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The earliest invasion of the Roman Empire which resulted in the permanent settlement of a large and united body of Germans on Roman soil was that of the Visigoths in the year 376. This invasion was very far, however, from marking the first important contact of the German and Roman peoples. As early as the end of the second century B.C. the incursions of the Cimbri and Teutones (113–101) into southern Gaul and northern Italy had given Rome a suggestion of the danger which threatened from the northern barbarians. Half a century later, the Gallic campaigns of Cæsar brought the two peoples into conflict for the first time in the region of the later Rhine boundary, and had the very important effect of preventing the impending Germanization of Gaul and substituting the extension of Roman power and civilization in that quarter. Roman imperial plans on the north then developed along ambitious lines until the year 9 A.D., when the legions of the Emperor Augustus, led by Varus, were defeated, and in large part annihilated, in the great battle of the Teutoberg Forest and the balance was turned forever against the Romanization of the Germanic countries. Thereafter for a long time a state of equilibrium was preserved along the Rhine-Danube frontier, though after the Marcomannic wars in the latter half of the second century the scale began to incline more and more against the Romans, who were gradually forced into the attitude of defense against a growing disposition of the restless Germans to push the boundary farther south.

During the more than three and a half centuries intervening between the battle of the Teutoberg and the crossing of the Danube by the Visigoths, the intermingling of the two peoples steadily increased. On the one hand were numerous Roman travelers and traders who visited the Germans living along the frontier and learned what sort of people they were. The soldiers of the legions stationed on the Rhine and Danube also added materially to Roman knowledge in this direction. But much more important was the influx of Germans into the Empire to serve as soldiers or to settle on lands allotted to them by the government. Owing to a general decline of population, and especially to the lack of a sturdy middle class, Rome found it necessary to fill up her army with foreigners and to reward them with lands lying mainly near the frontiers, but often in the very heart of the Empire. The over-population of Germany furnished a large class of excellent soldiers who were ready enough to accept the pay of the Roman emperor for service in the legions, even if rendered, as it often was, against their kinsmen who were menacing the weakened frontier. From this source the Empire had long been receiving a large infusion of German blood before any considerable tribe came within its bounds to settle in a body. Indeed, if there had occurred no sudden and startling overflows of population from the Germanic countries, such as the Visigothic invasion, it is quite possible that the Roman Empire might yet have fallen completely into the hands of the Germans by the quiet and gradual processes just indicated. As it was, the pressure from advancing Asiatic peoples on the east was too great to be withstood, and there resulted, between the fourth and sixth centuries, a series of notable invasions which left almost the entire Western Empire parceled out among new Germanic kingdoms established by force on the ruins of the once invincible Roman power. The breaking of the frontier by the West Goths (to whom the Emperor Aurelian, in 270, had abandoned the rich province of Dacia), during the reign of Gratian in the West and of Valens in the East, was the first conspicuous step in this great transforming movement.

The ferocious people to whose incursions Ammianus refers as the cause of the Visigothic invasion were the Huns [see p. 42], who had but lately made their first appearance in Europe. Already by 376 the Ostrogothic kingdom of Hermaneric, to the north of the Black Sea, had fallen before their onslaught, and the wave of conquest was spreading rapidly westward toward Dacia and the neighboring lands inhabited by the Visigoths. The latter people were even less able to make effectual resistance than their eastern brethren had been. Part of them had become Christians and were recognizing Fridigern as their leader, while the remaining pagan element acknowledged the sway of Athanaric. On the arrival of the Huns, Athanaric led his portion of the people into the Carpathian Mountains and began to prepare for resistance, while the Christians, led by Fridigern and Alaf (or Alavivus), gathered on the Danube and begged permission to take refuge across the river in Roman territory. Athanaric and his division of the Visigoths, having become Christians, entered the Empire a few years later and settled in Moesia.

Ammianus Marcellinus, author of the account of the Visigothic invasion given below, was a native of Antioch, a soldier of Greek ancestry and apparently of noble birth, and a member of the Eastern emperor's bodyguard. Beyond these facts, gleaned from his Roman History, we have almost no knowledge of the man. The date of his birth is unknown, likewise that of his death, though from his writings it appears that he lived well toward the close of the fourth century. His History began with the accession of Nerva, 96 A.D., approximately where the accounts by Tacitus and Suetonius end, and continued to the death of his master Valens in the battle of Adrianople in 378. It was divided into thirty-one books; but of these thirteen have been lost, and some of those which survive are imperfect. Although the narrative is broken into rather provokingly here and there by digressions on earthquakes and eclipses and speculations on such utterly foreign topics as the theory of the destruction of lions by mosquitoes, it nevertheless constitutes an invaluable source of information on the men and events of the era which it covers. Its value is greatest, naturally, on the period of the Visigothic invasion, for in dealing with these years the author could describe events about which he had direct and personal knowledge. Ammianus is to be thought of as the last of the old Roman school of historians.

