OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

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ercise the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, chap.and to excite the genius and penetration of the^J*^philosophic historians of our own times. Thesubject, however various and important, has al-ready been so frequently, so ably, and so suc-cessfully discussed, that it is now grown fami-liar to the reader, and difficult to the writer.

We shall therefore content ourselves with ob-serving, and indeed with repeating, some of themost important circumstances of climate, ofmanners, and of institutions, which renderedthe wild barbarians of Germany such formi-dable enemies to the Roman power.

Ancient Germany , excluding from its inde- Extent ofpendent limits the province westward of the Germany Rhine , which had submitted to the Roman yoke,extended itself over a third part of Europe . Al-most the whole of modern Germany, Denmark ,Norway, Sweden, Finland , Livonia, Prussia, andthe greater part of Poland , were peopled by thevarious tribes of one great nation, whose com-plexion, manners, and language denoted a com-mon origin, and preserved a striking resem-blance. On the west, ancient Germany wasdivided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and onthe south, by the Danube , from the Illyrianprovinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, ri-sing from the Danube, and called the Carpa-thian mountains, covered Germany on the sideof Dacia or Hungary . The eastern frontier wasfaintly marked by the mutual fears of the Ger-mans and the Sarmatians, and was often con-founded by the mixture of warring and confe-derating tribes of the two nations. In the re-