THE DISMEMBERMENT OF THE EMPIRE.

§ 1. The Later Geography of the Empire.

The Roman dominion, as we have seen, grew up by the successive annexation of endless kingdoms, districts, and cities, each of which, after its annexation, still retained, whether as an allied province or a subject state, much of the separate being which it had while it was independent. The allies and subjects of Rome remained in a variety of different relations to the ruling city, and the old names and the old geographical boundaries were largely preserved. ?Wiping out of old divisions under the Empire.? But, as the old ideas of the commonwealth gradually died out, and as the power of the Emperors gradually grew into an avowed monarchy, the political change naturally led to a geographical change. The Roman dominion ceased to be a collection of allied and subject states under a single ruling city; it changed into a single Empire, all whose parts, all whose inhabitants, were equally subject to its Imperial head. The old distinctions of Latins, Italians, and provincials died out when all free inhabitants of the Empire became alike Romans. Italy had no longer any privilege; it was simply part of the Empire, like any other part. The geographical divisions which had been, first independent, then dependent states, sank into purely administrative divisions, which might be mapped out afresh at any time when it was found convenient to do so. Italy itself, in the extended sense which the word Italy had then come to bear, was mapped out afresh into regions as early as the time of Augustus. ?New division of Italy under Augustus.? These divisions, eleven in number, mark an epoch in the process by which the detached elements out of which the Roman Empire had grown were fused together into one whole. As long as Italy was a collection of separate commonwealths, standing in various relations to the ruling city, there could not be any systematic division of the country for administrative purposes. Now that the whole of Italy stood on one level of citizenship or of subjection, the land might be mapped out in whatever way was most convenient. ?The eleven Regions.? But the eleven regions of Augustus did not work any violent change. Old names and old boundaries largely remained. The famous names of Etruria, Latium, Samnium, Umbria, Picenum, and Lucania still lived on, though not always with their ancient boundaries. And, though all the land as far as the Alps was now Italy, two of the divisions of Italy kept their ancient names of Gaul on this side the Po and Gaul beyond the Po. Liguria and Venetia, now Italian lands, make up the remainder of Northern Italy.

Italy had thus been mapped out afresh; what was done with Italy in the time of Augustus was done with the whole Empire in the time of Constantine. What Italy was in the earlier time the whole Empire was in the later; the old distinctions had been wiped out, and the whole of the Roman world stood ready to be parted out into fresh divisions. Under Diocletian, the Empire was divided into four parts, forming the realms of the four Imperial colleagues of his system, the two Augusti and their subordinate CÆsars. ?Division of the Empire under Diocletian. A.D.292.? Diocletian’s system of government involved a practical degradation of Rome from the headship of the Empire. Augusti and CÆsars now dwelled at points where their presence was more needed to ward off Persian and German attacks from the frontiers; Rome was forsaken for NikomÊdeia and Milan, for Antioch, York, and Trier. ?Reunion under Constantine. A.D.323.
Division between the sons of Theodosius. A.D.395.? The division between the four Imperial colleagues lasted under another form after the Empire was re-united under Constantine, and it formed the groundwork of the more lasting division of the Empire into East and West, between the sons of Theodosius. The whole Empire was now mapped out according to a scheme in which ancient geographical names were largely preserved, but in which they were for the most part used in new or, at least, extended meanings. ?The Four PrÆtorian Prefectures.? The Empire was divided into four great divisions called PrÆtorian Prefectures. These were divided into Dioceses—a name used in this nomenclature without regard to the ecclesiastical sense which was borrowed from it—and the dioceses again into Provinces. The four great prefectures of the East, Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, answer nearly to the fourfold division under Diocletian; while we may say that, in the final division, Illyricum and the East formed the Eastern Empire, and Italy and Gaul formed the Western. But it is only roughly that either the prefectures or their smaller divisions answer to any of the great national or geographical landmarks of earlier times.

The Prefecture of the East is that one among the four which least answers to anything in earlier geography, natural or historical. Its boundaries do not answer to those of any earlier dominion, nor yet to any great division of race or language. It stretched into all the three continents of the old world, and took in all those parts of the Empire which were never fully brought under either Greek or Roman influences. But it also took in large tracts which we have learned to look on as part of the Hellenic world—not only lands which had been, to a great extent, Hellenized in later times, but even some of the earliest Greek colonies. The four dioceses into which the Prefecture was divided formed far more natural divisions than the Prefecture itself.

Three of these were Asiatic. The first, specially called the East, took in all the possessions of Rome beyond Mount Tauros, together with Isauria, Kilikia, and the island of Cyprus. Its eastern boundaries naturally fluctuated according as Rome or Persia prevailed on the Euphrates and the Tigris, fluctuations of which we shall have again to speak more specially. ?Egypt,? The diocese of Egypt, besides Egypt in the elder sense, took in, under the name of Libya, the old Greek land of the Kyrenaic Pentapolis. ?Asia.? The diocese of Asia, a reminder of the elder province of that name and of the kingdom of Pergamos out of which it grew, took in the Asiatic coasts of the ÆgÆan, together with Pamphylia, Lykia, and the ÆgÆan Islands. The diocese of Pontos, preserving the name of the kingdom of Mithridates, took in the lands on the Euxine, with the fluctuating Armenian possessions of Rome.

