From The History of the Langobards by Paul the Deacon, translated by William Dudley Foulke, LL. D.; The Department of History, University of Pennsylvania; New York: Longman, Green & Co., 1906; pp. 1-52.
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The region of the north, in proportion as it is removed from the heat of the sun and is chilled with snow and frost, is so much the more healthful to the bodies of men and fitted for the propagation of nations, just as, on the other hand, every southern region, the nearer it is to the heat of the sun, the more it abounds in diseases and is less fitted for the bringing up of the human race. From this it happens that such great multitudes of peoples spring up in the north, and that that entire region from the Tanais (Don) to the west1 (although single places in it are designated by their own names) yet the whole is not improperly called by the general name of Germany.2 The Romans, however, when they occupied 2 those parts, called the two provinces beyond the Rhine, Upper and Lower Germany.3 From this teeming Germany then, innumerable troops of captives are often led away and sold for gain to the people of the South. And for the reason that it brings forth so many human beings that it can scarcely nourish them, there have frequently emigrated from it many nations that have indeed become the scourge of portions of Asia, but especially of the parts of Europe which lie next to it. Everywhere ruined cities throughout all Illyria and Gaul testify to this, but most of all in unhappy Italy which has felt the cruel rage of nearly all these nations. The Goths indeed, and the Wandals, the Rugii, Heroli, and Turcilingi,4 and also other fierce and barbarous nations have come from Germany. In like manner also the race of 3 Winnili,5 that is, of Langobards, which afterwards ruled prosperously in Italy, deducing its origin from the German peoples, came from the island which is called Scadinavia,6 although other causes of their emigration7 are also alleged.8
1 Paul’s designation of the whole region from the Don to the west, as Germany, which is wholly incorrect, appears, according to Mommsen (p. 61), to have come from his misinterpretation of the words of his authority, Isidore of Seville.
2 Paul appears to deduce the name “Germany” from germinare to germinate. Cf. Isidore, Etym., XIV, 4, 2. This fanciful derivation is quite different from that given by Tacitus (Germania, II), who derives it from the name of a single tribe afterwards called the Tungrians, who were the first to cross the Rhine and drive out the Gauls.
3 “Beyond the Rhine” means in this case on the left bank of the Rhine. The dividing line between Upper and Lower Germany ran a little below the junction of the Rhine with the Moselle. Mogontiacum (Mayence) was the capital of Upper Germany, and Vetera (Birten) near Wesel, of Lower Germany. (Mommsen’s Geschichte des romischen Reichs, V, pp. 107-109). Although these two provinces included at various times more or less territory on the east side of that river, it was only a small part of Germany which was thus occupied by the Romans. Germania Magna, or Great Germany, east of the Rhine, remained independent.
4 The Rugii and Turcilingi were tribes first mentioned as inhabiting the shores of the Baltic sea (Zeuss, 154-155). They were subsequently found in the army of Attila and afterwards dwelling on the Danube. The Heroli were a migratory people appearing at different times in various parts of Europe (Zeuss, 476). All three of these tribes were among the troops of Odoacar in Italy. As to the Heroli and Rugii see infra, chs. 19 and 20.
5 The word means “eager for battle” according to Bruckner (322). According to Schmidt (37) it is related to the Gothic vinja, “pasture.”
6 That Paul wrote Scadinavia and not Scandinavia see Mommsen, 62, note 1. In the Langobard Origo (see Appendix II) the name is given as Scadan, Scandanan or Scadanan; in the Chronicon Gothanum, it is Scatenauge (Mon. Germ. Hist. Leges IV, p. 642). Paul appears to have transformed this into Scadinavia from Pliny’s Natural History (Book IV, ch. 27, p. 823), Delpheain ed.).
The current editions of the Natural History, by Pliny all have Scandinavia, in both the Latin text and in the English translations. Bill Thayer feels that the editors may have emended Scadinavia from earlier texts or manuscripts into this spelling. Which is, and has been, a common practice. His online edition of Pliny is the Teubner edition, and it does have "Scadinavia," but in Liber VII, 39, and not in Book IV, ch. 27, as Foulke cites above. Elf.Ed.
7 Than over population (Jacobi, 12).
8 The other causes of the emigration of the Winnili may be those suggested in the Chronicon Gothanum where the prophetess or sibyl Gambara “declared to them their migration.” “Moved therefore not by necessity, nor hardness of heart, nor oppression of the poor, but that they should attain salvation from on high, she says, that they are to go forth.” (Monument, Germ. Hist. Leges, IV, 641).
