different relationships established between them and
the Imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman soil,
submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for them,
even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated
individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the
command of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of the
third century, the Emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian,
wrote, "Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and
Carioviscus." Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less
fleetingly with the Imperial government, at the same time that they
preserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the Empire,
their life of incursion and adventure. From A.D. 260 to 268, under the
reign of Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured it
from north-east to south-east, plundering and devastating on its way;
then it passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona,
gained possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared in
Africa, after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will and
pleasure. There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and
ephemeral as their power may have been, to defend the Empire, and
especially Gaul, against those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever
recurring; Decius, Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and
Probus gallantly withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes.
Sometimes they flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory,
and then the old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic
confidence. About A.D. 278, the Emperor Probes, after gaining several
victories in Gaul over the Franks, wrote to the senate,--

"I render thanks to the immortal gods, Conscript Fathers, for that they
have confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subdued
throughout its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come
and cast themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants, with
their foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling
for you, sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distant
nations.

"Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving,
for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us
sixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the
seventy most imp