ani, 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. [88]

[Footnote 87:

Provincia missos
Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges
Quos dederis.

Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and satisfactory.
These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of Tours; but the author
of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno and Marcomir, and names the
latter as the father of Pharamond, (in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to
write from good materials, which he did not understand.]

[Footnote 88: See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p.
576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9, p. 165, in
the second volume of the Historians of France) has preserved a valuable
fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, whose three names denote a
Christian, a Roman subject, and a Semi-Barbarian.]

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 in the pastures of the Barbarians; their
huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses
of the Hercynian wood. [89] The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like
those of the Tyber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and
if a poet descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side
was situated the territory of the Romans. [90] This scene of peace
and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the
smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the
desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and
destroyed; and many thous