Besides these Asiatic lands, the Eastern Prefecture contained one European diocese, that of Thrace, which took in the lands stretching from the Propontis to the Lower Danube. The names of two of its provinces are remarkable. Rome now boasts of a province of Scythia. But, among the varied uses of that name, it has now shrunk up to mean the land immediately south of the mouths of the Danube. ?Province of Europa.? The other name is Europa, a name which, as a Roman province, means the district immediately round the New Rome. Constantine had now fixed his capital on the site of the old Byzantion, the site from which the city on the Bosporos might seem to bear rule over two worlds. With whatever motive, the name of Europe was specially given to that corner of the Western continent where it comes nearest to the Eastern. Nor was the name ill-chosen for the district round the city which was so long to be the bulwark of Europe against invading Asia. ?Great cities of the Eastern Prefecture.? And, besides the New Rome, this Prefecture, as containing those parts of the Empire which had belonged to the great Macedonian kingdoms, contained an unusual proportion of the great cities of the world. Besides a crowd of less famous places, it took in the two great Eastern seats of Grecian culture, the most renowned Alexandria and the most renowned Antioch, themselves only the chief among many others cities bearing the same names. All these, it should be remarked, were comparatively recent creations, bearing the names of individual men. That cities thus artificially called into being should have kept the position which still belonged to the great Macedonian capitals is one of the most speaking signs of the effect which the dominion of Alexander and his successors had on the history of the world.

The nomenclature of the second Prefecture marks how utterly Greece, as a country and nation, had died out of all reckoning. The Prefecture of the Eastern Illyricum answered roughly to European Greece and its immediate neighbours. It took in the lands stretching from the Danube to the southern point of PeloponnÊsos. Greece, as part of the Roman Empire, was included under the name of the barbarian land through which Rome was first brought into contact with Greek affairs. She was further included under the name of the half-barbarian neighbour who had become Greek through the process of conquering Greece. In the system of Prefectures, Greece formed part of Macedonia, and Macedonia formed part of Illyricum. So low had Greece, as a land, fallen at the very moment when her tongue was making the greatest of all its conquests, when a Greek city was raised to the rank of another Rome. ?Dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia.? The Illyrian Prefecture contained the two dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia. This last name, it will be remembered, had, since the days of Aurelian, withdrawn to the south of the Danube. The Macedonian diocese contained six provinces, among which, besides the familiar and venerable names of Macedonia and Epeiros, we find the names, still more venerable and familiar, of Thessaly and Crete. And one yet greater name lives on with them. Hellas and GrÆcia have alike vanished from the map; but the most abiding name in Grecian history, the theme of Homer and the theme of Polybios, has not perished. ?Province of Achaia.? Among all changes, Achaia is there still.

In the new system Italy and Rome herself were in no way privileged over the rest of the Empire. The Italian Prefecture took in Italy itself and the lands which might be looked on as necessary for the defence and maintenance of Italy. It took in the defensive conquests of the early Empire on the Upper Danube, and it took in the granary of Italy, Africa. Its three dioceses were Italy, Illyricum, and Africa. Here Illyricum strangely gave its name both to a distinct Prefecture and to one diocese of the Prefecture of Italy. ?Dioceses of Italy,? The Italian diocese contained seventeen provinces. The Gaulish name has now wholly vanished from the lands south of the Alps. The lands between the older and the newer boundaries of Italy are now divided into Liguria and Venetia—the former name being used in a widely extended sense—and the new names of Æmilia and Flaminia, provinces named after the great Roman roads, as the roads themselves were named after Roman magistrates. But the new Italy has spread beyond the Alps, and reaches to the Danube. Two RÆtian provinces form part of it. Three other provinces are formed by the three great islands, Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. ?Illyricum,? The diocese of the Western Illyricum took in Pannonia, Dalmatia, and Noricum. ?Africa.? The third diocese, that of Africa, took in the old Africa, Numidia, and western Mauritania. ?Greatness of Carthage.? The union of these lands with Italy may seem less strange when we remember that the colony of the first CÆsar, the restored Carthage, was the greatest of Latin-speaking cities after Rome herself.

The fourth Prefecture took in the Roman dominions in Western Europe, the great Latin-speaking provinces beyond the Alps. ?Diocese of Spain; its African territory.? Among the seven provinces of Spain are reckoned, not only the Balearic islands, a natural appendage to the Spanish peninsula, but a small part of the African continent, the province of Tingitana, stretching from the now Italian Africa to the Ocean. This was according to the general law by which, in almost all periods of history, either the masters of Spain have borne rule in Africa or the masters of Africa have borne rule in Spain. ?Diocese of Gaul;? The diocese of Gaul, with its seventeen provinces, keeps, at least in name, the boundaries of the old Transalpine land. It still numbers the two Germanies west of the Rhine among its provinces. ?of Britain.? The five provinces of the diocese of Britain took in, at the moment when the Empire was beginning to fall asunder, a greater territory than Rome had held in the island in the days of her greatest power. ?Province of Valentia. A.D.367.? The exploits of the elder Theodosius, who drove back the Pict by land and the Saxon by sea, for a moment added to the Empire a province beyond the wall of Antoninus, which, in honour of the reigning Emperors Valentinian and Valens, received the name of Valentia.

§ 2. The Division of the Empire.

