unting an average of 100,000 for any single
nation, the total population of Germania Magna would have amounted to
five millions. This is a rather high figure for a barbarian group of
nations, although 10 inhabitants to the square kilometer or 550 to the
geographical square mile is very little when compared to present
conditions. But this does not include the whole number of Germans then
living. We know that German nations of the Gothic race, Bastarnians,
Peukinians and others, lived all along the Carpathian mountains away
down to the mouth of the Danube. They were so numerous that Pliny
designated them as the fifth main division of the Germans. As much as
180 years B. C. they were mercenaries of the Macedonian King Perseus,
and during the first years of Augustus they were still pushing their way
as far as the vicinity of Adrianople. Assuming them to have been one
million strong we find that at least six millions was the probable
population of Germany at the beginning of the Christian era.

After the final settlement in Germany, the population must have grown
with increasing rapidity. The industrial progress mentioned above would
be sufficient to prove it. The objects found in the bogs of Sleswick, to
judge by the Roman coins found with them, are from the third century.
Hence at that time the metal and textile industry was already well
developed on the Baltic, a lively traffic with the Roman empire was
carried on, and the wealthier class enjoyed a certain luxury--all of
which indicates that the population had increased. But at the same time
the general war of aggression against the Romans commenced along the
whole line of the Rhine, of the Roman wall and of the Danube, a line
stretching from the North Sea to the Black Sea. This is another proof of
the ever growing outward pressure of the population. During the struggle
which lasted three centuries, the whole main body of the Gothic
nations, with the exception of the Scandinavian Goths and the
Burgundians, marched to the Southeast and formed the left wing of the
long line of attack. The High Germans (Herminonians) on the Upper Danube
fought in the center, and the Iskaevonians on the Rhine, now called
Franks, advanced on the right wing. The conquest of Brittany fell to the
lot of the Ingaevonians.[33] At the end of the fifth century, the
exhausted, bloodless, and helpless Roman empire lay open to the Germans.

In former chapters we stood at the cradle of antique Greek and