Pliny the Second also makes mention of this island in the books which he composed concerning the nature of things. This island then, as those who have examined it have related to us, is not so much placed in the sea as it is washed about by the sea waves which encompass the land on account of the flatness of the shores.9 Since, therefore, the peoples established 4 within the island had grown to so great a multitude that they could not now dwell together, they divided their whole troop into three parts, as is said, and determined by lot which part of them had to forsake their country and seek new abodes.10
9 What Paul meant by this island is hard to decide (Jacobi, 11). Hammerstein (Bardengau, 51) has pointed out that in the Middle Ages the territory in the north of Germany, between the North and the Baltic seas, was included under the name of Scandinavia, and claims that Paul referred to the so-called Bardengau, a tract in Northern Germany, southeast of Hamburg. But the fact that Paul calls upon Pliny is a proof that he had no definite idea of Scandinavia, and notwithstanding the extensive movement of the tide upon the Elbe and the important changes on the coast, it can hardly be said of Bardengau that it was “surrounded” by sea waves. Bluhme (Die Gens Langobardonum und ihre Herkunft), without sufficient reason, identifies the northernmost part of the Cimbrian peninsula, the so-called Wendsyssel, with [Scadinavia]. (See Schmidt, 36).
Schmidt (38 to 42) reviews the classical authorities, Mela, Pliny and Ptolemy, as well as Jordanes, the Geographer of Ravenna, and the Song of Beowulf, and concludes that the word refers to the Scandinavian peninsula which was then considered an island; but he rejects the tradition that the Langobards actually migrated from Sweden to Germany, since he considers that they belonged to the West-German stock, which in all probability came from the south-east, while only North-Germans (that is, those races which were found settled in Scandinavia in historical times) appear to have come from that peninsula. It is probable, however, that the Langobards came from North-German stock (Bruckner, 25-32), and while there can be no certainty whatever as to the place of their origin, it may well have been Scandinavia.
10 The choosing by lot of a part of the people for emigration in the case of a famine is a characteristic peculiar to German folk-tales (Schmidt, 42).
Therefore that section to which fate had assigned the abandonment of their native soil and the search for foreign fields, after two leaders had been appointed over them, to wit: Ibor and Aio,11 who were brothers, in the bloom of youthful vigor and more eminent than the rest, said farewell to their own people, as well as their country, and set out upon their way to seek for lands, where they might dwell and establish their abodes. The mother of these leaders, Gambara by name,12 was a woman of the keenest ability and most prudent in counsel among her people, and they trusted not a little to her shrewdness in doubtful matters.
11 Ibor and Aio were called by Prosper of Aquitaine, Iborea and Agio; Saxo-Grammaticus calls them Ebbo and Aggo; the popular song of Gothland (Bethmann, 342), Ebbe and Aaghe (Wiese, 14).
12 The word gambar, according to Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie, I, 336), is the equivalent of strenuus.
I do not think it is without advantage to put off for a little while the order of my narrative, and because my pen up to this time deals with Germany, to relate briefly a miracle which is there considered notable among all, as well as certain other matters. In the farthest boundaries of Germany toward the west-north-west, on the shore of the ocean itself, a cave is seen under a projecting rock, where for an unknown time seven men repose 6 wrapped in a long sleep,13 not only their bodies, but also their clothes being so uninjured, that from this fact alone, that they last without decay through the course of so many years, they are held in veneration among those ignorant and barbarous peoples. These then, so far as regards their dress, are perceived to be Romans. When a certain man, stirred by cupidity, wanted to strip one of them, straightway his arms withered, as is said, and his punishment so frightened the others that no one dared touch them further. The future will show for what useful purpose Divine Providence keeps them 7 through so long a period. Perhaps those nations are to be saved some time by the preaching of these men, since they cannot be deemed to be other than Christians.
13 This is the version by Paul of the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. The earliest version is that of Jacobus Sarugiensis, a bishop of Mesopotamia in the fifth or sixth century. Gregory of Tours was perhaps the first to introduce the legend into Europe. Mohammed put it into the Koran; he made the sleepers prophesy his own coming and he gave them the dog Kratin also endowed with the gift of prophecy. The commonly accepted legend was, however, that the Seven Sleepers were natives of Ephesus, that the emperor Decius (A. D. 250), having come to that city, commanded that the Christians should be sought out and given their choice, either to worship the Roman deities or die; that these seven men took refuge in a cave near the city; that the entrance to the cave was, by command of Decius, blocked up with stone; that they fell into a preternatural sleep, and that two hundred years later, under Theodosius II (A. D. 408-450), the cave was opened and the sleepers awoke. When one of them went to the city stealthily to buy provisions for the rest he found that the place was much changed, that his coins were no longer current, and that Christianity had been accepted by the rulers and the people. The original legend relates, however, that after awakening they died (Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, S. Baring-Gould, p. 93). It is not known from what source Paul derived his version of the story.