The mapping out of the Empire into Prefectures, and its division between two or more Imperial colleagues, led naturally to its more lasting division into what were practically two Empires. The old state of things had altogether passed away. Rome was no longer the city ruling over subject states. From the Ocean to the Euphrates all was alike, if not Rome, at least Romania; all its inhabitants were equally Romans. But to be a Roman now meant, no longer to be a citizen of a commonwealth, but to be the subject of an Emperor. The unity of the Empire was not broken by the division of its administration between several Imperial colleagues; but Rome ceased to be the only Imperial dwelling-place, and, from the latter years of the third century, it ceased to be an Imperial dwelling-place at all. As long as Rome held her old place, no lasting division, nothing more than an administrative partition among colleagues, could be thought of. There could be no division to mark on the map. But, when the new system had fully taken root at the end of the fourth century, we come to a division which was comparatively lasting, one which fills an important place in history, and which is capable of being marked on the map. ?Division of the Empire between the sons of Theodosius. A.D.395.? On the death of Theodosius the Great, the Empire was divided between his two sons, Arcadius taking the Eastern provinces, answering nearly to the Prefectures of the East and of Illyricum, while Honorius took the Western provinces, the Prefectures of Italy and Gaul. Through the greater part of the fifth century, the successors of Arcadius and of Honorius formed two distinct lines of Emperors, of whom the Eastern reigned at Constantinople, the Western most commonly at Ravenna. But as the dominions of each prince were alike Roman, the Eastern and Western Emperors were still looked on in theory as Imperial colleagues charged with the administration of a common Roman dominion. ?Practically two Empires.? Practically however the dominions of the two Emperors may be looked on as two distinct Empires, the Eastern having its seat at the New Rome or Constantinople, while the Western had its seat more commonly at Ravenna than at the Old Rome.

This division of the Empire is the great political feature of the fifth century; but the fate of the two Empires was widely different. ?Enemies of Rome.? From the very beginning of the Empire, Rome had had to struggle with two chief enemies, in the East and in the West, in Europe and in Asia, the nature of whose warfare was widely different. ?Rivalry with Parthia and Persia.? In the East she had, first the Parthian and then the regenerate Persian, as strictly a rival power on equal terms. This rivalry went on from the moment when Rome stepped into the place of the Seleukids till the time when Rome was cut short, and Persia overthrown, by the Saracenic invasions. But, except during the momentary conquests of Trajan and during the equally momentary alternate conquests of Rome and Persia in the seventh century, the whole strife was a mere border warfare which did not threaten the serious dismemberment of either power. This and that fortress was taken and retaken; this and that province was ceded and ceded back again; but except under Trajan and again under Chosroes and Heraclius, the existence and dominion of neither power was ever seriously threatened. ?Rivalry with Persia passes on to the Eastern Empire.? The Eastern Empire naturally inherited this part of the calling of the undivided Empire, the long strife with Persia.

At the other end of the Empire, the enemy was of quite another kind. ?Teutonic incursions in the Western Empire.? The danger there was through the incursions of the various Teutonic nations. There was no one Teutonic power which could be a rival to Rome in the same sense in which Persia was in the East; but a crowd of independent Teutonic tribes were pressing into the Empire from all quarters, and were striving to make settlements within its borders. The task of resisting these incursions fell of course to the Western Empire. ?No Teutonic settlements in the Eastern Empire.? The Eastern Empire indeed was often traversed by wandering Teutonic nations; but no permanent settlements were made within its borders, no dismemberment of its provinces capable of being marked on the map was made till a much later time. But the Western Empire was altogether dismembered and broken in pieces by the settlement of the Teutonic nations within it. The geographical aspects of the two Empires during the fifth century are thus strikingly unlike one another; but each continues one side of the history of the undivided Empire. It will therefore be well to trace those two characteristic aspects of the two Empires separately. We will first speak of the Teutonic incursions, through which in the end the Western Empire was split up and the states of modern Europe were founded. We will then trace the geographical aspect of the long rivalry between Rome and Persia in the East.

§ 3. The Teutonic Settlements within the Empire.

Our subject is historical geography, and neither ethnology nor political history, except so far as either national migrations or political changes produce a directly geographical effect. ?The Wandering of the Nations.? The great movement called the Wandering of the Nations, and its results in the settlement of various Teutonic nations within the bounds of the Roman Empire, concern us now only so far as they wrought a visible change on the map. The exact relations of the different tribes to one another, the exact course of the migrations which led to the final settlement of each, belong rather to another branch of inquiry. But there are certain marked stages in the relations of the Empire to the nations beyond its borders, certain marked stages in the growth and mutual relations of those nations, which must be borne in mind in order to explain their settlements within the Empire. ?Changes in the nomenclature of the Teutonic nations.? It will be at once seen that the geography and nomenclature of the German nations in the third century is for the most part quite different from their geography and nomenclature as we find it in CÆsar and Tacitus. New names have come to the front, names all of which play a part in history, many of which remain to this day; and, with one or two exceptions, the older names sink into the background. It is therefore hardly needful to go through the ethnology and geography of Tacitus, or to deal with any of the controverted points which are suggested thereby. We have to look at the German nations purely in their relations to Rome.

