great
country in the time of Caesar, of Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient,
or as new tribes successively present themselves in the series of this
history, we shall concisely mention their origin, their situation,
and their particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent
societies, connected among themselves by laws and government, bound
to their native soil by arts and agriculture. The German tribes were
voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers, almost of savages.
The same territory often changed its inhabitants in the tide of conquest
and emigration. The same communities, uniting in a plan of defence or
invasion, bestowed a new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution
of an ancient confederacy restored to the independent tribes their
peculiar but long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often
communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite leader;
his camp became their country, and some circumstance of the enterprise
soon gave a common denomination to the mixed multitude. The distinctions
of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and
confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire.

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these
busy scenes is very different, according to the different condition of
mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their
useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer,
as well as of the reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a
regular army, and the districts which happen to be the occasional scene
of military operations. But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season
of civil commotions, or the situation of petty republics, raises almost
every member of the community into action, and consequently into notice.
The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the people of
Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply their numbers.
The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of armies and nations,
inclines us to forget that the same objects are continually repeated
under a variety of appellations, and that the most splendid appellations
have been frequently lavished on the most inconsiderable objects.

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, AEmilianus, Valerian And
Gallienus.