Rhine at the beginning of the year 13 A. D. The following
year, Augustus died and Tiberius became emperor; whereupon
Germanicus found himself no longer restrained from crossing
the river and assuming the offensive against Arminius and his
tribes. His first movement, that autumn, was up the valley of
the Lippe, which he laid waste, far and wide. The next spring,
he led one column, from Mentz, against the Chatti, as far as
the upper branches of the Weser, while he sent another farther
north to chastise the Cherusci and the Marsi, surprising and
massacring the latter at their feast of Tanfana. Later in the
same year, he penetrated, by a double expedition,--moving by
sea and by land, as his father had done before,--to the
country between the Ems and the Lippe, and laid waste the
territory of the Bructeri, and their neighbors. He also
visited the spot where the army of Varus had perished, and
erected a monument to the dead. On the return from this
expedition, four legions, under Cæcina, were beset in the same
manner that Varus had been, and under like difficulties; but
their commander was of different stuff and brought them safely
through, after punishing his pursuers severely. But the army
had been given up as lost, and only the resolute opposition of
Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, had prevented the Roman
commander at Vetera, on the Rhine, from destroying the bridge
there, and abandoning the legions to their supposed fate. In
the spring of A. D. 16, Germanicus again embarked his army,
80,000 strong, at the mouth of the Rhine, on board transports,
and moved it to the mouth of the Ems, where the fleet
remained. Thence he marched up the Ems and across to the
Weser, and was encountered, in the country of the Cherusci, by
a general levy of the German tribes, led by Arminius and
Inguiomerus. Two great battles were fought, in which the
Romans were victorious. But, when returning from this
campaign, the fleet encountered a storm in which so much of it
perished, with the troops on board, that the disaster threw a
heavy cloud of gloom over the triumph of Germanicus. The young
general was soon afterwards recalled, and three years later he
died,--of poison, as is supposed,--at Antioch. "The central
government ceased from this time to take any warm interest in
the subjugation of the Germans; and the dissensions of their
states and princes, which peace was not slow in developing,
attracted no Roman emissaries to the barbarian camps, and
rarely led the legions beyond the frontier, which was now
allowed to recede finally to the Rhine."
_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 42._
ALSO IN:
_T. Mommsen,
History of Rome,
book 8, chapter 1._
_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 1, chapter 7._
GERMANY: 3d Century.
Beginning of the "Wandering of the Nations."
"Towards the middle of the third century, ... a change becomes
perceptible in the relations and attitude of the German
peoples. Many of the nations, which have been celebrated in
the annals of the classical writers, disappear silently from
history; new races, new combinations and confederacies start
into life, and the names which have achieved an imperishable
notoriety from their connection with the long decay and the
overthrow of the Roman Empire, come forward, and still
survive. On the soil whereon the Sigambri, Marsi, Chauci, and
Cherusci had struggled to preserve a rude independence, Franks
and Saxons lived free and formidable; Alemanni were gathered
along the foot of the Roman wall which connected the Danube
with the Rhine, and had, hitherto, preserved inviolate the
Agri decumates; while eastern Germany, allured by the hope of
spoil, or impelled by external pressure, precipitated itself
under the collective term of Goths upon the shrinking
settlements of the Dacia and the Danube. The new appellations
which appear in western Germany in the third century have not
unnaturally given rise to the presumption that unknown peoples
had penetrated through the land, and overpowered the ancient
tribes, and national vanity has contributed to the delusion.
As the Burgundians ... were flattered by being told they were
descendants of Roman colonists, so the barbarian writers of a
later period busied their imaginations in the solitude of
monastic life to enhance the glory of their countrymen, by the
invention of what their inkling of classical knowledge led
them to imagine a more illustrious origin. ... Fictions like
these may be referred to as an index of the time when the
young barbarian spirit, eager after fame, and incapable of
balancing probabilities, first gloated over the marvels of
classical literature, though its refined and delicate beauties
eluded their grosser taste; but they require no critical
examination; there are no grounds for believing that Franks,
Saxons, or Alemanni, were other than the original inhabitants
of the country, though there is a natural difficulty arising
from the want of written contemporary evidence in tracing the
transition, and determining the tribes of which the new
confederacies were formed. At the same time, though no
immigration of strangers was possible, a movement of a
particular tribe was not unfrequent. The constant internal
dissensions of the Germans, combined with their spirit of
warlike enterprise, led to frequent domestic wars; and the
vanquished sometimes chose rather to seek an asylum far from
their native soil, where they might live in freedom, than
continue as bondmen or tributaries to the conqueror. Of such a
nature were the wanderings of the Usipites and Teuchteri
[Tenchteri] in Cæsar's time, the removal of the Ubii from
Nassau to the neighbourhood of Cöln and Xanthen; and to this
must be ascribed the appearance of the Burgundians, who had
dwelt beyond the Oder, in the vicinity of the Main and the
Necker. Another class of national emigrations, were those
which implied a final abandonment of the native Germany with
the object of seeking a new settlement among the possessions
of the sinking empire.
