omeless
wanderers; and that even the Black Forest formerly possessed
by the Helvetii,(27) if not yet taken possession of by the German tribes
dwelling in the vicinity, was at least waste debateable border-
land, and was presumably even then, what it was afterwards called,
the Helvetian desert The barbarous strategy of the Germans--which
secured them from hostile attacks by laying waste the neighbourhood
for miles--seems to have been applied here on the greatest scale.

German Tribes on the Left Bank of the Rhine

But the Germans had not remained stationary at the Rhine.
The march of the Cimbrian and Teutonic host, composed, as respects
its flower, of German tribes, which had swept with such force fifty
years before over Pannonia, Gaul, Italy, and Spain, seemed to have
been nothing but a grand reconnaissance. Already different German
tribes had formed permanent settlements to the west of the Rhine,
especially of its lower course; having intruded as conquerors,
these settlers continued to demand hostages and to levy annual
tribute from the Gallic inhabitants in their neighbourhood,
as if from subjects. Among these German tribes were the Aduatuci,
who from a fragment of the Cimbrian horde(28) had grown
into a considerable canton, and a number of other tribes afterwards
comprehended under the name of the Tungri on the Maas in the region
of Liege; even the Treveri (about Treves) and the Nervii
(in Hainault), two of the largest and most powerful peoples
of this region, are directly designated by respectable authorities
as Germans. The complete credibility of these accounts must certainly
remain doubtful, since, as Tacitus remarks in reference to the two
peoples last mentioned, it was subsequently, at least in these regions,
reckoned an honour to be descended of German blood and not to belong
to the little-esteemed Celtic nation; yet the population
in the region of the Scheldt, Maas, and Moselle seems certainly
to have become, in one way or another, largely mingled with German
elements, or at any rate to have come under German influences.
The German settlements themselves were perhaps small;
they were not unimportant, for amidst the chaotic obscurity,
through which we see the stream of peoples on the right bank
of the Rhine ebbing and flowing about this period, we can well perceive
that larger German hordes were preparing to cross the Rhine in the track
of these advanced posts. Threatened on two sides by foreign dominat