The Scritobini, for thus that nation is called, are neighbors to this place. They are not without snow even in the summer time, and since they do not differ in nature from wild beasts themselves, they feed only upon the raw flesh of wild animals from whose shaggy skins also they fit garments for themselves.14 They deduce the etymology of their name15 according to their barbarous language from jumping. For by making use of leaps and bounds they pursue wild beasts very skillfully with a piece of wood bent in the likeness of a bow. Among them there is an animal not very unlike a stag,16 from whose hide, while it was rough with hairs, I saw a coat fitted in the manner of a tunic down to the knees, such as the aforesaid Scritobini use, as has been related. In these places about the summer solstice, a very bright light is seen for some days, even in the night time, and the days are much longer there than elsewhere, just as, on the other hand, about the winter solstice, although the light of day is present, yet the sun is not seen there and the days are 8 shorter than anywhere else and the nights too are longer, and this is because the further we turn from the sun the nearer the sun itself appears to the earth and the longer the shadows grow. In short, in Italy (as the ancients also have written) about the day of the birth of our Lord, human statures at twelve o’clock measure in shadow nine feet. But when I was stationed in Belgic Gaul in a place which is called Villa Totonis (Dietenhofen, Thionville17) and measured the shadow of my stature, I found it nineteen and a half feet. Thus also on the contrary the nearer we come to the sun toward midday the shorter always appear the shadows, so much so that at the summer solstice when the sun looks down from the midst of heaven in Egypt and Jerusalem and the places situated in their neighborhood, no shadows may be seen. But in Arabia at this same time the sun at its highest point is seen on the northern side and the shadows on the other hand appear towards the south.
14 What is said about the Scritobini (or Scridefinni) can be traced to one and the same source as the account of Thule given in Procopius’ Gothic War, II, 15, or of Scandza in Jordanes’ Gothic History, 3; see Zeuss, 684.
15 Perhaps from schreiten, “to stride,” or some kindred word.
16 A reindeer (Waitz).
17 On the Moselle, where Charlemagne held his court.
Not very far from the shore of which we have spoken, toward the western side, on which the ocean main lies open without end, is that very deep whirlpool of waters which we call by its familiar name “the navel of the sea.” This is said to suck in the waves and spew them forth again twice every day, as is proved to be done by the excessive swiftness with which the waves advance and recede along all those shores. A whirlpool or maelstrom of this kind is called by the poet 9 Virgil “Charybdis,” which he says in his poem18 is in the Sicilian strait, speaking of it in this way:
Scylla the right hand besets, and the left, the relentless
Charybdis;
Thrice in the whirl of the deepest abyss it swallows the vast
waves
Headlong, and lifts them again in turn one after another
Forth to the upper air, and lashes the stars with the billows.
Ships are alleged to be often violently and swiftly dragged in by this whirlpool (of which indeed we have spoken) with such speed that they seem to imitate the fall of arrows through the air, and sometimes they perish by a very dreadful end in that abyss. But often when they are on the very point of being overwhelmed they are hurled back by the sudden masses of waves and driven away again with as great speed as they were at first drawn in. They say there is another whirlpool of this kind between the island of Britain and the province of Galicia,19 and with this fact the coasts of the Seine region and of Aquitaine agree, for they are filled twice a day with such sudden inundations that any one who may by chance be found only a little inward from the shore can hardly get away. You may see the rivers of these regions falling back with a very swift current toward their source, and the fresh waters of the streams turning salt through the spaces of many miles. The 10 island of Evodia (Alderney) is almost thirty miles distant from the coast of the Seine region, and in this island, as its inhabitants declare, is heard the noise of the waters as they sweep into this Charybdis. I have heard a certain high nobleman of the Gauls relating that a number of ships, shattered at first by a tempest, were afterwards devoured by this same Charybdis. And when one only out of all the men who had been in these ships, still breathing, swam over the waves, while the rest were dying, he came, swept by the force of the receding waters, up to the edge of that most frightful abyss. And when now he beheld yawning before him the deep chaos whose end he could not see, and half dead from very fear, expected to be hurled into it, suddenly in a way that he could not have hoped he was cast upon a certain rock and sat him down. And now when all the waters that were to be swallowed had run down, the margins of that edge (of the abyss) had been left bare, and while he sat there with difficulty, trembling with fear and filled with foreboding amid so many distresses, nor could he hide at all from his sight the death that was a little while deferred, behold he suddenly sees, as it were, great mountains of water leaping up from the deep and the first ships which had been sucked in, coming forth again! And when one of these came near him he grasped it with what effort he could, and without delay, he was carried in swift flight toward the shore and escaped the fate of death, living afterwards to tell the story of his peril. Our own sea also, that is, the Adriatic, which spreads in like manner, though less violently through the coasts of Venetia and Istria, is believed 11 to have little secret currents of this kind by which the receding waters are sucked in and vomited out again to dash upon the shores. These things having been thus examined, let us go back to the order of our narrative already begun.
