ean bands. To the narrow circle
of the Mediterranean states were added the peoples of central
and northern Europe, the dwellers on the Baltic and North seas;
to the old world was added a new one, which thenceforth was influenced
by the old and influenced it in turn. What the Gothic Theodoric
afterwards succeeded in, came very near to being already carried
out by Ariovistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would have
hardly stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano-Greek than
to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting
the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern
history; that Western Europe is Romanic, and Germanic Europe
classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us
a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar;
that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa
attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own
garden--all this is the work of Caesar; and, while the creation
of his great predecessor in the east has been almost wholly reduced
to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar
has outlasted those thousands of years which have changed religion
and polity for the human race and even shifted for it the centre
of civilization itself, and it stands erect for what we may
designate as eternity.

The Countries on the Danube

To complete the sketch of the relations of Rome to the peoples
of the north at this period, it remains that we cast a glance
at the countries which stretch to the north of the Italian and Greek
peninsulas, from the sources of the Rhine to the Black Sea.
It is true that the torch of history does not illumine the mighty stir
and turmoil of peoples which probably prevailed at that time there,
and the solitary gleams of light that fall on this region are,
like a faint glimmer amidst deep darkness, more fitted to bewilder
than to enlighten. But it is the duty of the historian to indicate
also the gaps in the record of the history of nations; he may not
deem it beneath him to mention, by the side of Caesar's magnificent
system of defence, the paltry arrangements by which the generals
of the senate professed to protect on this side
the frontier of the empire.

Alpine Peoples

North-eastern Italy was still as before(56) left exposed
to the attacks of the Alpine tribes. The strong Roman army
encamped at Aquileia in 695, and the triumph of the governor