The Great Empires of Prophecy

Rome Divided
Although the "iron monarchy of Rome," in the greatness of its strength, broke in pieces all kingdoms, yet the time was to come when it should itself be broken. At the same time that Daniel spoke of the fourth kingdom breaking in pieces and bruising all, he also said: "And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly broken." (Dan. 2:41, 4)
We must now inquire, Of what should this division consist? Into how many parts should Rome be divided? As it is the feet and toes, and particularly the toes, of the image that are spoken of in connection with the division, it would seem that that division is suggested by the number of toes of the image; and as this was the image of a man, there were certainly ten toes. Therefore this would suggest that Rome should be divided into ten parts.
However, if any one should distrust this suggestion, the point is plainly stated in another part of the book. In the seventh chapter of Daniel, this same series of kingdoms is gone over again under the symbols of "four great beasts," the fourth one of which was declared by the angel to be the fourth kingdom, which shows it to be identical with the iron — the fourth kingdom of the great image. This fourth beast had also ten horns, which exactly correspond to the ten toes of the image. Further, the angel said plainly of these ten horns that they "are ten kings" that should arise. (Dan. 7:24) Therefore we know of a certainty that ten kingdoms were to arise upon the ruins of the Roman power.
Now we may ask: Where should these ten kingdoms arise? In other words, Are there any clearly defined limits within which the ten kingdoms should be expected to establish themselves? — There are.
From the accession of Nebuchadnezzar to the end of the world, these four kingdoms are the only ones that should ever bear universal sway. And each of these in its turn occupied territory peculiar to itself, from which it spread its power over the others. Although the four kingdoms were successive, and although each one in succession spread its power over all the territory of those that had preceded it, yet each one retained its own peculiar distinction from all the others. And this distinction is kept up throughout the book of Daniel, and is even recognized in the book of Revelation, which was written in the time of the supremacy of the fourth kingdom, in a prophecy that was not to be fulfilled till after the establishment of the ten kingdoms.
The fact of the matter is, these were not only the four universal empires, but they also represent the four divisions of the civilized world at that time, each one of which occupied territory peculiar to itself, and was never confounded with any of the others. Thus, Babylonia was first, and when it was overturned, it was by the united power of Media and Persia, which occupied entirely distinct territory from that of Babylonia proper. Then when the Medo-Persian power was destroyed, it was by the power of Grecia, which arose from a territory entirely distinct from that of Babylon or of Medo- Persia. So likewise, when the Grecian ascendency was destroyed, it was by a power that arose still farther to the west, entirely beyond the territory of Grecia, — in a territory entirely its own, and distinct from all the others.
This is all expressed in a single verse in the seventh chapter of Daniel. After the description of the four great beasts which represent these four kingdoms, he says of the fourth beast, that he beheld till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame; then he says of the others: "As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time." (Margin: Chaldee, "A prolonging in life was a given them.") (Dan. 7:12)
This passage, with the point which we here make, is aptly and well illustrated by a passage from Rawlinson. Speaking of the Babylonian monarchy, he says: "Even when this monarchy met its death at the hands of Cyrus the Great, the nationality of the Chaldeans was not swept away. We find them recognized under the Persians, and even under the Parthians, as a distinct people."
Thus it was with each and with all, — the dominion was taken away, but the nationality remained; the ruling power was transferred, but the national life continued. It follows, therefore, that, as it was Rome that was to be divided, the division must pertain to the territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom, and which had not belonged to any of the three that preceded it. Where was that? We can easily learn.
(1) Media and Persia occupied the territory east of the Tigris and the Persian Gulf.
(2) Babylonia, the territory from the Tigris to the Arabian Desert.
(3) Grecia, from the Hellespont to the Adriatic Sea and northward to about the fortyfifth parallel of latitude.
(4) The territory of Rome proper occupied all west of the Danube and the Rhine to the Atlantic and the Frith of Forth; and all of the northern coast of Africa, nearly as far east as to the twentieth degree of longitude.
Within the boundaries thus marked lay the territory of Rome proper. It was this territory that was peculiar to the fourth kingdom. And it is within the limits drawn under (4) that we are to look for the ten divisions of the fourth kingdom — the establishment of the ten kingdoms.