We have seen that the history of Rome in her western provinces was, from an early stage of the Empire, a struggle with the Teutonic nations on the Rhine and the Danube. We have seen that all attempts at serious conquest beyond those boundaries came to nothing. ?Roman possessions beyond those rivers.? The Roman possessions beyond the two great rivers were mere outposts for the better security of the land within the rivers. The district beyond them, fenced in by a wall and known as the Agri Decumates, was hardly more than such an outlying post on a great scale. The struggle along the border was, almost from the beginning, a defensive struggle on the part of Rome. We hear of Roman conquests from the second century to the fifth; but they are strictly defensive conquests, the mere recovery of lost possessions, or at most the establishment of fresh outposts. ?Formation of confederacies among the Germans.? From the moment of the first appearance of Rome on the two rivers, the Teutonic nations were really threatening to Rome, and the warfare of Rome was really defensive; and from the very beginning too a process seems to have been at work among the German nations themselves which greatly strengthened their power as enemies of Rome. New nations or confederacies, bearing, for the most part, names unknown to earlier times, begin to be far more dangerous than the smaller and more scattered tribes of the earlier times had been. These movements among the German nations themselves, hastened by pressure of other nations to the east of them, caused the Teutonic attacks on the Empire to become more and more formidable, and at last to grow into Teutonic settlements within the Empire. But, in the course of this process, several stages may be noticed. ?Marcomanni and Quadi.? Thus the Marcomanni and the Quadi play a part in this history from the very beginning. The Marcomanni appear in CÆsar, and, from their name of Markmen, we may be sure that they were a confederacy of the same kind as the later confederacies of the Franks and Alemanni. In the first and second centuries the Marcomanni are dangerous neighbours, threatening the Empire and often penetrating beyond its borders, and their name appears in history as late as the fifth century. But they play no part in the Teutonic settlements within the Empire. They do not affect the later map; they had no share in bringing about the changes out of which modern Europe arose. Their importance ceases just at the time when a second stage begins, when, in the course of the third century, we begin to hear of those nations or confederacies whose movements really did affect later history and geography.

In the third and fourth centuries the history of modern Europe begins. ?The new confederacies.? We now begin to hear names which have been heard ever since, Franks, Alemans, Saxons, all of them great confederacies of German tribes. ?Defensive warfare of Rome.? Defence against German inroads now becomes the chief business of the rulers of Rome. The invaders were constantly driven back; but new invaders were as constantly found to renew their incursions. Men of Teutonic race pressed into the Empire in every conceivable character. ?Germans within the Empire.? Besides open enemies, who came with the hope either of plunder or settlement, crowds of Germans served in the Roman armies and obtained lands held by military tenure as the reward of their services. Their chiefs were promoted to every rank and honour, military and civil, short of the Imperial dignity itself. These were changes of the utmost importance in other points of view; still they do not directly affect the map of the Empire. Lands and cities were won and lost over and over again; but such changes were merely momentary; the acknowledged boundaries of the Roman dominion were not yet altered; it is not till the next stage that geography begins to be directly concerned.

This last stage begins with the early years of the fifth century, and thus nearly coincides with the division of the Empire into East and West. Gothic and other Teutonic kings could now march at pleasure at the head of their armies through every corner of the Empire, sometimes bearing the titles of Roman officers, sometimes dictating the choice of Roman Emperors, sometimes sacking the Old Rome or threatening the New. It was when these armies under their kings settled down and formed national kingdoms within the limits of the Empire, that the change comes to have an effect on the map. In the course of the fifth century the Western provinces of Rome were rent away from her. In most cases the loss was cloaked by some Imperial commission, some empty title bestowed on the victorious invader; but the Empire was none the less practically dismembered. Out of these dismemberments the modern states of Europe gradually grew. It will now be our business to give some account of those nations, Teutonic and otherwise, who had an immediate share in this work, passing lightly by all questions, and indeed all nations, which cannot be said to have had such an immediate share in it.

The nations which in the fourth and fifth centuries made settlements in the Western provinces of Rome fall under two chief heads; those who made their settlements by land, and those who made them by sea. This last class is pretty well coextensive with the settlement of our own forefathers in Britain, which must be spoken of separately. ?Settlements within the Empire.? Among the others, the nations who play an important part in the fourth and fifth centuries are the Goths, the Vandals, the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Franks. And their settlements again fall into two classes, those which passed away within a century or two, and those which have had a lasting effect on European history. ?Franks, Burgundians, Suevi,? Thus it is plain at the first glance that the Franks and the Burgundians have left their names on the modern map. The Suevi have left their name also: but it is now found only in their older German land; it has vanished for ages from their western settlement. ?Goths,? The name of the Goths has passed away from the kingdoms which they founded, but their presence has affected the history of both the Spanish and the Italian peninsulas. ?Vandals.? The Vandals alone, as a nation and kingdom, have left no traces whatever, though it may be that they have left their name to a part of one of the lands of their sojourn. ?Their kingdoms.? All these nations founded kingdoms within the Western Empire, kingdoms which at first admitted a nominal superiority in the Empire, but which were practically independent from the beginning. ?Various circumstances of their history.? But the history of the several kingdoms is very different. Some of them soon passed away altogether, while others became the beginnings of the great nations of modern Europe. Gaul and Spain fell off very gradually from the Empire. But, in the course of the fifth century, all the nations of which we have been speaking formed more or less lasting settlements within those provinces. Pre-eminent among them are the great settlements of the Goths and the Franks. Out of the settlement of the Franks arose the modern kingdoms of Germany and France, and out of the settlement of the Goths arose the various kingdoms of Spain. Those of the Burgundians, Vandals, and Suevi were either smaller or less lasting. All of them however must be mentioned in their order.

