12 



ROMAN AND GREEK ACCOUNT* OF THE 



no one could traverse, but the Emperor Valentiniau (320-o 

 nevertheless conquered them. 

 The Emperor Julian calls the 



" Franks and Saxons the most warlike of the tribes above 

 the Rhine and the Western Sea." 1 



Ammianus Marcellinus (d. circ. 400 A D.) writes : 



" At this time (middle of the 4th century), just as though 

 the trumpets were sounding a challenge throughout all the 

 Roman world, fierce nations were stirred up and began to 

 burst forth from their territories. The Alamanni began to 

 devastate Gallia and Rhsetia ; the Sarmatae and Quadi Pan- 

 nonia, the Picts and Saxons, Scots, and Attacotti constantly 

 harassed the Britons." 2 



" The Franks and the Saxons, who are coterminous with 

 them, were ravaging the districts of Gallia wherever they 

 could effect an entrance by sea or land, plundering and 

 burning, and murdering all the prisoners they could take." 3 



Claudianus asserts that the Saxons appeared even in the 

 Orkneys :- 



" The Orcades were moist from the slain Saxon." 



These are but a few of many allusions to the same effect 

 which might be quoted. 



That the swarms of Sueones and so-called Saxons and 

 Franks, seen on every sea of Europe, could have poured 

 forth from a small country is not possible. Such fleets as 

 they possessed could only have come from a country densely 

 covered with oak forests. We must come to the conclusion 

 that Sueones, Franks, and Saxons were seafaring tribes be- 

 longing to one people. The Roman writers did not seem to 

 know the precise locality inhabited by these people. 



1 Orat. 1. 4> pay KOI Kal ^d^oves riav virep 

 rbv 'Pfivoif Kal rrjv kffvfptav 6d\arrav 

 fdvajv TO yuaxi/ucoTara. 



2 " Hoc tempore velut per univcrsum 

 orbem Romanum bellicum cauentibus 

 buccinis, excitfe gentes saevissimai Hniites 

 sibi proximos persultabant. Gal lias 

 Rhretiasque simul Alamanui populaban- 

 tur : Sarmata;, Pannonias et Quadi ; 

 1'icti, Saxonesque, et Scoti, et Attacotti 

 liritannos a-rnnmis vexavere rnntinuis " 

 (Uernni (ifstamni, lib. xxvi. s. 4). 



3 " Gallicanos vero tractus Franci, et 

 Saxones iisdem confines, quo quisque 

 erumpere potuit terra vel mari, prxdis 

 acerbis inceudiisque et captivorum fu- 

 neribus hominum violabant " (Ammianus 

 Marcellinus, d. circ. 400, lib. xxvii. c. 8, 

 5). 



" Maduerunt Saxone fuso 

 Orcades ; incaluit Pictorum sanguine 



Thule ; 



Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerne." 

 i L)e Cons. Hon. iv. 31.) 