{1432}
Those of the Goths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, the second
movement of the Burgundians, may be included in this category;
the invasions of the Franks, Alemanni, and Saxons, on the
contrary, cannot be called national emigrations, for they
never abandoned, with their families, their original
birthplace; their outwanderings, like the emigrations of the
present day, were partial; their occupation of the enemy's
territory was, in character, military and progressive; and,
with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain,
their connection with the original stock was never
interrupted. In all the migrations of German peoples spoken of
from Cæsar downwards, the numbers of the emigrants appear to
be enormously exaggerated. The Usipites and Teuchteri are
estimated by Cæsar at 430,000 souls. How could such a
multitude find nourishment during a three years' wandering? If
80,000 Burgundian Wehrmen came to the Rhine to the assistance
of Valentinian, as Cassiodorius, Jerome, and other chroniclers
state, the numbers of the whole nation must have approached
400,000, and it is impossible to believe that such a mass
could obtain support in the narrow district lying between the
Alemanni, the Hermunduri, and the Chatti. In other cases,
vague expressions, and still more the wonderful achievements
of the Germans in the course of their emigrations, have led to
the supposition of enormous numbers; but Germany could not
find nourishment for the multitudes which have been ascribed
to it. Corn at that period was little cultivated; it was not
the food of the people, whose chief support was flesh. ... The
conquests of the barbarians may be ascribed as much to the
weakness of their adversaries, to their want of energy and
union, as to their own strength. There was, in fact, no enemy
to meet them in the field; and their domination was, at least,
as acceptable to the provincial inhabitants as that of the
imbecile, but rapacious ministers of the Roman government. ...
It was not the lust of wandering, but the influence of
external circumstances which brought them to the vicinity of
the Danube: at first the aggressions of the Romans, then the
pressure of the Huns and the Sclavonic tribes. The whole
intercourse of Germany with Rome must be considered as one
long war, which began with the invasion of Cæsar; which, long
restrained by the superior power of the enemy, warmed with his
growing weakness, and only ended with the extinction of the
Roman name. The wars of the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries, were only a continuance of the ancient hostility.
There might be partial truce, or occasional intermission; some
tribes might be almost extirpated by the sword; some, for a
time, bought off by money; but Rome was the universal enemy,
and much of the internal restlessness of the Germans was no
more than the natural movement towards the hostile borders. As
the invasion of northern Germany gave rise to the first great
northern union, so the conquest of Dacia brought Goths from
the Vistula to the south, while the erection of the giant wall
naturally gathered the Suevic tribes along its limits, only
waiting for the opportunity to break through. Step by step
this battle of centuries was fought; from the time of
Caracalla the flood turned, wave followed wave like the
encroaching tide, and the ancient landmarks receded bit by
bit, till Rome itself was buried beneath the waters. ... Three
great confederacies of German tribes, more or less united by
birth, position, interest, or language, may be discerned,
during this period, in immediate contact with the Romans---the
Alemanni, the Goths, and the Franks. A fourth, the Saxons, was
chiefly known from its maritime voyages off the coast of Gaul
and Britain. There were also many independent peoples which
cannot be enumerated among any of the political confederacies,
but which acted for themselves, and pursued their individual
ends: such were the Burgundians, the Alans, the Vandals, and
the Lombards."
_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_R. G. Latham,
Nationalities of Europe,
volume 2, chapter 21._
See, also,
ALEMANNI; MARCOMANNI; QUADI; GOTHS;
GEPIDÆ; SAXONS; ANGLES, FRANKS;
BURGUNDIANS; VANDALS; SUEVI; LOMBARDS;
and, also, Appendix A, volume 1.
GERMANY: A. D. 277.
Invasion by Probus.
