one of the provinces of the empire; and accordingly we
find that Rhaetia itself (which by the accounts of ancient
geographers[W] appears to have extended its limits beyond the lake of
Constance, Augsburg, and Trent, towards Germany, and to Como and Verona
towards Italy) was formed into a Roman province, governed by a
pro-consul or procurator, who resided at Augsburg; and that when in the
year 119, the Emperor Adrian divided it into Rhaetia _prima_ and
_secunda_, the governor of the former, in which the country I am now
speaking of must have been comprized, took up his residence in two
castles situated where Coire now stands, whilst the other continued his
seat at Augsburg. But notwithstanding these appearances, no trace or
monument of Roman servitude is to be met with in this district, except
the ambiguous name of one mountain,[X] situated on the skirts of these
highlands, and generally thought to have been the _non plus ultra_ of
the Roman arms on the Italian side.

From the difficulty those persevering veterans experienced in keeping
this stubborn people in awe, I mean to infer that such strenuous
asserters of their independence, whom the flattering pens of Ovid and
Horace represent as formidable even to Augustus, and preferring death to
the loss of their liberties,[Y] favoured by the natural strength and
indigence of their country, were not very likely to be so far subdued by
any foreign power inferior to the Roman, as to suffer any considerable
revolution in their customs and language: for as to the irruptions of
the Goths, Vandals, and Lombards, in the fifth and sixth centuries,
besides a profound silence in history concerning any successful attempt
of those barbarians upon this spot, it is scarce credible, that any of
them should have either wished or endeavoured to settle in a country,
perhaps far less hospitable than that which they had just forsaken,
especially after they had opened to themselves a way into the fertile
plains of Lombardy.

Some stress must be laid upon this inference, as the history of what
befel this country after the decline of the Roman empire is so
intimately blended with that of Suabia, the Tyrolese, and the lower
parts of the Grisons, which are known to have fallen to the share of the
rising power of the Franks, that nothing positive can be drawn from
authors as to the interior state of this small tract. The victory gained
in the year 496 near Cologn, by Clovis I. king of the Franks, ove