The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Edward Gibbon [209]
[Footnote 81: Tacit. Germania, 38.]
[Footnote 82: Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]
[Footnote 83: Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui a servis separantur. A proud separation!]
[Footnote 84: Caesar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]
In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Mein, and in the neighborhood of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or of glory. ^85 The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced into a great and permanent nation, and as it was composed from so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, ^* or Allmen; to denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery. ^86 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most precipitate retreat. ^87
[Footnote 85: Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]
[Footnote *: The nation of the Alemanni was not originally formed by the Suavi properly so called; these have always preserved their own name. Shortly afterwards they made (A. D. 357) an irruption into Rhaetia, and it was not long after that they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still they have always been a distinct people; at the present day, the people who inhabit the north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben, Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in Ortenau, the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider themselves Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni.
The Teucteri and the Usipetae, inhabitants of the interior and of the north of Westphalia, formed, says Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic nation; they occupied the country where the name of the Alemanni first appears, as conquered in 213, by Caracalla. They were well trained to fight on horseback, (according to Tacitus, Germ. c. 32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the Alemanni: finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a multitude of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc. xviii. 2, xxix. 4. - G.
The question whether the Suevi was a generic name comprehending the clans which peopled central Germany, is rather hastily decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood, who has studied the modern German writers on their own origin, supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and Marcomanni, one people, under different appellations. History of Germany, vol i. - M.]
[Footnote 86: This etymology (far different from those which amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]
[Footnote 87: The Suevi engaged Caesar in this manner, and the manoeuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello Gallico, i. 48.)]
This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms of his successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire, they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhaetian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. ^88
[Footnote 88: Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the Excerpts. Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]
The insult and the danger rekindled