The vigorous emperor Probus, who, in the year 277, drove from
Gaul the swarms of invaders that had ravaged the unhappy
province with impunity for two years past, then crossed the
Rhine and harried the country of the marauders, as far as the
Elbe and the Neckar. "Germany, exhausted by the ill success of
the last emigration, was astonished by his presence. Nine of
the most considerable princes repaired to his camp and fell
prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly received by
the Germans as it pleased the conqueror to dictate." Probus
then caused a stone wall, strengthened at intervals with
towers, to be built from the Danube, near Neustadt and
Ratisbon, to Wimpfen on the Neckar, and thence to the Rhine,
for the protection of the settlers of the "Agri Decumates."
But the wall was thrown down, a few years afterwards, by the
Alemanni.
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 12._
GERMANY: 5th Century.
Conversion of the Franks.
See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 496-800.
GERMANY: A. D. 481-768.
Acquisition of supremacy by the Franks.
The original dominions of Clovis, or Chlodwig--with whose
reign the career of the Franks as a consolidated people
began--corresponded nearly to the modern kingdom of Belgium.
His first conquests were from the Romans, in the neighboring
parts of Gaul, and when those were finished, "the king of the
Franks began to look round upon the other German nations
settled upon its soil, with a view to the further extension of
his power. A quarrel with the Alemanni supplied the first
opportunity for the gratification of his ambition. For more
than a century the Alemanni had been in undisturbed possession
of Alsace, and the adjoining districts; Mainz, Worms, Speyer,
Strasburg, Basel, Constanz, Bregenz, lay within their
territory. ... The Vosegen range was a bulwark on the side of
Gaul, waste lands separated them from the Burgundians, who
were settled about the Jura and in the south-west part of
Helvetia, and the Moselle divided them from the Ripuarian
Franks. It is unknown whether they formed a state distinct
from their brethren on the right of the Rhine; probably such
was the case, for the Alemanni, at all times, were divided
into separate tribes, between which, however, was generally a
common union; nor is it certain whether the Alsatian Alemanni
were under one or several Adelings; a single king is mentioned
as having fallen in the battle with Chlodwig, who may have
been merely an elected military leader.
{1433 and 1434 moved forward for continuity}
{1435}
Equally obscure is the cause of their war with Chlodwig,
though it has been assumed, perhaps too hastily, by all recent
historians, that the Frank king became involved in it as an
ally of the Ripuarians. The Ripuarian Franks were settled, as
the name imports, upon the banks of the Rhine, from the
Moselle downwards; their chief seat was the city of Cologne.
It is probable that they consisted of the remains of the
ancient Ubii, strengthened by the adventurers who crossed over
on the first invasion, and the name implies that they were
regarded by the Romans as a kind of limitanean soldiery. For,
in the common parlance of the Romans of that period, the tract
of land lying along the Rhine was called Ripa, in an absolute
sense, and even the river itself was not unfrequently
denominated by the same title. Ripuarii are Ripa-wehren,
Hreop, or Hrepa-wehren, defenders of the shore. About the
close of the fifth century these Ripuarii were under the
government of a king, named Sigebert, usually called 'the
lance.' The story told by modern writers is, that this
Sigebert, having fallen into dispute with the Alemanni, called
upon Chlodwig for assistance, a call which the young king
willingly listened to. The Alemanni had invaded the Ripuarian
territory, and advanced within a short distance of Cologne,
when Chlodwig and his Franks joined the Ripuarii; a battle
took place at Zülpich, about twenty-two English miles from
Cologne, which, after a fierce struggle, ended in the defeat
of the Alemanni. ... Chlodwig was following up his victory
over the Alemanni, perhaps with unnecessary ferocity, when he
was stopped in his course by a flattering embassy from the
great Theodorich. Many of the Alemanni had submitted, after
the death of their chief, on the field of battle. 'Spare us,'
they cried, 'for we are now thy people!' but there were many
who, abhorring the Frank yoke, fled towards the south, and
threw themselves under the protection of the Ostrogothic king,
who had possessed himself of the ancient Rhætia and
Vindelicia."
