The Suevi, the Vandals, and the Burgundians.
By Alonzo Trévier Jones
It will be often necessary, in the course of this history, to use the phrase "the bounds of the Western Empire," or "the limits of the Western Empire;" and we shall here indicate those limits in such a way that every one who reads may understand. Take any good map of Europe; begin at the Frith of the Clyde, in Scotland; and draw a line from a point twelve miles northwest of Glasgow to a point on the Frith of the Forth, twenty-two miles northeast of Edinburg; this is the line of the Wall of Antoninus. Follow down the east coast of Britain to the English Channel; cross the Channel to the mouth of the Rhine; follow up the Rhine to the mouth of the Neckar; and then follow up the Neckar to the place where two rivers flow in from the east, near together. From there go southeastward to Ratisbon, or, in other words, to a point on the Danube about the twelfth degree of east longitude; follow the course of the Danube to the mouth of the Drave; and from there carry the line of the southward flow of the Danube due south to the sea-coast of Tripoli. Then follow the northern border of the Great Desert, westward to the ocean, and, with the exception of Ireland, all the countries between the line thus drawn and the Atlantic Ocean, formed the Western Empire. "About four years after the victorious Toulun had assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, another barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, marched (A. D. 405) from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans, and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that, by some historians, he has been styled the king of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their noble birth or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; and the whole multitude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased, by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four thousand persons. This formidable emigration issued from the same coast of the Baltic which had poured forth the myriads of the Cimbri and the Teutones, to assault Rome and Italy in the vigor of the republic. After the departure of those barbarians, their native country, which was marked by the vestiges of their greatness, long ramparts, and gigantic moles, remained, during some ages, a vast and dreary solitude; till the human species was renewed by the powers of generation, and the vacancy was filled by the influx of new inhabitants."—Chap. 30, par. 14. The Alani, mentioned here, were a part of that nation which dwelt between the Volga and the Don, which, when the Huns swept over their country, A. D. 375, advanced, with "intrepid courage, towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves with the northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain."—Chap. 26, par. 11. "The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and precarious that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the upper Danube [A. D. 406]. The emperor of the West [Honorius], if his ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending danger, was satisfied with being the occasion and the spectator of the war. The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels, and the sword of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted state of the empire that it was impossible to restore the fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous effort, the invasion of the Germans. The hopes of the vigilant minister of Honorius were confined to the defense of Italy. He once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed the new levies which were rigorously exacted and the pusillanimously eluded, employed the most efficacious means to arrest or allure the deserters, and offered the gift of freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would enlist. By these efforts he painfully collected, from the subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of Rome. The thirty legions of Stilicho were re-enforced by a large body of barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. "The king of the confederate Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters at Ticinum or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive battle till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked and delayed the unskillful fury of the barbarians. . . . Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of St. Ambrose, who communicated, in a dream, the promise of a speedy deliverance. On a sudden they beheld, from their walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked that fatal spot for the grave of the barbarian host [A. D. 406]. . . . The method of surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a larger scale and with more considerable effect. . . . The imprisoned multitude of horses and men was gradually destroyed by famine, rather than by the sword; but the Romans were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. . . . A seasonable supply of men and provisions had been introduced into the walls of Florence; and the famished host of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in the clemency of Stilicho. But the death of the royal captive, who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and deliberate cruelty. "The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has encouraged a vain persuasion that the whole army, or rather nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic, miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful companions, and of more than one-third of the various multitude of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of their general. . . . After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps, or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of Stilicho, who opposed their march and facilitated their retreat; who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. The barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed [A. D. 406, Dec. 31] by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. "Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of Germany who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defense of the empire. . . . When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again separated their troops from the standard of their barbarian allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of the battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honorable resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year [406], in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterward retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment leveled with the ground."—Chap. 30, par. 15, 16, 17, 18.