THE R7MAN SPECIES. 415 



began to form a strong community on the banks of the Borys- 

 thenes, Thorgitaus, their chief divinity, is not represented with 

 characters suited to the high northern latitude, where Thor and 

 Woden are afterwards made to operate in a manner congenial 

 with the climate. If the city Asgard, once existing near Azof, 

 at the mouth of the Don, was the representative of the first 

 abode commemorated in the north, then the Asii possessed at 

 that point an intermediate resting-place, so that from their first 

 known station within the high table land of Asia, above the 

 southern sources of the Jaxartes, they moved gradually to the 

 south through Sogdiana, across the Paropamisus, and then 

 westward, to the three stations already indicated, before they 

 or a clan of this people again returned to the north, probably 

 by ascending the Borysthenes, and halting some time about the 

 lake of Ladoga, made that water a sacred centre, until they 

 migrated to Scandinavia. 



The Getse, found by Ovid occupying the west coast of the 

 Euxine, were then already a century in moving onwards 

 towards the north-west of Europe, taking again the great 

 rivers of the present Poland to reach the Baltic. With the 

 Thuringians and Saxons, or Sacasunen, among them, they 

 forced their way to the German Ocean, dislodging the Cym- 

 bers, excepting remnants that clung to the swamps, and the 

 then submerging islands of the deltas formed by the great 

 rivers which discharge their waters into the German Ocean. 

 They were most likely the subsequent Friesen and Sicambers, 

 or Water Cymbers, who, with other tribes of so-called Ger- 

 mani, formed the posterior offensive confederacy of the Franks 

 (Freye-Anke) ; among these the clan of Merovingians (Meer- 

 vingen), notwithstanding that the site they inhabited is 

 pointed out to have been :n the Merwe in Holland, seems 

 nevertheless to indicate a clan of sea-rovers, whose first intel- 

 ligible historical chief, Pharamund (Vaaremund), or com- 

 mander of the navigation, had performed some great exploit in 

 the then fresh career of distant marine expeditions, such as 