_T. Smith,
Arminius,
part 2, chapter 4._
The sons of Clovis pushed their conquests on the Germanic as
well as on the Gallic side of the Rhine. Theodoric, or
Theuderik, who reigned at Metz, with the aid of his brother
Clotaire, or Chlother, of Soissons, subjugated the
Thuringians, between A. D. 515 and 528. "How he [Theuderik]
acquired authority over the Alemans and the Bavarians is not
known. Perhaps in the subjugation of Thuringia he had taken
occasion to extend his sway over other nations; but from this
time forth we find not only these, but the Saxons more to the
north, regarded as the associates or tributaries of the
Eastern or Ripuarian Franks. From the Elbe to the Meuse, and
from the Northern Ocean to the sources of the Rhine, a region
comprising a great part of ancient Germany, the ascendency of
the Franks was practically acknowledged, and a kingdom was
formed [Austrasia--Oster-rike--the Eastern Kingdom] which was
destined to overshadow all the other Mérovingian states; The
various tribes which composed its Germanic accretions, remote
and exempt from the influences of the Roman civilization,
retained their fierce customs and their rude superstitions,
and continued to be governed by their hereditary dukes; but
their wild masses marched under the standards of the Franks,
and conceded to those formidable conquerors a certain degree
of political supremacy." When, in 558, Clotaire, by the death
of his brothers, became the sole king of the Franks, his
empire embraced all Roman Gaul, except Septimania, still held
by the Visigoths, and Brittany, but slightly subjected; "while
in ancient Germany, from the Rhine to the Weser, the powerful
duchies of the Alemans, the Thuringians, the Bavarians, the
Frisons, and the Saxons, were regarded not entirely as
subject, and yet as tributary provinces." During the next
century and a half, the feebleness of the Merovingians lost
their hold upon these German tributaries. "As early as the
time of Chlother II. the Langobards had recovered their
freedom; under Dagobert [622-638], the Saxons; under Sighebert
II. [638-656], the Thuringians; and now, during the late
broils [670-687], the Alemans, the Bavarians and the Frisons."
But the vigorous Mayors of the Palace, Pepin Heristal and Karl
Martel, applied themselves resolutely to the restoration of
the Frank supremacy, in Germany as well as in Aquitaine. Pepin
"found the task nearly impossible. Time and again he assailed the
Frisons, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Alemans, but could
bind them to no truce nor peace for any length of time. No
less than ten times the Frisons resumed their arms, while the
revolts of the others were so incessant that he was compelled
to abandon all hope of recovering the southern or Roman part
of Gaul, in order to direct his attention exclusively to the
Germans. The aid which he received from the Christian
missionaries rendered him more successful among them. Those
intrepid propagandists pierced where his armies could not. ...
The Franks and the Popes of Rome had a common interest in this
work of the conversion of the Germans, the Franks to restrain
irruptions, and the Popes to carry their spiritual sway over
Europe." Pepin left these unfinished German wars to his son
Karl, the Hammer, and Karl prosecuted them with characteristic
energy during his first years of power. "Almost every month he
was forced into some expedition beyond the Rhine. ... The
Alemans, the Bavarians, and the Frisons, he succeeded in
subjecting to a formal confession at least of the Frankish
supremacy; but the turbulent and implacable Saxons baffled his
most strenuous efforts. Their wild tribes had become, within a
few years, a powerful and numerous nation; they had
appropriated the lands of the Thuringians and Hassi, or Catti,
and joined to themselves other confederations and tribes; and,
stretching from the Rhine to the Elbe, offered their marshes
and forests a free asylum to all the persecuted sectaries of
Odhinn, to all the lovers of native and savage independence.
Six times in succession the armies of Karl penetrated the
wilderness they called their home, ravaging their fields and
burning their cabins, but the Saxon war was still renewed. He
left it to the energetic labors of other conquerors, to
Christian missionaries, ... to break the way of civilization
into those rude and darkened realms." Karl's sons Pepin and
Karloman crushed revolts of the Alemans, or Suabians, and the
Bavarians in 742, and Karloman humbled the Saxons in a great
campaign (744), compelling them in large numbers to submit to
Christian baptism. After that, Germany waited for its first
entire master--Charlemagne.
_P. Godwin,
History of France: Ancient Gaul,
chapters 12-15._
ALSO IN:
_W. C. Perry,
The Franks,
chapters 2-6._
See, also,
FRANKS, and AUSTRASIA.
{1433 moved here for continuity}
FIFTH CENTURY.
CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.
* Uncertain date.
A. D. 402.
Defeat of Alaric by Stilicho.
Birth of Phocion* (d. 317).
