imminuta; ita sæpius adolescit, ut fuisse longis sæculis æstimetur intacta. Ammian. 28, 5. The count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. iv, p. 370) ascribes the fecundity of the Allemanni to their easy adoption of strangers. [It is unnecessary to transcribe here M. Guizot's quotation of the causes assigned for the populousness of ancient Germany by Mr. Malthus, in his Essay on the Principles of Population (vol. i, p. 145). The passage can easily be referred to by any English reader, to whom it is not already familiar. Yet it must be observed that the numbers of these "host impelling host" migrations, appear to have been unduly magnified. On this subject some very sensible observations may be found in Mallet's Northern Antiquities (c. 8, p. 159, edit. Bohn). So also it is a very erroneous idea, that these swarms were all sent forth from Scandinavia or the North Baltic regions. (See Notes to c. 10.) The last mentioned writer, though a believer in this hypothesis, admits (p. 163) that it " can be very ill reconciled, either with what history informs us of the manners, customs, and principles of the ancient Scandinavians, or with the soundest notions of policy as to what makes the true prosperity of a people." The fable was invented by Cassiodorus in his history De Rebus Geticis, preserved or epitomized by Jornandes. To gratify the then masters of Italy, and soothe what little pride was still left in his compatriots, by ascribing a more dignified origin to the conquerors of Rome, he constructed out of unsound materials and the fictions of imagination, a tale (Cassiod. Variar. 9. 25. Jornandes, c. 4) unknown to Procopius, who wrote at the same time, or a few years later, and who could only say that the Goths came from beyond the Danube. (De Bell. Vand. lib. 8, c. 2.) The mere fact that the races who were said to have migrated from Scandinavia, called it an island and named it Scanzia, exposes the delusion, and shows how the author had studied Ptolemy. The order in which the barbarian tribes made their appearance, proves how they were set in motion. The knowledge of the spoils that tempted them, as it was carried gradually northward, attracted adventurers in regular succession from higher latitudes. First, the bordering and central Germans alone, made occasional inroads. Then remoter nations leagued with them to share the prey. Hearing of this, the Saxons emerged from the Elbe and Eyder, in their light ceolen, to plunder defenceless shores. These were followed by VOL. III.

strong castles and convenient towers; new works and new arms were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts, secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years of the administration of Valentinian.*

That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia, on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion of the BURGUNDIANS, a warlike and numerous people of the Vandal race,† whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners of the Burgundians, appears to have been the difference of their civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of Hendinos was given to the king or general, and the title of Sinistus to the high priest of the nation. The person of the priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events of war accused the courage or conduct of the king, he was immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the sacerdotal department. The disputed the Engelanders or Angli, who dwelt beyond the Eyder, and then came the Jutes from the upper extremity of the peninsula. The Danes were induced, by the success of their southern and western neighbours, to imitate the example; and, last of all, the Northmen or Normans left their Scandinavian homes for the "prostrate south." When those who furnished the meagre annals of a benighted and perturbed age, heard that the buccaneers of their time all came from the north, they concluded that all who had preceded them were natives of the same lands; and their chronicles evince how fable and invention filled the unavoidable gaps of ignorance.-ED.]

* Ammian. 28, 2. Zosimus, lib. 4, p. 214. The younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of Valentinian, nova arma meditari; fingere terrâ seu limo simulacra. + Bellicosos et pubis immensæ viribus affluentes; et ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. 28, 5. I am always apt to suspect historians and travellers of improving

possession of some salt pits* engaged the Allemanni and the Burgundians in frequent contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest.† An army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks of the Rhine, and impatiently required the support and subsidies which Valentinian had promised; but they were extraordinary facts into general laws. Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have imputed it to the Tatsin, or Roman empire (De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii, part 1, p. 79).

* Salinarum finiumque causâ Allemannis sæpe jurgabant. Ammian. 28, 5. Possibly they disputed the possession of the Sala, a river which produced salt, and which had been the object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. 13. 57, and Lipsius ad loc. [The scene of these contests appears to have been nearer to the Rhine. There are salt pits belonging to the Elector of Hesse, in this very district, at Naunheim, between Giessen and Frankfort-on-Maine. The war, mentioned by Tacitus in the passage here referred to, occurred during the reign of Nero, more than three hundred years earlier, and was between the Catti or Hessians and the Hermanduri, who occupied the banks of the Maine (Cellarius, 1. 2, c. 5, p. 387). The cause of quarrel was a river that produced salt, and this is the stream which Lipsius and Cellarius also supposed to be the Sala. But the situation accords precisely with Naunheim, and it is probable that the copious springs which now yield a large revenue, not being then collected in pans, formed a rill or brook, which was dignified by the name of river. In the time of Valentinian, they were evidently used with greater skill, for they had become saline, or salt-works, the possession of which was coveted, especially by inland tribes, who had not the opportunity of extracting so useful a commodity from the brine of the ocean, as then generally practised. (T. Liv. lib. 1, c. 38. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. 30, c. 7.) By the ever-shifting changes of barbarian occupation, the Allemanni and Burgundians were brought to the ground on which the Catti and Hermanduri had before fought for the same prize. The salt-springs of Halle, which now run under the bed of the Saale (Malte-Brun, vol. vii, p. 46), are in the neighbourhood of the Elbe, and too remote from what was then the Roman frontier, to have been the object of either of the struggles recorded by the Latin historians.—ED.]

Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se esse Romanam Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a more regular form. (Oros. lib. 7, c. 32.) It is annihilated by the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the history of Drusus, and served in Germany (Plin. Secund. Epist. 3. 5), within sixty years after the death of that hero. Germanorum genera quinque; Vindili, quorum pars Burgundiones, &c. (Hist. Natur. 4. 28). [Verstegan, credulous and untrustworthy in matters of history, may, nevertheless, afford useful etymological hints. In his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence (p. 15), he makes the Latin

amused with excuses and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and their massacre of the captives served to embitter the hereditary feud of the Burgundians and the Allemanni. The inconstancy of a wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of Valentinian to intimidate rather than to destroy, as the balance of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Allemanni, Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honour of a personal conference with the emperor; and the favours which he received fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and sincere friend of the republic.*

Burgundii or Burgundiones, to represent the German Burgwohner, dwellers in inclosed or fenced places. Probably they were not at first a distinct tribe. In the sixty years that followed the death of Drusus, some descendants of his soldiers by German mothers, may have induced others among the natives to join with them in imitating the defensive works erected by the Roman garrisons. These may have received or assumed the name which Pliny heard, and so he gave it a Latin form, as that of a regular people. From this beginning may have arisen the "warlike and numerous nation," whose patronymic, if blotted out from modern maps, will long be fondly cherished by winedrinkers. They are celebrated in the Nibelungenlied, which some have interpreted to be a history of their wars. Niebuhr treats it as nothing more than one of those early lays in which historical characters are introduced, but which have no pretension to the authority of annals, or any "chronological position." Lectures, vol. i. p. 29. 85. 214.-ED.] * The wars and negotiations relative to the Burgundians and Allemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus Marcellinus (28, 5. 29, 4. 30, 3). Orosius (lib. 7, c. 32), and the Chronicles of Jerome and Cassiodorus, fix some dates, and add some circumstances. [Clinton, (F. R. i, 470-476) corrects Jerome and his transcriber Cassiodorus, and fixes the following dates. In 368, the Allemanni plunder Mentz and are routed by Valentinian; in 369, he fortifies the Rhine; in 370, seeks the aid of the Burgundii; in 371, passes the Rhine, penetrates as far as Mattiacæ Aqua (Wiesbaden) and in the same year returns to Treves.-ED.]