ld issue in
numerous swarms from the neighborhood of the Polar circle, to chastise
the oppressors of mankind.

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, 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, and as late as the age of the Antonines,
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. 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
resemblance of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed
to indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great
people. The latter appear to have been subdivided into Ostrogoths,
Visigoths, and Gepidae. The distinction among the Vandals was more
strongly marked by the independent names of Heruli, Burgundians,
Lombards, and a variety of other petty states, many of which, in a
future age, expanded themselves into powerful monarchies.

In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in Prussia.
About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province of Dacia had
already experienced their proximity by frequent and destructive inroads.
In this interval, therefore, of about seventy years, we must place
the second migration of about seventy years, we must place the second
migration of the Goths from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that
produced it lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the
conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine, a
victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of a daring
leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the milder climates
of the south. Besides the influence of a martial religion, the numbers
and spirit of the Goths were equal to the most dangerous adventures.
The use of round bucklers and short swords rendered