The Historians' History of the World 07 [The History of the Later Roman Empire]

Early Frankish Warriors

As long as the Romans held firm possession of Gaul, the Germans could do little to gratify their longings; they could only obtain a settlement in that country by the consent of the emperor and on certain conditions. Examples of such merely tolerated colonisation were the Tribocci, the Vangiones, and the Ubii at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). But when the Roman Empire began to feel the numbness of approaching dissolution, and, as is usually the case, first in its extremities, the Franks were amongst the most active and successful assailants of their enfeebled foe: and if they were attracted towards the West by the abundance they beheld of all that could relieve their necessities and gratify their lust of spoil, they were also impelled in the same direction by the Saxons, the rival league, a people as brave and perhaps more barbarous than themselves. A glance at the map of Germany of that period will do much to explain to us the migration of the Franks, and that long and bloody feud between them and the Saxons, which began with the Chatti and Cherusci, and needed all the power and energy of a Charlemagne to bring to a successful close. The Saxons formed behind the Franks, and could only reach the provinces of Gaul by sea. It was natural therefore that they should look with the intensest hatred upon a people who barred their progress to a more genial climate and excluded them from their share in the spoils of the Roman world.

The Franks advanced upon Gaul from two different directions, and under the different names of Salians and Ripuarians, the former of whom we have reason to connect more particularly with the Sugambrian tribe. The origin of the words Salian and Ripuarian, which are first used respectively by Ammianus Marcellinush and Jordanes,i is very obscure, and has served to exercise the ingenuity of ethnographers. There are, however, no sufficient grounds for a decided opinion. At the same time it is by no means improbable that the river Yssel, Isala, or Sal (for it has borne all these appellations) may have given its name to that portion of the Franks who lived along its course. With still greater probability may the name Ripuarii or Riparii be derived from Ripa, a term used by the Romans to signify the Rhine. These dwellers on the “bank” were those that remained in their ancient settlements while their Salian kinsmen were advancing into the heart of Gaul.

FIRST CONFLICTS WITH ROME

[240-321 A.D.]

It would extend the introductory portion of this chapter beyond its proper limits to refer, however briefly, to all the successive efforts of the Franks to gain a permanent footing upon Roman ground. Though often defeated, they perpetually renewed the contest; and when Roman historians and panegyrists inform us that the whole nation was several times “utterly destroyed,” the numbers and geographical position in which we find them a short time after every such annihilation prove to us the vanity of such accounts. Aurelian, as we have seen, defeated them at Mainz, in 242 A.D., and drove them into the swamps of Holland. They were routed again about twelve years afterwards by Gallienus; but they quickly recovered from this blow, for in 276 A.D. we find them in possession of sixty Gallic cities, of which Probus is said to have deprived them, and to have destroyed four hundred thousand of them and their allies on Roman ground. In 280 A.D., they gave their aid to the usurper Proculus, who claimed to be of Frankish blood, but was nevertheless betrayed by them; and in 288 A.D., Carausius the Menapian was sent to clear the seas of their roving barks. But the latter found it more agreeable to shut his eyes to their piracies, in return for a share of the booty, and they afterwards aided in protecting him from the chastisement due to his treachery, and in investing him with the imperial purple in Britain.

In the reign of Maximian, we find a Frankish army, probably of Ripuarians, at Trèves, where they were defeated by that emperor; and both he and Diocletian adopted the title of “Francicus,” which many succeeding emperors were proud to bear. The first appearance of the Salian Franks with whom we are chiefly concerned is in the occupation of the Batavian Islands, in the lower Rhine. They were attacked in that territory in 292 A.D., by Constantius Chlorus, who, as is said, not only drove them out of Batavia, but marched, triumphant and unopposed, through their own country as far as the Danube. The latter part of this story has little foundation either in history or probability.

[321-355 A.D.]

The most determined and successful resistance to their progress was made by Constantine the Great, in the first part of the fourth century. We must, however, receive the extravagant accounts of the imperial annalists with considerable caution. It is evident, even from their own language, that the great emperor effected more by stratagem than by force. He found the Salians once more in Batavia, and, after defeating them in a great battle, carried off a large number of captives to Augusta Trevirorum (Trèves), the residence of the emperor, and a rival of Rome itself in the splendour of its public buildings.