ural enemies all the subjects of the
empire, who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring
Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires,
Strasburgh, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and villages,
were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of
Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons
and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations on the banks of
rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves
against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of
large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni
were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the
Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive
district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of
Toxandria, [65] and may deserve to be considered as the original seat
of their Gallic monarchy. [66] From the sources, to the mouth, of the
Rhine, the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their own name
and nation: and the scene of their devastations was three times more
extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the
open towns of Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified
cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to
content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the
vacant land within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the
approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

[Footnote 64: The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of Gaul,
may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 277.
Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l.
iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c. iv.)]

[Footnote 65: Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived from the
Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the histories of
the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and morasses, which
extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the conflux of the Vahal
and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar. p. 558.]

[Footnote 66: The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never obtained
any perman