We propose to trace the history of these ten kingdoms from their tribal relations as savages in the forests of Germany, through their devastating incursions into the rich and civilized provinces of Rome, and down to their own establishment within these provinces, and their development into civilized and influential kingdoms there. Rome, once so powerful, once so great, now through luxury and indulgence, guilt and hypocrisy, grown corrupt, effeminate, and weak, perished. We shall see the movements of the nations coming into fill up with a new and vigorous people the place that Rome was no longer worthy to fill.
It was "the warlike Germans who first resisted, then invaded, and at length overturned, the western monarchy of Rome." "The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners."
"Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. Almost the whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion, manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a striking resemblance.
"On the west, ancient Germany was divided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south by the Danube from the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered Germany on the side of Dacia, or Hungary. The eastern frontier was faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote darkness of the North, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the peninsula, or islands, of Scandinavia.
"Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in his time [A. D. 56-135] had no cities; and that they affected to despise the works of Roman industry as places of confinement rather than of security. Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into regular villas; each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles were employed in these slight habitations. They were indeed no more than low huts of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the smoke.
"In the most inclement weather, the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal. The nations who dwelt toward the north clothed themselves in furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind of linen. The game of various sorts with which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with food and exercise. Their monstrous herds of cattle, less remarkable, indeed, for their beauty than for their utility, formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people whose property every year experienced a general change by a new division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation, avoided disputes by suffering a great part of their territory to lie waste and without tillage.
"The sound that summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and by strong exercise of the body and violent emotions of the mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by different means, the one by inflaming the passions, the other by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at the table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their numerous and drunken assemblies. Their debts of honor (for in that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate gamester who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist.
"Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat or barley, and corrupted (as it is strongly expressed by Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the rich wines of Italy and afterward of Gaul, sighed for that more delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however (as has since been executed with so much success), to naturalize the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. The intemperate thirst of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much-envied presents."
"A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was still invidious. It expired with the war; and in time of peace the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. Princes were, however, appointed in the general assembly, to administer justice, or rather to compose differences, in their respective districts.
"In the hour of danger it was shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy. To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief.
"The Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human. Some of these interpreters of fate, such as Velleda, in the Batavian War, governed, in the name of the Deity, the fiercest nations of Germany. The rest of the sex, without being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal companions of soldiers, associated even by the marriage ceremony to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. In their great invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the honorable wounds of their sons and husbands.
"Fainting armies of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own hands, from an insulting victor. Heroines of such a cast may claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely nor very susceptible of love. While they affected to emulate the stern virtues of man, they must have resigned that attractive softness in which principally consist the charm and the weakness of woman. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may at once be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of the general character of the nation.
"Germany was divided into more than forty independent States; and, even in each State, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feud of any considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to plunder the defenseless, were alike causes of war. The most formidable States of Germany affected to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger of unexpected incursions."
The general location of the tribes and nations of Germany and the East, at the close of the fourth century, was this: The right bank of the middle and upper Rhine was inhabited by the Franks and the Alemanni. The Angles dwelt in what is now southern Denmark; and the Saxons upon the lower Elbe. Eastward of the Elbe, and on the Oder, dwelt the Lombards; on the coast of the Baltic, between the Oder and the Vistula, were the Vandals, south of the Vandals, on the Vistula, were the Burgundians; east of the Vistula, toward the Baltic, were the Suevi; and over the whole country east of the Suevi, and stretching away to the river Volga, were spread the Sarmatians. In the southern country below the Sarmatians, from the Danube through the valley of the Dnieper to the coasts of the Caspian Sea, was the dominion of the Huns ruled by Rugilas.
"Such was the situation, and such were the manners, of the ancient Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of laws; their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion; their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of enterprise, — all contributed to form a people of military heroes. And yet we find, that, during more than two hundred and fifty years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus [September, A. D. 9] to the reign of Decius [A. D. 249], these formidable barbarians made few considerable attempts, and not any material impression, on the luxurious and enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by the intestine divisions of ancient Germany."
But when we reach the last quarter of the fourth century, it seems almost as though the very elements were employed in hurling the barbarous nations in multitudes upon the doomed empire, sunken in iniquity beyond all remedy.
Chapter 39
Rome Divided

The Alemanni and the Franks
Of all the barbarian nations that divided the Roman Empire, the Alemanni "were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy."
