ruinous state, (Auson. Epist. xxv. 58,)
which probably was the consequence of this invasion.]

[Footnote 79: Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that the
Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

[Footnote 80: Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]

II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at present
called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in ancient times, a
sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition of the Suevi. None were
permitted to enter the holy precincts, without confessing, by their
servile bonds and suppliant posture, the immediate presence of the
sovereign Deity. [81] Patriotism contributed, as well as devotion,
to consecrate the Sonnenwald, or wood of the Semnones. [82] It was
universally believed, that the nation had received its first existence
on that sacred spot. At stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried
in the Suevic blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the
memory of their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and
human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the interior
countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to those of the Danube.
They were distinguished from the other Germans by their peculiar mode
of dressing their long hair, which they gathered into a rude knot on the
crown of the head; and they delighted in an ornament that showed their
ranks more lofty and terrible in the eyes of the enemy. [83] Jealous as
the Germans were of military renown, they all confessed the superior
valor of the Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who,
with a vast army, encountered the dictator Caesar, declared that they
esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose arms
the immortal gods themselves were unequal. [84]

[Footnote 81: Tacit.Germania, 38.]

[Footnote 82: Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

[Footnote 83: Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui a
servis separantur. A proud separation!]

[Footnote 84: Caesar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi
appeared on the banks of the Mein, and in the neighborhood of the Roman
provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. [85] The
hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent
nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed
the name of Alemanni, [851] or Allmen; to denote at once their various
lineage and their common b