a clear and unbroken thread of narration. Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect, to compare, and to conjecture; and though he ought never to place his conjecture in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained passions, might on some occasions supply the want of historical materials.

There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving that the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can only add, that the rebellion against the Emperor Philip broke out in the summer of the year 249, among the legions of Moesia; and that a subaltern officer,* named Marinus, was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He dreaded lest the treason of the Moesian army should prove the first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the effect of fear and perhaps of disaffection: till at length Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip's rival as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army, whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the murder of Marinus. Decius,† who long resisted his own

*The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion. His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia (Eutrop. 9. Victor in Cæsarib. epitom.), seems to contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility

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nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event. The legions of Moesia forced their judge to become their accomplice. They left him only the alternative of death or the purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was unavoidable. He conducted or followed his army to the confines of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet him. imperial troops were superior in number, but the rebels formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death in a few days afterward at Verona. His son and associate in the empire was massacred at Rome by the prætorian guards; and the victorious Decius, with more favourable circumstances than the ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of Augustus, he had assured Philip, by a private message, of his innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that on his arrival in Italy he would resign the imperial ornaments and return to the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be sincere ; but in the station where fortune had placed him, it was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be forgiven.*

The Emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the GOTHS. This is the first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the capitol, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part which they acted in the subversion of the western empire, that the name of Goths is frequently, but improperly, used as a general appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.

In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conon the Decii; but at the commencement of that period, they were only plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship with the haughty patricians. "Plebeiæ Deciorum animæ," &c. Juvenal, sat. 8, 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in Livy, 10. 9, 10.

* Zosimus, 1. 1, p. 20. Zonaras, 1. 12, p. 624, edit. Louvre.

quest of Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements. The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes.* These writers passed with the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the nation, celebrated its successful valour, and adorned the triumph with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain, but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first origin of the Goths from the vast island or peninsula of Scandinavia. That extreme country of the north was not unknown to the conquerors of Italy; the ties of ancient consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdi

* See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes. It is surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent edition published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers. On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4. [This was most probably the "ultima Thule" of some Latin and Greek writers.-SCHREITER.] [Scandinavia was inhabited by Goths, but they did not originate there. This great nation was of the ancient Suevic race. From early ages to the time of Tacitus they occupied the countries since known as Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Southern Prussia, and the north-west of Poland. Shortly before the commencement of our era, and through some succeeding years, they were subject to Marbod, king of the Marcomanni. Catualda, a young Gothic prince, effected their emancipation, and subdued the Marcomanni, already weakened by the victorious arms of Tiberius. From that time the power of the Goths increased. From them, it is probable, that the Baltic Sea received its early name of Sinus Codanus, as it was afterwards called Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, when the Suevi and Venedi ruled on its shores. The period at which the Goths passed into Scandinavia is unknown. Adelung, Anc. Hist. p. 200. Gatterer, Hist. p. 458.-GUIZOT.] [Gibbon has himself admitted, in a later chapter, that he was in error here. The name of Goths has indeed been "improperly used" in various ways. One is that which reduces the patronymic of a race to be the designation of a tribe, and that tribe only a small portion of a great family. It is in vain to accept as authority the crude notions of historians and geographers, at variance with themselves. From the perplexities even of such "accurate observers"

cated his savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in the peaceful and polished court of Ravenna.* Many vestiges, which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the Baltic. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle ages (from the ninth to the twelfth century), whilst

as Tacitus and Pliny, we must turn to seek for truth in the course of events, in the lights of language, and the genealogies of existing generations. We must forego, too, our incorrect soft pronunciation of the Latin c in Celtee and Scythæ, in both which it represents and should be sounded like the Greek kappa. This false euphony has been the cause of much inattention to the origin, and confusion in the application of these ethnical terms. The name of Goths is found early in the corrupted forms of Massagetæ, Skutha (Scythians), and Getæ, which mark their progress from Asia to Western Europe, always interposed between the Celtic and Sarmatian, or Sclavonic, races. Its subsequently accepted use to denote that intermediate wave in the tide of population and all its incidents, attests its descent. Between these early and latter stages there is a mass of confusion, susceptible of no order but such as can be introduced, by bringing its separate portions into harmonious relation. The various subdivisions of this race, besides their common name of Goths, had their distinctive denominations of Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Suevi, Marcomanni, &c., and when they united in leagues, styled themselves Gar-mannen, or Allemannen. It was sometimes by the generic, sometimes by the confederative, sometimes by the class-name that these in succession became known to the Romans, who, neither understanding the language nor comprehending the distinction, mistook Gothi for the appellation of some separate tribe, and diversified their error, by putting it occasionally into such shapes as Gothones, Gothini, Gutthones, Jutæ, &c. When they became at last better informed, and the rude tribes themselves, perhaps, somewhat more organized, the whole collective nation were recognized as Gothi. Goths, although at subsequent periods outlying tribes, like the Saxons, and combinations, like the Franks, come forward in history. This explanation will remove every difficulty and reconcile every contradiction, while it preserves a consistent view of the uniform course of population from east to west. The Goths who settled in Scandinavia, probably passed thither through Russia, Finland, and the isles of the Gulf of Bothnia, at some very remote and unascertainable date.-ED.] * Jornandes, c. 3. + Valuable information on this subject, with a careful comparison of the apparently contradictory statements of early geographers, may be found in Baron Von Wedel Jarlsberg's treatise on the ancient Scandinavian

The

Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the north, the Goths and the Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes hostile members of the same monarchy.* latter of these two names has prevailed without extinguishing the former. The Swedes, who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have in every age claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of discontent against the court of Rome, Charles the Twelfth insinuated that his victorious troops were not degenerated from their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of the world.t

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the general festival that was solemnized nine animals of every species every ninth year, (without excepting the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred grove adjacent to the temple.§ The only traces that now subsist of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, a system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden as the most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.T history of the Cimbri and Gothi.—SCHREITER. * See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year 1200. + Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII, lib. 3. When the Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal successor of Alaric. Hart's History of Gustavus, vol. ii, p. 123. Some place this temple at Sigtuna, not at Upsal.— SCHREITER. § See Adam of Bremen, in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 104. The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years afterward a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See Dalin's History of Sweden. The accounts furnished by the so-called Edda, of the religion and manners of the northern nations, are not the only ones or the most to be depended on. This collection, which has been far from critically examined by M. Ihre, in his work on the Icelandic Edda, is nothing less than ". a system of mythology." See note to the preceding chapter.-SCHREITER.