First and greatest come the Goths. It is not needful for our purpose to examine all that history or legend has to tell us as to the origin of the Goths, or all the theories which ingenious men have formed on the subject. ?Defeat of the Goths by Claudius. A.D.269.? It is enough for our purpose that the Goths began to show themselves as dangerous enemies of the Empire in the second half of the third century; but their continuous history does not begin till the second half of the fourth. ?Gothic kingdom on the Danube.? We then find them forming a great kingdom in the lands north of the Danube. ?Goths driven onwards by the Huns.? Presently a large body of them were driven to seek shelter within the bounds of the Eastern Empire from the pressure of the invading Huns. These last were a Turanian people who had been driven from their own older settlements by movements in the further East which do not concern us, but who become an important element in the history of the fifth century. They affected the Empire, partly by actual invasions, partly by driving other nations before them but they made no lasting settlements within it. Nor did the Goths themselves make any lasting settlement in the Eastern Empire. ?They cross the Danube. A.D.377.? While one part of the Gothic nation became subject to the Huns, another part crossed the Danube; but they crossed it by Imperial licence, and if they took to arms, it was only to punish the treachery of the Roman officers. Presently we find Gothic chiefs marching at pleasure through the dominions of the Eastern CÆsar; but they simply march and ravage; it is not till they have got within the boundary of the West that they found any lasting kingdoms. In fact, the Goths, and the Teutonic tribes generally, had no real mission in the East; to them the East was a mere highway to the West. ?Career of Alaric. A.D.394-410.? The movements of Alaric in Greece, Illyricum, and Italy, his sieges and his capture of Rome, are of the highest historical importance, but they do not touch geography. The Goths first win for themselves a local habitation and a place on the map when they left Italy to establish themselves in the further West.

Under Alaric’s successor, Athaulf, the first foundations were laid of that great West-Gothic kingdom which we are apt to look on as specially Spanish, but which in truth had its first beginning in Gaul, and which kept some Gaulish territory as long as it lasted. But the Goths passed into those lands, not in the character of avowed conquerors, not as founders of an avowed Gothic state, but as soldiers of the Empire, sent to win back its lost provinces. ?Condition of Gaul and Spain.? Those provinces were now occupied or torn in pieces by a crowd of invaders, Suevi, Vandals, and Alans. ?The Alans.? These last are a puzzling race, our accounts of whom are somewhat contradictory, but who may perhaps be most safely set down as a non-Aryan, or, at any rate, a non-Teutonic people, who had been largely brought under Gothic influences. But early in the fifth century they possessed a dominion in central Spain which stretched from sea to sea. ?The Suevi in Spain.? Their dominion passed for a few years into the hands of the Suevi, who had already formed a settlement in north-western Spain, and who still kept a dominion in that corner long after the greater part of the peninsula had become Gothic. ?The Vandals in Africa. A.D.425.? The Vandals occupied BÆtica; but they presently passed into Africa, and there founded the one Teutonic kingdom in that continent, with Carthage to its capital, a kingdom which took in also the great islands of the western Mediterranean, including Sicily itself. ?Independence of the Basques.? Through all these changes the unconquerable people of the Basque and Cantabrian mountains seem never to have fully submitted to any conquerors; but the rest of Spain and south-western Gaul was, before half of the fifth century had passed, formed into the great West-Gothic kingdom. ?Gothic kingdom of Toulouse.? That kingdom stretched from the pillars of HÊraklÊs to the Loire and the Rhone, and its capital was placed, not on Spanish but on Gaulish ground, at the Gaulish Tolosa or Toulouse. The Gothic dominion in Gaul was doomed not to be lasting; the Gothic dominion in Spain lasted down to the Saracen conquest, and all the later Christian kingdoms of Spain may be looked on as fragments or revivals of it. Spain however never changed her name for that of her conquerors. ?Gothia.? The only parts of the Gothic kingdom which ever bore the Gothic name were those small parts both of Spain and Gaul which kept the name of Gothia through later causes. ?Andalusia.? The Vandals, on the other hand, though they passed altogether out of Spain, have left their name to this day in its southern part under the form of Andalusia, a name which, under the Saracen conquerors, spread itself over the whole peninsula.

The other great Teutonic nations or confederacies of which we have to speak have had a far more lasting effect on the nomenclature of Europe. We have now to trace the steps by which the Franks gradually became the ruling people both of Germany and of Gaul. They have stamped their name on both countries. ?Uses of the word Francia.? The dominions of the Franks got the name of Francia, a name whose meaning has constantly varied according to the extent of the Frankish dominion at different times. In modern use it still cleaves to two parts of their dominions, to that part of Germany which is still called Franken or Franconia, and to that part of Gaul which is still called France. ?The Alemanni.? And their history is closely mixed up with that of another nation or confederacy, that of the Alemanni, who again have, in the French tongue, given their name to the whole of Germany. ?A.D.275.? Franks and Alemanni alike begin to be heard of in the third century, and the Alemanni even attempted an actual invasion of Italy; but the geographical importance of both confederacies does not begin till the fifth. All through the fourth century it is the chief business of the Emperors who ruled in Gaul to defend the frontier of the Rhine against their incursions, against the Alemanni along the upper part of its course, and against the Franks along its lower part. ?Thuringians.
The Low-Dutch tribes.? To the east of the Franks and Alemanni lay the Thuringians; to the north, along the coasts of the German Ocean, the Low-Dutch tribes, Saxons and Frisians. In the course of the fifth century their movements also began to affect the geography of the Empire.

