For the rest, we know little of the internal Celtic life and of the extent of its culture. Probably this differed considerably in different parts, in Gaul for instance, and in Ireland. The slight notices of Gaulish religion which Cæsar and Pliny give refer chiefly to its external belongings, to the hereditary sacerdotal class, who seem also to have been the bardic class; of its myths and of their real significance we know little more than what can be gathered by analogy of other nations. We may assert that their nature-worship approached most nearly to the Teutonic form among those of all the Aryan peoples.
Peculiarly interesting to us are such traces as can be
gleaned of the Teutonic race. The first time we have seen that they show themselves upon the stage of history is possibly in company with the Celts, supposing for a moment that the Cimbri, who in company with the Teutones, the Tigurini, and the Ambrones were defeated by Marius (B.C. 101), were Celts.[143] What branch of the German family (if any) the Teutones were, is quite uncertain. Again, in the pages of Cæsar we meet with several names of tribes evidently of German origin. The Treviri, the Marcomanni (Mark men, men of the march or boundary), Allemanni (all-men, or men of the great or the mixed[144] nation), the Suevi (Suabians), the Cherusci--men of the sword, perhaps the same as _Saxons_, whose name has the same meaning.
It is not till after the death of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century of our era that the Germans fill a conspicuous place on the historical canvas. By this time they had come to be divided into a number of different nations, similar in most of the elements of their civilization and barbarism, closely allied in languages, but politically unconnected, or even opposed. Most of these Teutonic peoples grew into mighty nations and deeply influenced the future of European history. It is therefore right that we pass them rapidly in review. 1. The Goths had been long settled in the region of the Lower Danube, chiefly in the country called Mœsia, where Ulfilas, a Gothic prince who had been converted to Christianity, returned to preach to his countrymen, became a bishop among them, and by his translation of the Bible into their tongue, the Mœso-Gothic, has left a perpetual memorial of the language. During the reign of Honorius, the son of Theodosius, a portion of this nation, the West-or Visi-goths, quitted their home and undertook under Alaric (All-king) their march into Italy, thrice besieged and finally took Rome. Then turning aside, they founded a powerful kingdom in the south of Gaul and in Spain. A century later the East-Goths (Ostro-Goths), under the great Theodoric (People’s-king) again invaded Italy and founded an Ostrogothic kingdom upon the ruins of the Western Empire. 2, 3, 4, 5. The Suevi, Alani, Burgundians, and Vandals crossed the Rhine in 405, and entered Roman territory, never again to return to whence they came. The Burgundians (City-men) fixed their abode in East-Central Gaul (Burgundy and Switzerland), where their kingdom lasted till it was subdued by the Franks; but the other three passed on into Spain, and the Vandals (Wends[145]) from Spain into Africa, where they founded a kingdom. 6. The Franks (Free-men), having been for nearly a century settled between the Meuse and the Scheldt, began under Clovis (Chlodvig, Hludwig, Lewis) (A.D. 480) their career of victory, from which they did not rest until the whole of Gaul owned the sway of Merovingian kings. 7. The Longobardi (Long-beards, or men of the long borde, long stretch of alluvial land), who after the Ostrogoths had been driven out of Italy by the Emperor of the East, founded in defiance of his power a second Teutonic kingdom in that country--a kingdom which lasted till the days of Charlemagne. 8. And last, but we may safely say not least, the Saxons (Sword-men, from _seaxa_, a sword), who invaded Britain, and under the name of Angles (Engle) founded the nation to which we belong, the longest-lived of all those which rose upon the ruins of the Roman Empire.