290
THE FRANKS—SUABIANS—GOTHS.
of our aera. He is the greatest poetical genius that Roman
literature can boast of after the time of Augustus; but we
see how his talent confines itself to novel-writing and the
poetry of ordinary life.
The barbarous character which commenced with the third
century, gradually spread over all things in which taste can be
displayed, even down to coins and inscriptions. The latter
had formerly been made with great care, but there are some
belonging to a time as early as the reign of Philippus, in
which the lines are crooked and the letters of unequal sizes.
The reign of Decius would certainly have been much more
praiseworthy, if we look at it with an impartial eye, but for
his persecution of the Christians; history however acquaints
us with many Otherrvise excellent men who had the misfortune
to be cruel persecutors. In his reign the empire received a
great shock from the German nations, which for the last
seventy years had been tolerably quiet, with the exception of
some disturbances on the Rhine in the reigns of Alexander
Severus and Maximinus. In the time of Decius, the whole
of the North seems to have been in a state of general com-
motion, and the Franks appeared on the Rhine. Respecting
the question as to who the Franks were, it is impossible to
come to a positive conclusion, and so much has been written
upon it, that no one is likely to make any fresh discovery.
I adopt the opinion which is now generally received, that the
Sigambri on the right bank of the Rhine and other German
tribes which dwelt on the banks of the Rhine and in West-
phalia, assumed the name of Franks, and under this common
appellation formed a state which was distinct from the
Saxons. The Suabians too, who are sometimes called Suevi
and sometimes Alemannians10, now began to cross the
Rhine. They occupied all the country between the eastern
bank of that river and the Danube, and extended perhaps as
far north as the river Main. The great shock, however,
came from the Goths, whose migration took place in the
reign of Decius. Concerning their migrations we are in the
greatest darkness: did they migrate from south to north,
as the Icelandic traditions state, or from north to south,
according to the tradition of the Ostrogoths preserved in
ɪ0 Alemannians is, like Franks, a name under which various originally dis-
tinct tribes are comprehended.—N.
Ibkuption of the goths.
291
Jornandes ? To these questions no decisive answer can be given ;
all we can say is, that in the beginning of the third century a
great Gothic empire existed in the south-east of Europe. Such
an empire is also mentioned in the northern traditions; and it
seems to be a common process of tradition to transfer things
from one pole to another, and then to connect them.
LECTURE CXXVII.
The invasion of the Goths, partly by land into Dacia, and
partly from the Black Sea with their boats, resembles the at-
tacks of the Russians upon Constantinople, in the IOthcentury,
and was described in detail by Dexippus of Athens; but of
his work we now possess only fragments in the Excerpta de
Sententiis and de Legationibus, and a few in Syncellusl ; it
carried the history down to the reign of Claudius Gothicus,
when the course of events, considering the circumstances, was
beginning to take a favourable turn for Rome. We cannot
describe these invasions in detail, and I should not like to ven-
ture with Gibbon to divide the Gothic invasion into three
great separate expeditions. They overwhelmed the kingdom of
Bosporus, and destroyed the cities on the North coast of Asia
Minor, penetrating even as far as Cappadocia. In another
expedition they conquered the Thracian Bosporus, which ever
since the destruction of Byzantiunf had lain quite open. It is
a proof of the complete torpor of the Roman empire, that no
attempt was made to form a fleet, to oppose to the boats of the
barbarians. The most flourishing cities of Bithynia, such as
Chalccdon, Nicomedia, Prusa, and others, were plundered and
destroyed by the Goths after the death of Decius; and they
displayed during this invasion much more cruelty than their
descendants in after-times. In the North, they had even before
crossed the Danube, and, having advanced through the plains of
Wallachia, laid siege to Nicopolis. There they were met by
Decius, who relieved Nicopolis, and repelled the Goths.
They then crossed Mount Hacmus. They appear to have
1 They are Colleeted in vol. i. of the Corpus Scriptorum Histor, Byzantina,
edited by I. Bekker and Niebuhr, 1829, 8vo.
u 2