During the whole of that century the Franks were pressing into Gaul. The Imperial city of Trier was more than once taken, and the seat of the provincial government was removed to Arles. ?Reign of Chlodwig. A.D.481-511.? The union of the two chief divisions of the Frankish confederacy, and the overthrow of the Alemanni, made the Franks, under their first Christian king, Chlodwig or Clovis, the ruling people of northern Gaul and central Germany. Their territory thus took in both lands which had been part of the Empire, and lands which had never been such. ?Character and divisions of the Frankish kingdom.? This is a special characteristic of the Frankish settlement, and one which influences the whole of their later history. There was, from the very beginning, long before any such distinction was consciously drawn, a Teutonic and a Latin Francia. There were Frankish lands to the East which never had been Roman. There were lands in northern Gaul which remained practically Roman under the Frankish dominion. ?Roman Germany Teutonized afresh.? And between them lay, on the left bank of the Rhine, the Teutonic lands which had formed part of the Roman province of Gaul, but which now became Teutonic again. Moguntiacum, Augusta Treverorum, and Colonia Agrippina, cities founded on Teutonic soil, now again became German, ready to be in due time, by the names of Mainz, Trier, and KÖln, the metropolitan and electoral cities of Germany. ?Eastern and Western Francia.? These lands, with the original German lands, formed the Eastern or Teutonic Francia, where the Franks, or their German allies and subjects, formed the real population of the country. In the Western Francia, between the Loire and the Channel, though the Franks largely settled and influenced the country in many ways, the mass of the population remained Roman. ?Armorica or Britanny.? Over the western peninsula of Armorica the dominion of the Franks was always precarious and, at most, external. Here the ante-Roman population still kept its Celtic language, and it was further strengthened by colonies from Britain, from which the land took its later name of the Lesser Britain or Britanny. ?Extent of the Frankish dominion. A.D.500.? Thus, at the end of the fifth century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established over the whole of central Germany and Northern Gaul. Their dominion was fated to be the most lasting of the Teutonic kingdoms formed on the Roman mainland. The reason is obvious; while the Goths in Spain and the Vandals in Africa were isolated Teutonic settlers in a Roman land, the Franks in Gaul were strengthened by the unbroken Teutonic mainland at their back.

The greater part of Gaul was thus, at the end of the fifth century, divided between the Franks in the north and the West-Goths in the south. But, early in the fifth century, a third Teutonic power grew up in south-eastern Gaul. ?Their kingdom.? The Burgundians, a people who, in the course of the Wandering of the Nations, seem to have made their way from the shores of the Baltic, established themselves in the lands between the Rhone and the Alps, where they formed a kingdom which bore their name. Their dominion in Gaul may be said to have been more lasting than that of the Goths, less lasting than that of the Franks. ?Meaning of the word Burgundy.? Burgundy is still a recognized name; but no name in geography has so often shifted its place and meaning, and it has for some centuries settled itself on a very small part of the ancient kingdom of the Burgundians. ?Provence Burgundian. A.D.500-510.
510-536.? At the end of the fifth century the Rhone was a Burgundian river; Autun, BesanÇon, Lyons, and Vienne were Burgundian cities; but the sea coast, the original Roman Province, the land which has so steadily kept that name, though it fell for a moment under the Burgundian power, followed at this time, as became the first Roman land beyond the Alps, the fortunes of Italy rather than those of Gaul.

Among these various conquests and shiftings of dominion, all of which affected the map at the time, some of which have affected history and geography ever since, it may be well to mention, if only by way of contrast, an inroad which fills a great place in the history of the fifth century, but which had no direct effect on geography. ?Battle of ChÂlons. A.D.451.? This was the invasion of Italy and Gaul by the Huns under Attila, and their defeat at ChÂlons by the combined forces of Romans, West-Goths, and Franks. This battle is one of the events which is remarkable, not for working change, but for hindering it. Had Attila succeeded, the greatest of all changes would have taken place throughout all Western Europe. As it was, the map of Gaul was not affected by his inroad. ?Destruction of Aquileia, and origin of Venice.? On the map of Italy it did have an indirect effect; he destroyed the city of Aquileia, and its inhabitants, fleeing to the Venetian islands, laid the foundation of one of the later powers of Europe in the form of the commonwealth of Venice.