404.
Removal of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to
Ravenna.*
Banishment of the Patriarch, John Chrysostom, from
Constantinople; burning of the Church of Saint Sophia.
406.
Barbarian inroad of Radagaisus into Italy.
Breaking of the Rhine barrier by German tribes;
overwhelming invasion of Gaul by Vandals, Alans, Suevi, and
Burgundians.
407.
Usurpation of Constantine in Britain and Gaul.
408.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Arcadius, and accession of
Theodosius II.
Execution of Stilicho at Ravenna;
massacre of barbarian hostages in Italy;
blockade of Rome by Alaric.
409.
Invasion of Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and Alans.
410.
Siege, capture and pillage of Rome by Alaric; his death.
Abandonment of Britain by the Empire.
The barbarian attack upon Gaul joined by the Franks.
412.
Gaul entered by the Visigoths
Cyril made Patriarch of Alexandria.
414.
Title of Augusta taken by Pulcheria at Constantinople.
415.
Visigothic conquest of Spain begun.
Persecution of Jews at Alexandria; death of Hypatia.
418.
Founding of the Gothic kingdom of Toulouse in Aquitaine.
422.
War between Persia and the Eastern Empire
partition of Armenia.
423.
Death of Honorius, Emperor in the West;
usurpation of John the Notary.
425.
Accession of the Western Emperor, Valentinian III., under the
regency of Placidia; formal and legal separation of the
Eastern and Western Empires.
428.
Conquests of the Vandals in Spain.
Nestorius made Patriarch of Constantinople.
429.
Vandal conquests in Africa begun.
430.
Siege of Hippo Regius in Africa;
death of Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo.
431.
Third General Council of the Church, held at Ephesus.
433.
Beginning of the reign of Attila, king of the Huns. *
435.
Nestorius exiled to the Libyan desert.
439.
Carthage taken by the Vandals.
440.
Leo the Great elected Pope.
441.
Invasion of the Eastern Empire by Attila and the Huns.
443.
Conquest and settlement of Savoy by the Burgundians.
446.
Thermopylæ passed by the Huns;
humiliating purchase of peace with them by the Eastern
Emperor.
449.
Landing in Britain of the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa.*
Meeting of the so-called Robber Synod at Ephesus.
450.
Death of the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II., and accession of
Pulcheria.
451.
Great defeat of the Huns at Chalons;
retreat of Attila from Gaul.
Fourth General Council of the Church, held at Chalcedon.
452.
Invasion of Italy by Attila; origin of Venice.
453.
Death of Attila; dissolution of his empire.
Death of Pulcheria, Empress in the East.
455.
Murder of Valentinian III., Emperor in the West;
usurpation of Maximus.
Rome pillaged by the Vandals.
Birth of Theodoric the Great (d. 526).
456.
Supremacy of Ricimer, commander of the barbarian mercenaries,
in the Western Empire; Avitus deposed.
457.
Marjorian, first of the imperial puppets of Ricimer, raised to
the throne of the Western Empire.
Accession of Leo I., Emperor in the East.
461.
Marjorian deposed; Severus made Emperor in the West.
Death of Pope Leo the Great and election of Pope Hilarius.
467.
Anthemius made Emperor in the West.
472.
Siege and storming of Rome by Ricimer;
death of Anthemius, and of Ricimer;
Olybrius and Glycerius successive emperors.
473.
Ostrogothic invasion of Italy diverted to Gaul.
474.
Julius Nepos Emperor in the West;
accession of Zeno in the Eastern Empire.
475.
Romulus Augustulus made Emperor in the West.
476.
Romulus Augustulus dethroned by Odoacer:
extinction for more than three centuries of the Western line
of emperors.
477.
Beginning of Saxon conquests in Britain.
480.
Birth of Saint Benedict (d. 543).
481.
Founding of the Frank kingdom by Clovis.
486.
Overthrow of the kingdom of Syagrius, the last Roman
sovereignty in Gaul.
488.
Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, commissioned by the Eastern
Emperor to invade Italy.
489.
Defeat of Odoacer by Theodoric at Verona.
491.
Accession of Anastasius, Emperor in the East.
Capture of Anderida by the South Saxons.
492.
Election of Pope Gelasius I.
493.
Surrender of Odoacer at Ravenna;
his murder;
Theodoric king of Italy.
494. Landing of Cerdic and his band of Saxons in Britain. *