ravery. [86] 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. [87]

[Footnote 85: Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]

[Footnote 851: The nation of the Alemanni was not originally formed by the
Suavi properly so called; these have always preserved their own name.
Shortly afterwards they made (A. D. 357) an irruption into Rhaetia, and
it was not long after that they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still
they have always been a distinct people; at the present day, the people
who inhabit the north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,
Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in Ortenau,
the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider themselves
Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and the Usipetae,
inhabitants of the interior and of the north of Westphalia, formed, says
Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic nation; they occupied the country
where the name of the Alemanni first appears, as conquered in 213, by
Caracalla. They were well trained to fight on horseback, (according to
Tacitus, Germ. c. 32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the
Alemanni: finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The
Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a multitude
of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc. xviii. 2, xxix.
4.--G. ----The question whether the Suevi was a generic name
comprehending the clans which peopled central Germany, is rather hastily
decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood, who has studied the modern German
writers on their own origin, supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and
Marcomanni, one people, under different appellations. History of
Germany, vol i.--M.]

[Footnote 86: This etymology (far different from those which amuse the
fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius Quadratus, an original
historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]

[Footnote 87: The Suevi engaged Caesar in this manner, and the manoeuvre
deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello Gallico, i. 48.)]

This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense
preparations of Alexander Severus;