numerous swarms from the neighborhood of the Polar circle, to chastise
the oppressors of mankind. [12]

[Footnote 11: Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo, Pliny,
Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a city and
people.]

[Footnote 12: This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by deducting the
enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a cause, might supply
the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot safely be received as
authentic history. According to the obvious sense of the Edda, and the
interpretation of the most skilful critics, As-gard, instead of denoting
a real city of the Asiatic Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of
the mystic abode of the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence
the prophet was supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion
to the Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of
Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject from
the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed at Upsal by
Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M. Schlozer. Gottingen,
printed for Dietericht, 1779.--G. ----Gibbon, at a later period of his
work, recanted his opinion of the truth of this expedition of Odin. The
Asiatic origin of the Goths is almost certain from the affinity of their
language to the Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when
all mythology was reduced to hero worship.--M.]

If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of preserving a
faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we must not expect, from
such unlettered barbarians, any distinct account of the time and
circumstances of their emigration. To cross the Baltic was an easy and
natural attempt. The inhabitants of Sweden were masters of a sufficient
number of large vessels, with oars, [13] and the distance is little more
than one hundred miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania
and Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At
least as early as the Christian aera, [14] and as late as the age of the
Antonines, [15] the Goths were established towards the mouth of the
Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities of
Thorn, Elbing, Koningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards founded.
[16] Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the Vandals were
spread along the banks of the Oder, and the sea-coast of Pomerania and
Mecklenburgh. A striking resembl