"In the reign of the emperor Caracalla [A. D. 211-217], an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni or Allmen, to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery. The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.
"This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense preparations of Alexander Severus [A. D. 234]; they were dismayed by the arms of his successor [Maximin, A. D. 235], a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius [A. D. 250]. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome [cir. A. D. 260]. And then, "laden with spoil, they retired into Germany; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans."
In the reign of Aurelian, A. D. 270, again, a hundred and twenty thousand of "the Alemanni traced a line of devastation from the Danube to the Po," and even as far as Fano in Umbria, "with a design of sacking the defenseless mistress of the world." Aurelian met them in three hard-fought battles. In the first "the Romans received so severe a blow that, according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended." In the third, however, the Romans inflicted upon them "a total and irretrievable defeat. The flying remnant of their host was exterminated, and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni."
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 Aug. 3, A. D. 276, Probus succeeded to the purple, and held the imperial authority till he was murdered in August, A. D. 282. "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."
About the time of Hadrian, A. D. 117-134, a strong barrier of trees and palisades had been built from the Danube to the Rhine, as the boundary of the empire and a check to the marauding Germans. 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 nearly 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. 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 Demon, now serve only to excite the wonder of the Swabian peasant."
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 Main 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. They afterward extended their power over other provinces, of some of which they were in later times deprived, but this they never lost. From their permanent seat in this territory, they constantly made inroads over the Rhine into Gaul until they had secured to themselves a goodly portion of that province also.
From this time onward the Franks are so intimately connected with the advances of the Alemanni, that, to avoid repetition, they will be considered together.
"About the year 240 A. D., a new confederacy was formed under the name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the Weser. The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans; the enjoyment of it, their best treasure; the word that expressed that enjoyment, the most pleasing to their ear. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained, the honorable epithet of FRANKS, or Freemen, which concealed, though it did not extinguish, the peculiar names of the several States of the confederacy.
"The Rhine, though dignified with the title of safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist, the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years [A. D. 256-268], the greatest part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the theater of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost destroyed; and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in the fifth century [cir. A. D. 415], wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians. When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain, and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and complexion were equally unknown on the coast of Africa."
"The most important service which Probus rendered to the republic was [A. D. 277] the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Aurelian [January, A. D. 275] had ravaged that great province with impunity. Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valor of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer that the confederacy known by the manly appellation of Free, already occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost overflowed by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several tribes of the Frisians and the Batavians had acceded to their alliance."
Probus was succeeded by Carus, who reigned till Dec. 25, A. D. 283, and was then, at his death, succeeded by his two sons Carinus and Numerian. Numerian died, or was murdered, Sept. 12, A. D. 284, and was succeeded by Diocletian September 17, and Carinus was murdered in the following May. And through Diocletian's divided power arose Constantine. While Constantine reigned as Caesar 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." 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 A. D. 350-351.
Constans, the surviving brother of Constantius, was murdered February, A. D. 350, by the command of Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who had usurped the purple. This left Magnentius and Constantius to dispute the sole reign of the empire. The dispute was soon brought to a close, however, at the battle of Mursa (Essek) on the river Drave. Magnentius was defeated, and "throwing away the imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian Alps." He managed to escape into Gaul, where he gathered some forces, but was defeated the second time, and to escape being given up to Constantius, he killed himself by falling on his sword, Aug. 10, A. D. 353, leaving Constantius in undisputed possession of the empire.
"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. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited [A. D. 351] to cross the Rhine, by presents and promises, by the hopes the 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 undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring. Fortyfive flourishing cities, — Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, etc., — besides a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and for the most part reduced of 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; 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."
In a note Gibbon fixes the date of this permanent entrance of the Franks into Gaul: "The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good sense by M. Biet, who has proved, by a chain of evidence, their uninterrupted possession of Toxandria one hundred and thirty years before the accession of Clovis." The accession of Clovis was in A. D. 481; and one hundred and thirty years carry us back to A. D. 351, as dated above.
"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 enclosure 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."
