light and return, rather than to superior bravery, that the Germans
were indebted for the preservation of their independence. The Gauls and
Spaniards had also defended themselves courageously; but the one,
surrounded by the ocean, knew not where to fly from enemies they could
not expel; and the other, in a state of more advanced civilization,
attacked by the Romans, to whom the Narbonnese province afforded, in the
very heart of Gaul itself, an impregnable base, and repulsed by the
Germans from the land into which they might have escaped, were also
compelled to submit. Drusus and Germanicus had long before penetrated
into Germany; they withdrew, because the Germans always retreating
before them, they would, by remaining, have only occupied territory
without subjects.

When, from causes not connected with the Roman Empire, the Tartar tribes
who wandered through the deserts of Sarmatia and Scythia, from the
northern frontiers of China, marched upon Germany, the Germans, pressed
by these new invaders, threw themselves upon the Roman provinces, to
conquer possessions where they might establish themselves in
perpetuity. Rome then fought in defence; the struggle was protracted;
the skill and courage of some of the Emperors for a long time opposed a
powerful barrier; but the Barbarians were the ultimate conquerors,
because it was imperative on them to win the victory, and their swarms
of warriors were inexhaustible. The Visigoths, the Alani, and the Suevi
established themselves in the South, of Gaul and Spain; the Vandals
passed over into Africa; the Huns occupied the banks of the Danube; the
Ostrogoths founded their kingdom in Italy; the Franks in the North of
Gaul; Rome ceased to call herself the mistress of Europe; Constantinople
does not apply to our present subject.

Those nations of the East and the North who transported themselves in a
mass into the countries where they were destined to found States, the
more durable because they conquered not to extend but to establish
themselves, were barbarians, such as the Romans themselves had long
remained. Force was their law, savage independence their delight; they
were free because none of them had ever thought or believed that men as
strong as themselves would submit to their domination; they were brave
because courage with them was a necessity; they loved war because war
brings occupation without labour; they desired lands because these new
possessions supplied them with a th