ir hopes were
disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive neutrality; and
the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage in the defence of the
of the empire. In the rapid progress down the Rhine, which was the first
act of the administration of Stilicho, he had applied himself, with
peculiar attention, to secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and
to remove the irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic.
Marcomir, one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the
tribunal of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of Tuscany;
and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far from exciting the
resentment of his subjects, that they punished with death the turbulent
Sunno, who attempted to revenge his brother; and maintained a dutiful
allegiance to the princes, who were established on the throne by the
choice of Stilicho. When the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by
the northern emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force
of the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had again
separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian allies. They
paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty thousand Vandals, with
their king Godigisclus, were slain in the field of battle. The whole
people must have been extirpated, if the squadrons of the Alani,
advancing to their relief, had not trampled down the infantry of the
Franks; who, after an honorable resistance, were compelled to relinquish
the unequal contest. The victorious confederates pursued their march,
and on the last day of the year, in a season when the waters of the
Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the
Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated,
may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries
beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the
savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal
moment levelled with the ground.

While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks,
and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of
their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity,
which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and
herds were permitted to graze