18 Æneid, VII, 420.
19 In the northwestern part of Spain. Many manuscripts read “the province of Gaul.” Evidently Paul’s knowledge of the geography of these parts is most obscure.
The Winnili then, having departed from Scadinavia with their leaders Ibor and Aio, and coming into the region which is called Scoringa,20 settled there for some 12 years. At that time Ambri, and Assi, leaders of the 13 Wandals, were coercing all the neighboring provinces by 14 war. Already elated by many victories, they sent messengers 15 to the Winnili to tell them that they should either pay tribute to the Wandals21 or make ready for the struggles of war. Then Ibor and Aio, with the approval of their mother Gambara, determine that it is better to maintain liberty by arms than to stain it by the payment of tribute. They send word to the Wandals by messengers that they will rather fight than be slaves. The Winnili were then all in the flower of their youth, but were very few in number since they had been only the third part of one island of no great size.22
20 Scoringa, according to Müllenhoff’s explanation in which Bluhme concurs, is “Shoreland” (see Schmidt, 43). Bluhme considers it identical with the later Bardengau, on the left bank of the lower Elbe where the town of Bardowick, twenty-four miles southeast of Hamburg, perpetuates the name of the Langobards even down to the present time. Hammerstein (Bardengau, 56) explains Scoringa as Schieringen near Bleckede in the same region. Schmidt (43) believes that the settlement in Scoringa has a historical basis and certainly, if the name indicates the territory in question, it is the place where the Langobards are first found in authentic history. They are mentioned in connection with the campaigns undertaken by Tiberius against various German tribes during the reign of Augustus in the fifth and sixth year of the Christian era, in the effort to extend the frontiers of the Roman empire from the Rhine to the Elbe (Mommsen, Romische Geschichte, V, 33). The Langobards then dwelt in that region which lies between the Weser and the lower Elbe. They were described by the court historian Velleius Paterculus (II, 106), who accompanied one of the expeditions as prefect of cavalry (Schmidt, 5), as “more fierce than ordinary German savagery,” and he tells us that their power was broken by the legions of Tiberius. It would appear also from the combined testimony of Strabo (A. D. 20) and Tacitus (A. D. 117) that the Langobards dwelt near the mouth of the Elbe shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, and were in frequent and close relations with Hermunduri and Semnones, two great Suevic tribes dwelling higher up the stream. Strabo (see Hodgkin, V, 81) evidently means to assert that in his time the Hermunduri and Langobards had been driven from the left to the right bank. Ptolemy who wrote later (100-161) places them upon the left bank. Possibly both authors were right for different periods in their history (Hodgkin, V, 82).
