The Alemanni by J.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 24, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 24.

The Alemanni.

By J.

(Continued.)

IN January, A. D. 275, Aurelian was assassinated. Two emperors followed in quick succession—Tacitus for two hundred days, and Florianus for about three months—and August 3, A. D. 276, Probus succeeded to the purple, and held the Imperial authority till he was murdered—A. D. 282, August.

“Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads.” The country which now forms the circle of Swabia had been left desert in the age of Augustus by the emigration of its ancient inhabitants. The fertility of the soil soon attracted a new colony from the adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers, of a roving temper, and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tithes, the majesty of the empire. To protect these new subjects, a line of frontier garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to the Danube. About the reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defense began to be practiced, these garrisons were connected and covered by a strong intrenchment of trees and palisades. In the place of so rude a bulwark, the Emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Newstadt and Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys, rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Necker, and at length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding course of near two hundred miles.

“This important barrier, uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which the barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. An active enemy, who can select, and vary his points of attack, must, in the end, discover some feeble spot or some unguarded moment. The strength, as well as the attention, of the defenders is divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly deserted. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins, universally ascribed to the power of the Dæmon, now serve only to excite the wonder of the Swabian peasant.”—Decline and Fall, chap. 12, par. 20.

The overthrow of the wall of Probus opened to the Alemanni the country of Vindelicia, which they soon overran, and established themselves on the right of the Rhine, from the Mein to the Lake of Constance, in possession of the country, known first by the name of Alemannia and afterward by the name of Swabia, which they and their lineal descendants have held till this day. We shall find that they afterward extended their power over other provinces, of some of which they were in later times deprived, but this they never lost. And it will be found that the country of Swabia was among the most important of Europe in the Middle Ages.

Probus was succeeded by Carus, who reigned till December 25, A. D. 283, and was then, at his death, succeeded by his two sons Carinus and Numerian. Numerian died, or was murdered, September 12, A. D. 284, and was succeeded by Diocletian September 17, and Carinus was murdered in the following May. In the reign of Diocletian occurred the next important inroad of the Alemanni. Diocletian re-established the defenses of the empire along the Rhine and the Danube, for protection against the barbarians.

“From the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and citadels, were diligently re-established, and, in the most exposed places, new ones were skillfully constructed; the strictest vigilance was introduced among the garrisons of the frontier, and every expedient was practiced that could render the long chain of fortifications firm and impenetrable. A barrier so respectable was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against each other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the Gepidæ, the Burgundians; the Alemanni, wasted each other’s strength by destructive hostilities, and whosoever vanquished, they vanquished the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian enjoyed the bloody spectacle, and congratulated each other that the mischiefs of civil war were now experienced only by the barbarians.

“Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to maintain an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of twenty years, and along a frontier of many hundred miles. Sometimes the barbarians suspended their domestic animosities, and the relaxed vigilance of the garrisons sometimes gave a passage to their strength or dexterity. Whenever the provinces were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity which he always affected or possessed; reserved his presence for such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never exposed his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, insured his success by every means that prudence could suggest, and displayed with ostentation the consequences of his victory.

“In wars of a more difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he employed the rough valor of Maximian; and that faithful soldier was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and auspicious influence of his benefactor. But after the adoption of the two Cæsars, the emperors themselves, retiring to a less laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the defense of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of barbarians on the Roman territory. The brave and active Constantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindoniæa appear to have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy. He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But, on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his honor and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni.”—Id., chap. 13, par. 12, 13.

While Constantine reigned as Cæsar in Gaul (A. D. 306–312) a body of Franks and Alemanni invaded that province. Constantine defeated them, and “several of their princes,” and “a great number of their youth,” “were exposed by his order to the wild beasts in the amphitheater of Treves.”—Id., chap. 14, par. 18. After this, both Franks and Alemanni seem to have remained on their own side of the Rhine till the time of Constantius, the son of Constantine, about 350–351 A. D. In the contest of Constantius with Magnentius, the usurper of Gaul, the emperor gave as a “perpetual grant,” to the Alemanni and the Franks, “all the territories which they should be able to subdue.” They therefore crossed the Rhine, and from its source to its mouth extended their conquests “above forty miles to the west of that river;” and thus the Alemanni obtained possessions which, although defeated in battle time and again, they still held in the time of Charlemagne.

“In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority of his rival [Magnentius]. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they should be able to subdue. But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the barbarians, soon discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these disciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring. Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasbourg, etc., besides a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes.

“The barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons and sepulchers; and fixing their independent habitations on the banks of rivers—the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse—they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; [A. D. 351] the Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their Gallic monarchy. From the sources to the mouth of the Rhine, the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation; and the scene of their devastations was three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the inclosure of their walls. The diminished legions, destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the approach, and even at the name of the barbarians.

“Under these melancholy circumstances an unexperienced youth was appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather as he expresses it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly repeated some military exercises which it was necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, ‘O, Plato, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!’”—Id., chap. 19, par. 20, 21. J.

(To be continued.)