Source—Ammianus Marcellinus, Rerum Gestarum Libri qui Supersunt, Bk. XXXI., Chaps. 3–4. Translated by Charles D. Yonge under the title of Roman History during the Reigns of the Emperors Constantius, Julian, Jovianus, Valentinian, and Valens (London, 1862), pp. 584–586. Text in edition of Victor Gardthausen (Leipzig, 1875), Vol. II., pp. 239–240.

In the meantime a report spread extensively through the other nations of the Goths [i.e., the Visigoths], that a race of men, hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth, and were ravaging and destroying everything that came in their way. Then the greater part of the population (which, because of their lack of necessities, had deserted Athanaric), resolved to flee and to seek a home remote from all knowledge of the barbarians; and after a long deliberation as to where to fix their abode, they resolved that a retreat into Thrace Visigoths ask permission to settle within the Empire was the most suitable, for these two reasons: first of all, because it is a district most abundant in grass; and in the second place, because, by the great breadth of the Danube, it is wholly separated from the barbarians [i.e., the Goths], who were already exposed to the thunderbolts of foreign warfare. And the whole population of the tribe adopted this resolution unanimously. Accordingly, under the command of their leader Alavivus, they occupied the banks of the Danube; and having sent ambassadors to Valens,[22] they humbly entreated that they might be received by him as his subjects, promising to live peaceably and to furnish a body of auxiliary troops, if any necessity for such a force should arise.

While these events were passing in foreign countries, a terrible rumor arose that the tribes of the north were planning new and Rumors of Gothic movements reach Rome unprecedented attacks upon us,[23] and that over the whole region which extends from the country of the Marcomanni and Quadi to Pontus,[24] a barbarian host composed of various distant nations which had suddenly been driven by force from their own country, was now, with all their families, wandering about in different directions on the banks of the river Danube.

At first this intelligence was treated lightly by our people, because they were not in the habit of hearing of any wars in those remote regions until after they had been terminated either by victory or by treaty. But presently the belief in these occurrences grew stronger, being confirmed, moreover, by the arrival of the foreign ambassadors who, with prayers and earnest entreaties, Their coming represented as a blessing to the Empire begged that the people thus driven from their homes and now encamped on the other side of the river might be kindly received by us. The affair seemed a cause of joy rather than of fear, according to the skilful flatterers who were always extolling and exaggerating the good fortune of the Emperor; congratulating him that an embassy had come from the farthest corners of the earth unexpectedly, offering him a large body of recruits, and that, by combining the strength of his own nation with these foreign forces, he would have an army absolutely invincible; observing farther that, by the payment for military reinforcements which came in every year from the provinces, a vast treasure of gold might be accumulated in his coffers.

Full of this hope, he sent several officers to bring this ferocious people and their wagons into our territory. And such great The crossing of the Danube pains were taken to gratify this nation, which was destined to overthrow the empire of Rome, that not one was left behind, not even of those who were stricken with mortal disease. Moreover, having obtained permission of the Emperor to cross the Danube and to cultivate some districts in Thrace, they crossed the stream day and night, without ceasing, embarking in troops on board ships and rafts, and canoes made of the hollow trunks of trees. In this enterprise, since the Danube is the most difficult of all rivers to navigate, and was at that time swollen with continual rains, a great many were drowned, who, because they were too numerous for the vessels, tried to swim across, and in spite of all their exertions were swept away by the stream.

In this way, through the turbulent zeal of violent people, the ruin of the Roman Empire was brought on. This, at all events, is neither obscure nor uncertain, that the unhappy officers who Number of the invaders were intrusted with the charge of conducting the multitude of the barbarians across the river, though they repeatedly endeavored to calculate their numbers, at last abandoned the attempt as useless; and the man who would wish to ascertain the number might as well attempt to count the waves in the African sea, or the grains of sand tossed about by the zephyr.[25]