The expedition of Tiberius was the high-water mark of Roman invasion on Teutonic soil, and when a Roman fleet, sailing up the Elbe, established communication with a Roman army upon the bank of that river, it might well be thought that the designs of Augustus were upon the point of accomplishment, and that the boundary of the empire was to be traced by connecting the Danube with the Elbe. The dominions of Marobod, king of the Marcomanni, who was then established in Bohemia, would break the continuity of this boundary, so the Romans proceeded to invade his territories. An insurrection, however, suddenly broke out in Illyricum and the presence of the Roman army was required in that region. So a hasty peace was concluded with Marobod, leaving him the possessions he already held. It required four successive campaigns and an enormous number of troops (Mommsen, Rom. Gesch., Vol. V, pp. 35-38) to suppress the revolt. While the Roman veterans were engaged in the Illyrian war, great numbers of Germans led by Arminius, or Hermann, of the Cheruscan tribe rose in rebellion. In the ninth year of our era, Varus marched against them at the head of a force composed largely of new recruits. He was surprised and surrounded in the pathless recesses of the Teutoburg forest and his army of some twenty thousand men was annihilated (id., pp. 38-44). It is not known whether the Langobards were among the confederates who thus arrested the conquest of their country by the Roman army, although they dwelt not far from the scene of this historic battle. They were then considered, however, to belong to the Suevian stock and were subject, not far from this time, to the king of the Marcomanni, a Suevian race (id., p. 34; Tacitus, Germania, 38-40
The defeat of Varus was due largely to his own incompetency and it would not appear to have been irretrievable when the immense resources of the Roman empire are considered. Still no active offensive operations against the barbarians were undertaken until after the death of Augustus and the succession of Tiberius, A. D. 14, when in three campaigns, the great Germanicus thrice invaded Germany, took captive the wife and child of Arminius, defeated the barbarians in a sanguinary battle, and announced to Rome that in the next campaign the subjugation of Germany would be complete (Mommsen, id., pp. 44-50). But Tiberius permitted no further campaign to be undertaken. The losses suffered by the Romans on the sea as well as on land had been very severe, and whether he was influenced by this fact and by the difficulty of keeping both Gaul and Germany in subjection if the legions were transferred from the Rhine to the Elbe, or whether he was actuated by jealousy of Germanicus, and feared the popularity the latter would acquire by the subjugation of all Germany, cannot now be decided, but he removed that distinguished commander from the scene of his past triumphs and his future hopes, sent him to the East on a new mission, left the army on the Rhine divided and without a general-in-chief, and adopted the policy of keeping that river as the permanent boundary of the empire (id., p. 50-54).
Thus the battle in the Teutoburg forest resulted in the maintenance of German independence and ultimately perhaps in the overthrow of the Roman empire itself by German barbarians. It marked the beginning of the turn of the tide in Roman conquest and Roman dominion, for although the empire afterwards grew in other directions yet behind the dike here erected, the forces gradually collected which were finally to overwhelm it when it became corrupted with decay.
When the legions of Varus were destroyed, the head of the Roman commander was sent to Marobod and his coöperation solicited. He refused however to join the confederated German tribes, he sent the head to Rome for funeral honors, and continued to maintain between the empire and the barbarians, the neutrality he had observed in former wars. This refusal to unite in the national aspirations for German independence, cost him his throne. “Not only the Cheruscans and their confederates” says Tacitus (Ann. II, 45) “who had been the ancient soldiery of Arminius, took arms, but the Semnones and Langobards, both Suevian nations, revolted to him from the sovereignty of Marobod . . . . The armies (Ch. 46)) . . . . were stimulated by reasons of their own, the Cheruscans and the Langobards fought for their ancient honor or their newly acquired independence, and the others for increasing their dominion.” This occurred in the seventeenth year of our era. Marobod was finally overthrown, and took refuge in exile with the Romans, and it was not long until Arminius, accused of aspiring to despotic power, was assassinated by a noble of his own race (Mommsen, id. 54-56). After his death the internal dissensions among the Cheruscans became so violent that the reigning family was swept away, and in the year 47 they asked the Romans to send them as their king the one surviving member of that family, Italicus, the nephew of Arminius, who was born at Rome where he had been educated as a Roman citizen. Accordingly Italicus, with the approval of the emperor Claudius, assumed the sovereignty of the Cheruscans. At first he was received with joy, but soon the cry was raised that with his advent the old liberties of Germany were departing and Roman power was becoming predominant. A struggle ensued, and he was expelled from the country. Again, the Langobards appear upon the scene, with sufficient power as it seems to control the destiny of the tribe which, thirty-eight years before, had been the leader in the struggle for independence, for they restored him to the sovereignty of which he had been despoiled by his inconstant subjects (Tacitus, Annals, XI, 16, 17). These events and other internal disturbances injured the Cheruscans so greatly that they soon disappeared from the field of political activity (Mommsen, id., 132).
During the generations that followed there was doubtless many a change in the power, the territories and even the names of the various tribes which inhabited Germania Magna, but for a long time peace was preserved along the frontiers which separated them from the Roman world (id., p. 133.) It is somewhat remarkable that none of those events appear in the Langobard tradition as contained in the pages of Paul.
21 Hammerstein (Bardengau, 71) considers the Wends who were the eastern neighbors of the Langobards, to be the Wandals. Jacobi (13, n. 1) thinks Paul is misled by the account of Jordanes of the struggles of the Vandals and the Goths.
22 Although it belongs to the legendary period of the Langobards, there may well be some truth in this statement of the refusal to pay tribute. Tacitus (Germania, 40) speaks of the slender number of the Langobards and declares that they were renowned because they are so few and, being surrounded by many powerful nations, protect themselves, not by submission but by the peril of battles.
