llemanni by Probus's
'Teufels-Mauer,' stretching from the Danube to the Rhine. Their time was
not yet come by a hundred years. But they had seen and tasted the fine
things of the sunny south, and did not forget them amid the steppes and
snows.

At last a sore need came upon them. About 350 there was a great king
among them, Ermanaric, 'the powerful warrior,' comparable, says
Jornandes, to Alexander himself, who had conquered all the conquered
tribes around. When he was past 100 years old, a chief of the Roxolani
(Ugrians, according to Dr. Latham; men of Ros, or Russia), one of these
tribes, plotted against him, and sent for help to the new people, the
Huns, who had just appeared on the confines of Europe and Asia. Old
Ermanaric tore the traitor's wife to pieces with wild horses: but the
Huns came nevertheless. A magic hind, the Goths said, guided the new
people over the steppes to the land of the Goths, and then vanished. They
fought with the Goths, and defeated them. Old Ermanaric stabbed himself
for shame, and the hearts of the Goths became as water before the tempest
of nations. They were supernatural creatures, the Goths believed,
engendered of witches and demons on the steppes; pig-eyed hideous beings,
with cakes instead of faces, 'offam magis quam faciem,' under ratskin
caps, armed with arrows tipped with bone, and lassos of cord, eating,
marketing, sleeping on horseback, so grown into the saddle that they
could hardly walk in their huge boots. With them were Acatzirs, painted
blue, hair as well as skin; Alans, wandering with their waggons like the
Huns, armed with heavy cuirasses of plaited horn, their horses decked
with human scalps; Geloni armed with a scythe, wrapt in a cloak of human
skin; Bulgars who impaled their prisoners--savages innumerable as the
locust swarms. Who could stand against them?

In the year 375, the West Goths came down to the Danube-bank and
entreated the Romans to let them cross. There was a Christian party
among them, persecuted by the heathens, and hoping for protection from
Rome. Athanaric had vowed never to set foot on Roman soil, and after
defending himself against the Huns, retired into the forests of
'Caucaland.' Good Bishop Ulfilas and his converts looked longingly
toward the Christian Empire. Surely the Christians would receive them as
brothers, welcome them, help them. The simple German fancied a Roman
even such a one as themselves.

Ulfilas went on embassy to