Wednesday, September 11, 2019

ЕДВАРД ГИБОН: Опаѓањето и Падот на Римската Империја



ТОМ I

Поглавје IX

THE STATE OF GERMANY TILL THE INVASION OF THE BARBARIANS IN THE TIME OF EMPEROR DECIUS

II.
The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, which we consider the effects that might have been produced by its united effort. The wide extent of country might very possible contain a million warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in each state, the union of several tribes was extremely loose and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew not how to forgive injury, much less an insult; their resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking, were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations; the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself among their followers and allies. To chastise an insolent, or to plunder defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror of arms and in some measure defended them from the danger of unexpected incursions.
“The Bructeri (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally exterminated by the neighboring tribes, provoked by their insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by the tutelary deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now attained the utmost verge of prosperity, and having nothing left to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”-
These sentiments, less worthy of humanity than of patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to conciliate these nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks of distinction, or as instruments of luxury. In civil dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its interests by entering into secret connections with the governors of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among Germans was fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy and interest.
The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign of Marcus Antonius, comprehended almost all the nations of Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of  the Rhine to that of the Danube. It is impossible for us to determine whether this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition, of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct of the most important province of Upper Danube. After a long and doubtful conflict, the spirit of barbarians was subdued. The Quadi and Marcomanni, who had taken the lead of the war, were most severely punished in its catastrophe. The were commanded to retie five miles from their own banks of the Danube, and to deliver up the lower of the youth, who were immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might be secured as hostages, and useful as soldiers. On the frequent rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league, however, the only one that appears in the first two centuries of the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving any traces behind in Germany.
In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany, without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cesar, 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 by 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 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 conditions in peace and obscurity. The attention of the writer, as well 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 and 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
THE EMPERORS DECIUS, GALLUS, EMILIANUS, VALERIAN, AND GALENUS. – THE GENERAL IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS. – THE THIRTY TYRANTS.


…Here we land on firm and historic ground. At least as early as the Christian era, and as late as the age of Antonines, the Goths were established toward the mouth of the Vistula and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of Thorn, Elbing, Konigsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded. Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were spread along the Oder, and the sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally on great people. The latter appear to have been subdivided into Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepides. The distinction among the Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and variety of other petty states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into powerful monarchies.
In the age of Antonines, the Goths were still seated in Prusia. About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and destructive inroads. In these interval, therefore, of about seventy years, we must place the second migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produce it lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine, a victory or defeat, an oracle of the gods or a eloquence of a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial religion, the numbers and spirit of the Goths were equal to the most dangerous adventures. The use of round bucklers and short swords rendered them formidable in a close engagement; the manly obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, gave uncommon union and stability to their councils: and the renowned Amala, the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of Theodoric, king of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit, the prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the Anses, or demigods of the Gothic nation.
The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from the Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few years afterwards combating under the common standard of the Goths. The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the banks of Prypec, a river universally conceived by the ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes. The windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their progress. The Bastarnes and the Venedi were the first who presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from the choice or compulsion, increased Gothic army. The Bastarnes dwelt on the northern side of Carpathian Mountains: the immense tract of land that separated Bastarnes from the savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted, by the Venedi; we have some reason to believe that the first of that nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, and was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini, the Borani, the Carpi, etc., derived its origin to from the Germans. With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle ages. But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. As the Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, and the Roxolani; and they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the Borysthenes, and of Tanais. If we inquire into the characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia, we shall discover those two great portions of human kind were principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a close dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or several wives, by a military force, consisting, for the most part, either of infantry or cavalry, and above all, by the use of the Teutonic, or the Sclavonian language; the last of which has been defused by conquest, from the confines of Italy to the neighborhood of Japan.


(изв. EDWARD GIBBON: “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, Volume I, стр. 217-227; THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS – USA)

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