At this point, the men of old tell a silly story that the Wandals coming to Godan (Wotan) besought him for victory over the Winnili and that he answered that he would give the victory to those whom he saw first at sunrise; that then Gambara went to Frea (Freja) wife of Godan and asked for victory for the Winnili, and that Frea gave her counsel that the women of the Winnili should take down their hair and arrange it upon the face like a beard, and that in the early morning they should be present with their husbands and in like manner station themselves to be seen by Godan from the quarter in which he had been wont to look through his window toward the east. And so it was done. And when Godan saw them at sunrise he said: “Who are these long-beards?” And then Frea induced him to give the victory to those to whom he had given the name.23 And thus Godan gave the victory to the Winnili. 17 These things are worthy of laughter and are to be held of no account.24 For victory is due, not to the power of men, but it is rather furnished from heaven.
23 A still livelier description of this scene is given in the “Origo Gentis Langobardorum” (see Appendix II) from which Paul took the story. “When it became bright and the sun was rising, Frea, Godan’s wife, turned the bed around where her husband was lying and put his face toward the east, and awakened him, and as he looked he saw the Winnili and their wives, how their hair hung about their faces. And he said: “Who are these long-beards?” Then spoke Frea to Godan: “My lord, thou hast given them the name, now give them also the victory.” Mommsen remarks (pp. 65, 66) that Paul has spoiled the instructive story why one does better to put his business in the hands of the wife than of the husband, or rather that he has misunderstood the account. The fable rests upon this, that Godan, according to the position of his bed, looked toward the west upon awakening, and that the Wandals camped on the west side and the Winnili upon the east. The true-hearted god could then appropriately promise victory to his Wandal worshippers in the enigmatical sentence, that he would take the part of those upon whom his eyes should first fall on the morning of the day of the battle; but as his cunning wife turned his bed around, he and his favorites were entrapped thereby. This can be easily inferred from the Origo. It may be asked what the women’s hair arranged like a beard has to do with Godan’s promise. Evidently, the affair was so planned that the astonishment of the god should be noted when he looked upon these extraordinary long-beards in place of the Wandals he had supposed would be there; perhaps indeed his cunning wife thus drew from her husband an expression which put it beyond doubt that he actually let his glance fall in the morning upon the Winnili.
That the account in the Origo was a Latin translation of a German alliterative epic poem — see Appendix II.
24 Paul’s narrative of the origin of the name of Langobards gives the best example of the manner in which he has treated the legends which have come down to him. The transposition of the direct speech into the indirect, the introduction of the phrase “to preserve their liberty by arms,” and similar classical phrases, the new style and historical character given to the story, speak for themselves; but still the Langobard, in treating of the origin of the proud name could not disown his national character and even where “the ridiculous story told by the ancients” sets historical treatment at defiance, he still does not suppress it (Mommsen, 65).
It is certain, however, that the Langobards were afterwards so called on account of the length of their beards 18 untouched by the knife, whereas at first they had been called Winnili; for according to their language “lang” means “long” and “bart” “beard.”25 Wotan indeed, whom by adding a letter they called Godan26 is he who 19 among the Romans is called Mercury, and he is worshiped by all the peoples of Germany as a god, though he is deemed to have existed, not about these times, but long before, and not in Germany, but in Greece.
25 This derivation comes from Isidore of Seville. He says, “The Langobards were commonly so-called from their flowing and never shaven beards” (Etym., IX, 2, 94, Zeuss, 109). Schmidt, although he believes (p. 43) that the change of name was a historical fact, rejects (44, note i) this definition, since he considers that the earlier name of the people was simply “Bards,” to which “lang” was afterwards prefixed. Another proposed derivation is from the Old High German word barta, an axe, the root which appears in “halbert” and “partizan” (Hodgkin, V, 84). Another authority, Dr. Leonhard Schmitz (see Langobardi in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography) argues for its derivation from the root bord, which we have preserved in the word “sea-board,” and he contends that the Langobards received their name from the long, flat meadows of the Elbe where they had their dwelling. As we adopt one or the other of these suggestions, the Langobards will have been the long-bearded men, the long-halbert-bearing men, or the long-shore-men. Hodgkin (V, 85) as well as Bruckner (p. 33) prefers the interpretation given in the text, “Long-beards.” Bruckner remarks that the name of the people stands in close relation to the worship of Wotan who bore the name of the “long-bearded” or “gray-bearded,” and that the Langobard name Ansegranus, “He with the Beard of the Gods,” showed that the Langobards had this idea of their chief deity. He further shows that the long halbert or spear was not a characteristic weapon of the Langobards. He also (p. 30) considers Koegel’s opinion (p. 109) that the Langobards adopted the worship of Wotan from the surrounding peoples after their migration to the Danube is not admissible, since the neighboring Anglo-Saxons worshiped Wotan long before their migration to Britain as their highest God.
