Читать книгу History of the Origin of Representative Government in Europe - Guizot François - Страница 36

No determinate epoch can be accurately assigned to the first invasions of the Germans. In all ages, their hordes were wont to descend from their forest-fastnesses into countries less wild and more cultivated than their own. Among their early irruptions, the first regarding which we have any precise historical information is that of the Cimbri and Teutones, who, three hundred thousand in number, ravaged Italy during the time of Marius. [Footnote 6]

[Footnote 6: In B.C. 113-101. Marius finally defeated the Teutones at Aix, in the year 102; and the Cimbri, near Vercelli, in the year 101.]

From the age of Augustus to the fifth century, these invasions continued, but were very unequal in importance. Bands of men, unable to find means of subsistence in their own country, entered the imperial territory, and pillaged as they went; their fate was decided by the event of a battle; they were dispersed or annihilated by a defeat, or, if victorious, they took possession of some district which pleased them. Frequently, also, they settled in the country by the consent of the emperors. In the third century, Probus received three or four thousand Franks into Auvergne.