st Gothland. During the middle
ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst Christianity was
advancing with a slow progress into the North, the Goths and the
Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes hostile members of the
same monarchy. [7] The latter of these two names has prevailed without
extinguishing the former. The Swedes, who might well be satisfied with
their own fame in arms, have, in every age, claimed the kindred glory of
the Goths. In a moment of discontent against the court of Rome, Charles
the Twelfth insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated
from their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of the
world. [8]

[Footnote 4: See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is
surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent edition,
published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]

[Footnote 5: On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some old
Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]

[Footnote 501: The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was not
their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of the
Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long before,
Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the north-west of Poland. A
little before the birth of J. C., and in the first years of that
century, they belonged to the kingdom of Marbod, king of the Marcomanni:
but Cotwalda, a young Gothic prince, delivered them from that tyranny,
and established his own power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni,
already much weakened by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the
Goths at that time must have been great: it was probably from them that
the Sinus Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards
called Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the
proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed into
Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany, p. 200.
Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.--G. ----M. St. Martin observes, that the
Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority of Jornandes,
who professed to derive it from the traditions of the Goths. He is
supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet the Goths are
unquestionably the same with the Getae of the earlier historians. St.
Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas Empire, iii. 324. The identity of
the Getae and Goths is by no means generally admitted. On the whole,
they seem to be one vast branc