26 Or Guodan according to other MSS.
The Winnili therefore, who are also Langobards, having joined battle with the Wandals, struggle fiercely, since it is for the glory of freedom, and win the victory. And afterwards, having suffered in this same province of Scoringa, great privation from hunger, their minds were filled with dismay.
Departing from this place, while they were arranging to pass over into Mauringa,27 the Assipitti28 block 20 their way, denying to them by every means a passage through their territories. The Langobards moreover, when they beheld the great forces of their enemies, did not dare engage them on account of the smallness of their army, and while they were deciding what they ought to do, necessity at length hit upon a plan. They pretend that they have in their camps Cynocephali, that is, men with dogs’ heads. They spread the rumor among the enemy that these men wage war obstinately, drink human blood and quaff their own gore if they cannot reach the foe. And to give faith to this assertion, the Langobards spread their tents wide and kindle a great many fires in their camps. The enemy being made credulous when these things are heard and seen, dare not now attempt the war they threatened.
27 Mauringa is mentioned by the Cosmographer of Ravenna (I, 11) as the land east of the Elbe. Maurungani appears to be another name of the great country of the Elbe which lies “in front of the Danes, extends to Dacia and includes Baias, Baiohaim.” Or perhaps Mauringa was merely the name of the maurland or moorland east of the Elbe (Zeuss, 472). In the Traveler’s Song, which had its origin in the German home of the Angles about the end of the 6th century, a Suevian race in Holstein bears the name of Myrginge, and this song also mentions the Headhobards (perhaps identical with the Langobards) who fight with the Danes in Zealand (Schmidt, 34, 47). See also Waitz.
28 Hodgkin (V, 92) conjectures that possibly the Assipitti are the Usipetes mentioned in Tacitus’ Annals (I, 51). See Caesar B. G. IV, 1, 4. Bluhme (see Hodgkin, V, 141) places them in the neighborhood of Asse, a wooded height near Wolfenbüttel. Such identifications of locality are highly fanciful.
They had, however, among them a very powerful man, to whose strength they trusted that they could obtain without doubt what they wanted. They offered him alone to fight for all. They charged the Langobards to send any one of their own they might wish, to go forth with him to single combat upon the condition, to wit; that if their warrior should win the victory, the Langobards would depart the way they had come, but if he should be overthrown by the other, then they would not forbid the Langobards a passage through their own territories. And when the Langobards were in doubt what one of their own they should send against this most warlike man, a certain person of servile rank 21 offered himself of his own will, and promised that he would engage the challenging enemy upon this condition; that if he took the victory from the enemy, they would take away the stain of slavery from him and from his offspring. Why say more? They joyfully promised to do what he had asked. Having engaged the enemy, he fought and conquered, and won for the Langobards the means of passage, and for himself and his descendants, as he had desired, the rights of liberty.
Therefore the Langobards, coming at last into Mauringa, in order that they might increase the number of their warriors, confer liberty upon many whom they deliver from the yoke of bondage, and that the freedom of these may be regarded as established, they confirm it in their accustomed way by an arrow, uttering certain words of their country in confirmation of the fact.29 Then the Langobards went forth 22 from Mauringa and came to Golanda,30 where, having remained some time, they are afterwards said to have possessed for some years Anthaib31 and Banthaib,32 and in like manner Vurgundaib,33 which we 23 can consider are names of districts or of some kinds of places.34
29 Complete emancipation appears to have been granted only among the Franks and the Langobards (Schmidt, 47 note 3). This system of incorporating into the body of their warriors and freemen, the peoples whom they subjugated in their wanderings, made of the Langobards a composite race, and it may well be that their language as well their institutions were greatly affected by this admixture of foreign stock (Hartmann, II, pp. 8, 9), and that their High-German characteristics are due to this fact. This system of emancipation also had an important effect in furthering the union of the two races, Langobard and Roman, after the Italian conquest (Hartmann, II, 2, 15).