While Spain and Gaul were thus rent away from the Empire, Italy and Rome itself were practically rent away also, though the form which the event took was different. ?Reunion of the Empire.
Rule of Odoacer. A.D.476-493.? A vote of the Senate reunited the Western Empire to the Eastern; the Eastern Emperor Zeno became sole Emperor, and the government of the diocese of Italy—that is, it will be remembered, of a large territory besides the Italian peninsula—was entrusted by his commission to Odoacer, a general of barbarian mercenaries, with the rank of Patrician. No doubt Odoacer was practically independent of the Empire; but the union of the Empire was preserved in form, and no separate kingdom of Italy was set up. ?The East-Goths in Italy.? Presently Odoacer was overthrown by Theodoric king of the East-Goths, who, though king of his own people, reigned in Italy by an Imperial commission as Patrician. ?Rule of Theodoric. A.D.493-526.? Practically, he founded an East-Gothic kingdom, taking in Italy and the other lands which formed the dioceses of Italy and Western Illyricum. ?Extent of his dominion.? His dominion also took in the coast of what we may now call Provence, and his influence was extended in various ways over most of the kingdoms of the West. The seat of the Gothic dominion, like that of the later Western Empire, was at Ravenna. Practically Theodoric and his successors were independent kings, and, as chiefs of their own people, they bore the kingly title. ?Theory of the Empire.? Hence, as Rome formed part of their dominions, it is true to say that under them Rome ceased to be part of the Roman Empire. Still in theory the Imperial supremacy went on, and in this way it became much easier for Italy to be won back to the Empire at a somewhat later time.

§ 4. Settlement of the English in Britain.

Meanwhile, in another part of Europe, a Teutonic settlement of quite another character from those on the mainland was going on. ?The Romans withdrawn from Britain. A.D.411.? Spain and Gaul fell away from the Empire by slow degrees; but the Roman dominion in Britain came to an end by a definite act at a definite moment. The Roman armies were withdrawn from the province, and its inhabitants were left to themselves. Presently, a new settlement took place in the island which was thus left undefended. ?Difference between the conquest of Britain and other Teutonic conquests.? It is specially important to mark the difference between the Teutonic settlements in Britain and the Teutonic conquests on the mainland. The Teutonic conquests in Gaul and Spain were made by Teutonic neighbours who had already learned to know and respect the Roman civilization, who were either Christians already or became Christians soon after they entered the Empire. They pressed in gradually by land; they left the Roman inhabitants to live after the Roman law, and they themselves gradually adopted the speech and much of the manners of Rome. The only exception to this rule on the continent is to be found in the lands immediately on the Rhine and the Danube, where the Teutonic settlement was complete, and where the Roman tongue and civilization were pretty well wiped out. This same process happened yet more completely in the Teutonic conquest of Britain. ?Character of the English settlement; long struggle with the Britons.? The great island possession of Rome had been virtually abandoned by Rome before the Teutonic settlements in it began. The invaders had therefore to struggle rather with native Britons than with Romans. Moreover, they were invaders who came by sea, and who came from lands where little or nothing was known of the Roman law or religion. They therefore made a settlement of quite another kind from the settlement of the Goths or even from that of the Franks. They met with a degree of strictly national resistance such as no other Teutonic conquerors met with; therefore in the end they swept away all traces of the earlier state of things in a way which took place nowhere else. ?The English remain Teutonic.? As far as such a process is possible, they slew or drove out the older inhabitants; they kept their heathen religion and Teutonic language, and were thus able to grow up as a new Teutonic nation in their new home without any important intermixture with the earlier inhabitants, Roman or British.

The conquerors who wrought this change were our own forefathers, the Low-Dutch inhabitants of the border lands of Germany and Denmark, quite away from the Roman frontier; and among them three tribes, the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes, had the chief share in the conquest of Britain. ?Saxons.? The Saxons had, as has already been said, attempted a settlement in the fourth century. They were therefore the tribe who were first known to the Roman and Celtic inhabitants of the island; the Celts of Britain and Ireland have therefore called all the Teutonic settlers Saxons to this day. ?Origin of the name English.? But, as the Angles or English occupied in the end much the greater part of the land, it was they who, when the Teutonic tribes in Britain began to form one nation, gave their name to that nation and its land. That nation was the English, and their land was England. While Britain therefore remains the proper geographical name of the whole island, England is the name of that part of Britain which was step by step conquered by the English. Before the end of the fifth century several Teutonic kingdoms had begun in Britain. ?Jutes in Kent. A.D.449.? The Jutes began the conquest by their settlement in Kent, and presently the Saxons began to settle on the South coast and on a small part of the East coast, in Sussex, Wessex, and Essex. ?Saxon and Anglian settlements.? And along a great part of the eastern coast various Anglian settlements were made, which gradually grew into the kingdoms of East-Anglia, Deira, and Bernicia, which two last formed by their union the great kingdom of Northumberland. But, at the end of the sixth century, the English had not got very far from the southern and eastern coasts. ?The Welsh and Scots.? The Britons, whom the English called Welsh or strangers, held out in the West, and the Picts and Scots in the North. The Scots were properly the people of Ireland; but a colony of them had settled on the western coast of northern Britain, and, in the end, they gave the name of Scotland to the whole North of the island.

§ 5. The Eastern Empire.

