their common bravery.[1] The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had enured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat.[2]
invade Gaul and ItalyThis warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense preparations ot Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms of his successor, a barbarian equal in valour and fierceness to themselves. But, still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul: they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube, and through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome.[3] The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far distant wars, Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine. All the hopes and resources of the are repulsed from Rome by the senate and people Romans were in themselves. In this emergency, the senators resumed the defence of the republic, drew out the Praetorian guards, who had been left to garrison the capital, and filled up their numbers by enlisting into the public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians. The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans.[4]
The senators excluded by Gallienus from the military service When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than- ↑ This etymology (far different from those which amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5. [Another derivation is Alah-mannen, "men of the sanctuary," referring to the wood of the Semnones. The identification of the Alamanni with the Suevians is very uncertain.]
- ↑ The Suevi engaged Caesar in this manner and the manœuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror (in Bello Gallico, i. 48).
- ↑ Hist. August, p. 215, 216 [xxvi. 18, 21]. Dexippus in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 8 [p. n, ed. Bonn; F.H.G. iii. p. 682]. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22. [The first campaigns of Gallienus against the Alamanni were in 256 and 257. The invasion of Italy took place 259-260. Simultaneously another band invaded Gaul, and was subdued near Arelate; Gregory of Tours, i. 32.]
- ↑ Zosimus, I. i. p. 34 [37].