Nov. 6, A. D. 355, Constantius associated Julian with himself in the rule of the empire, and appointed to his administration the provinces of the West, with the immediate task of driving out these barbarians whom Constantius had invited in with the promise of a grant in perpetuity of all the lands which they should subdue, and "which they claimed as their own by the right of conquest and treaties." In five campaigns, A. D. 356-359, by terrible fighting, and with much loss, Julian did succeed in delivering Gaul from both peoples, for a while; though the Salian Franks "were permitted to possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman Empire."
The deliverance of Gaul by the defeat of the Alemanni and the Franks established the military fame of Julian; but "unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire."
Valentinian (A. D. 366) and Gratian (A. D. 378), each in turn, were obliged to defend Gaul against the Alemanni; for "the subjects of the empire often experienced that the Alemanni could neither be subdued by arms nor restrained by treaties." "The barbarians by whom the safety of Gaul had been chiefly threatened during the century preceding the accession of Valentinian, were the two great confederacies of the Franks and the Alemanni, the former of whom were settled along the right bank of the Rhine from Rotterdam to Mentz; while the latter, having broken down the feeble barrier whose ruins are now called the Pfahlgraben [ditch fortified with stakes], settled themselves in the fertile Agri Decumates, where for something like two centuries the Roman civilization had been dominant.
"Thus the Alemanni filled up that southwestern corner of Germany and Switzerland which is naturally bounded by the Rhine, as it flows westward to Basel, and then makes a sudden turn, at right angles, northward to Strasburg, Worms, and Mentz."
After the time of Gratian the power of both the Alemanni and the Franks steadily grew until at the death of Valentinian III, A. D. 455, "the Alemanni and the Franks advanced from the Rhine to the Seine."
This gave to the Franks all of northeastern Gaul north of the river Moselle; for "the humble colony which they so long maintained in the district of Toxandria, in Brabant, insensibly multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheldt till their independent power filled the whole extent of the Second, or Lower, Germany." "As the Roman power declined along that district, their authority increased; early in the fifth century they had spread from the Rhine to the Somme."
It gave to the Alemanni all the country of Gaul south of the Moselle from the Seine to the bend of the Rhine at Basel, in addition to their original possession between the wall of Probus and Winterthur in what is now Switzerland. And they had such prestige as a nation that a victory which Majorion, master-general of the cavalry and infantry of the empire, gained over nine hundred of them, who had crossed the Alps, about A. D. 457, was considered sufficiently meritorious to be rewarded with the imperial power and office.
Defeats by the Romans "did not break the power of the Alemanni, who, being pressed on by other barbarians in the North, were forced to advance southward and westward to conquer new countries for themselves. Hence, after the middle of the fifth century, we find them established, not only in the country now called Swabia, but also in a part of Switzerland and in Alsace. In these countries the Alemanni have maintained themselves ever since, and the greater part of the modern Swabians and the northern Swiss are descendants of that ancient race."
"The territory of these two great confederacies [the Franks and the Alemanni] is constantly spoken of by contemporary writers as Francia and Alemannia. We feel that we are standing on the verge of modern history when we recognize in these two names the France and the Allemagne of the French newspaper of to-day. Though other elements have been abundantly blended with each confederacy, it is not altogether forbidden us to recognize in these two barbarous neighbors of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, the ancestors of the two mighty nations which in our own day met in thunder on the plains of Gravelotte."
The later history of the Franks is easily suggested in the name of France. So also to the French is the later history of the Alemanni easily suggested in their name for Germany — Allemagne. But in the word Germany this is not so easily understood. However, the Alemanni were not only one of the principal roots of the mighty German nation of to-day, but they played no small part in the history of Europe in the Middle Ages, and even to our own time. Under the rule of the Alemannian House of Hohenstaufen was the most glorious and prosperous period of medieval German history. With but a short interval, after the end of the Hohenstaufen dynasty the Alemannian House of Hapsburg held the imperial office in the "Holy Roman Empire," as long as that empire existed; and when it ceased to exist, still ruled in Austria; and does yet rule the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Alemannian House of Guelf furnished to England the House of Hanover and by it her present and most illustrious Queen Victoria. Spain in her glory was ruled by princes from the Alemanni. The Alemannian House of Hohenzollern made of Prussia one of the strongest States of Europe, and accomplished what had been the wish of ages, — the vital union of all the little States into which the German people had been separated, — and now rules the German Empire. The present emperor of Germany is directly descended from a prince of the Alemanni.
Chapter 40