We have already seen the differences between the position of the Eastern and Western Empires during this period. While in the West the provinces were gradually lopped away by the Teutonic settlements, the provinces of the East, though often traversed by Teutonic armies, or rather nations, did not become the seats of lasting Teutonic settlements. ?The Tetraxite Goths.? We can hardly count as an exception the settlement of the Tetraxite Goths in the Tauric ChersonÊsos, a land which was rather in alliance with the Empire than actually part of it. ?Rivalry with Persia.? The distinctive history of the Eastern Empire consists, as has been already said, in the long struggle between East and West, in which Rome had succeeded to the mission of Alexander and the Seleukids as the representative of Western civilization. To this mission was afterwards added the championship of Christianity, first against the Fire-worshipper and then against the Moslem. In Eastern history no event is more important and more remarkable than the uprising of the regenerate Persian nation against its Parthian masters. ?Revival of the Persian kingdom. A.D.226.? But, as far as either the history or the geography of Rome is concerned, the Persian simply steps into the place of the Parthian as the representative of the East against the West. From our point of view, the long wars on the Eastern frontier of Rome, and the frequent shiftings of that frontier, form one unbroken story, whether the enemy that was striven against is the successor of Arsakes or the successor of Artaxerxes. ?Position of Armenia.? And besides the natural rivalry of two great powers in such a position, the border kingdom of Armenia, a name which has changed its meaning and its frontiers almost as often as Burgundy or Austria, supplied constant ground for dispute between Rome and her eastern rival, whether Parthian or Persian.

In the geographical aspect of this long struggle three special periods need to be pointed out. ?Conquests of Trajan. A.D.114-117.? The first is that of the momentary conquests of Trajan. Under him Armenia, hitherto a vassal kingdom of Rome, was incorporated as a Roman province. Albania and Iberia took its place as the frontier vassal states. Beyond the Euphrates, even beyond the Tigris, the Roman dominion took in Mesopotamia, AtropatÊnÊ, and Babylonia. The Parthian capital of KtesiphÔn and the outlying Greek free city of Seleukeia were included within the boundaries of an Empire which for a moment touched the Caspian and the Persian Gulf. Rome, as the champion of the West, seemed to have triumphed for ever over her Eastern rival, when the Parthian kingdom was thus shorn of the border lands of the two worlds, and when its king was forced to become a Roman vassal for the dominions that were left to him. But this vast extension of the Roman power was strictly only for a moment. ?Conquests of Trajan surrendered by Hadrian. A.D.117.? What Trajan had conquered Hadrian at once gave back; the Empire was again bounded by the Euphrates, and Armenia was again left to form matter of dispute between its Eastern and its Western claimant. ?Conquests of Marcus. A.D.162-166.? The second stage begins when, under Marcus, the Roman frontier again began to advance. ?Of Severus. A.D.197-202.? Between the Euphrates and the Tigris OsrhoÊnÊ became a Roman dependency: under the house of Severus it became a Roman province; and the fortress of Nisibis, so famous in later wars, was planted as the Eastern outpost of Rome against the Parthian. Ten years later the Parthian power was no more; but, as seen with Western eyes, the revived monarchy of Persia had simply stepped into its place. The wars of Alexander Severus, the captivity of Valerian, the wasting march of Sapor through the Roman provinces, left no trace on the map. ?Conquests under Diocletian. A.D.297.? But under the mighty rule of Diocletian the glories of Trajan were renewed. Mesopotamia again became Roman; five provinces beyond the Tigris were added to the Empire; Armenia, again the vassal of Rome, was enlarged at the expense of Persia, and Iberia was once more a Roman dependency. In the third stage the Roman frontier again went back. The wars of the second Sapor did little but deprive Rome of two Mesopotamian fortresses. ?Surrender of provinces by Jovian. A.D.363.? But after the fall of Julian the lands beyond the Tigris were given back to Persia; even Nisibis was yielded, and the Persian frontier again reached the Euphrates. ?Division of Armenia. 387.
The Hundred Years’ Peace. 421.? Armenia was now tossed to and fro, conquered and reconquered, till the kingdom was divided between the vassals of the two Empires, a division which was again confirmed by the hundred years’ peace between Rome and Persia. This was the state of the Eastern frontier of Rome at the time when the West-Goths were laying the foundation of their dominion in Spain and Aquitaine, when Goth and Roman joined together to overthrow the mingled host of Attila at ChÂlons, and when the first English keels were on their way to the shores of Britain.

This then is the picture of the civilized world at the end of the fifth century. The whole of the Western dominions of Rome, including Italy and Rome herself, have practically, if not everywhere formally, fallen away from the Roman Empire. The whole West is under the rule of Teutonic kings. The Frank has become supreme in northern Gaul, without losing his ancient hold on western and central Germany. The West-Goth reigns in Spain and Aquitaine; the Burgundian reigns in the lands between the Rhone and the Alps. Italy and the lands to the north of the Alps and the Hadriatic have become, in substance though not in name, an East-Gothic kingdom. But the countries of the European mainland, though cut off from Roman political dominion, are far from being cut off from Roman influences. The Teutonic settlers, if conquerors, are also disciples. Their rulers are everywhere Christian; in Northern Gaul they are even Orthodox. Africa, under the Arian Vandal, is far more utterly cut off from the traditions of Rome than the lands ruled either by the Catholic Frank or by the Arian Goth. To the north of the Franks lie the independent tribes of Germany, still untouched by any Roman influence. They are beginning to find themselves new homes in Britain, and, as the natural consequence of a purely barbarian and heathen conquest, to sever from the Empire all that they conquered yet more thoroughly than Africa itself was severed. Such is the state of the West. In the East the Roman power lives on in the New Rome, with a dominion constantly threatened and insulted by various enemies, but with a frontier which has varied but little since the time of Aurelian. No lasting Teutonic settlement has been made within its borders. In its endless wars with Persia, its frontier sometimes advances and sometimes retreats. In our next chapter we shall see how much of life still clung to the majesty of the Roman name, and how large a part of the ancient dominion of Rome could still be won back again.