30 Schmidt thinks this was further east, perhaps on the right bank of the Oder (p. 41). He considers (see Hodgkin, V, 143) that the name is the equivalent of Gotland and means simply “good land.” Golanda is generally considered, however, to be Gothland, and as the Langobards were found in Pannonia in the year 166 at the time of the war with Marcus Aurelius, and as the Goths emigrated to the Euxine probably at the middle of the second century, Hodgkin (V, 101) considers it probable that the Langobards at this time were hovering about the skirts of the Carpathians rather than that they had returned to Bardengau. The fact that when they were next heard from, they were occupying Rugiland east of Noricum, on the north shore of the Danube, confirms this view. Zeuss takes an alternative reading for Golanda not well supported by manuscript authority, “Rugulanda,” and suggests that it may be the coast opposite the isle of Rugen (Hodgkin, 141).
31 Anthaib, according to the improbable conjecture of Zeuss, is the pagus or district of the Antae who, on the authority of Ptolemy and Jordanes were placed somewhere in the Ukraine in the countries of the Dniester and Dnieper (Hodgkin, p. 141). Schmidt (p. 49) connects Anthaib through the Aenenas of the “Traveler’s Song” with Bavaria. These are mere guesses.
32 Schmidt connects Banthaib with the Boii and Bohemia (49, 50).
33 Zeuss connects Vurgundaib or Burgundaib with the Urugundi of Zosimus which he seems inclined to place in Red Russia between the Vistula and Bug. These names, he thinks, lead us in the direction of the Black Sea far into the eastern steppes and he connects this eastward march of the Langobards with their alleged combats with the Bulgarians (Hodgkin, V, p. 141). Bluhme in his monograph (Gens Langobardorum, Bonn, 1868) thinks that Burgundaib was the territory evacuated by the Burgundians when they moved westward to the Middle Rhine (Hodgkin, V, p. 142), and instead of the eastern migration he makes the Langobards wander westward toward the Rhine, following a passage of Ptolemy which places them near the Sigambri. He believes that this is confirmed by the Chronicon Gothanum which says that they stayed long at Patespruna or Paderborn and contends for a general migration of the tribe to Westphalia, shows the resemblance in family names and legal customs between Westphalia and Bardengau. Schmidt opposes Bluhme’s Westphalian theory which indeed appears to have slender support and he more plausibly connects Burgundaib (p. 49) with the remnant of the Burgundians that remained in the lands east of the Elbe. Luttmersen (Die Spuren der Langobarden, Hanover, 1889) thinks that Burgundaib means “the valley of forts,” and was perhaps in the region of the Rauhes Alp in Würtemberg; he notes the fact that the Swiss in Thurgau and St. Gall called an old wall built by an unknown hand “Langobardenmauer” and he claims that the Langobards were members of the Alamannic confederacy which occupied Suabia. No historical evidence of this appears (Hodgkin, V, 145).
34 Names which have a termination “aib” are derived from the Old-High-German eiba (canton), the division of a state or population (Schmidt, 49).
The Latin word pagus a district, canton, was here used by Paul to designate these subdivisions instead of the word aldonus or aldones of the Origo from which Paul took this statement. This word aldonus comes from aldius or aldio the “half-free,” referring to the condition of serfdom or semi-slavery in which the people dwelt in these lands. Hodgkin thinks (V, 94) the Origo means that the Langobards were in a condition of dependence on some other nation, when they occupied these districts. It seems more probable that these districts were so called because their inhabitants were subjected by the Langobards to a condition of semi-servitude, tilling the land for the benefit of their masters as was afterwards done with the Roman population of Italy (Schmidt, 50).
The migrations described by modern German scholars are mostly hypothetical. The fact is, it is idle to guess where were the different places mentioned by Paul or when the Langobards migrated from one to the other. That people however may well have taken part (Hodgkin, V, 88) in the movement of the German tribes southward which brought on the Marcomannic war under Marcus Aurelius, for in a history written by Peter the Patrician, Justinian’s ambassador to Theodahad (Fragment, VI, p. 124 of the Bonn ed.) we are informed that just before that war 6,000 Langobards and Obii having crossed the Danube to invade Pannonia were put to rout by the Roman cavalry under Vindex and the infantry under Candidus, whereupon the barbarians desisted from their invasion and sent as ambassadors to Aelius Bassus, who was then administering Pannonia, Vallomar, king of the Marcomanni, and ten others, one for each tribe. Peace was made, and the barbarians returned home. These events occurred about A. D. 165. (Hodgkin, V, 88.) It is clear from this that Langobards had left the Elbe for the Danube as allies or subjects of their old masters, the Marcomanni. Where the home was to which they returned can hardly be determined. Hodgkin believes that they withdrew to some place not far distant from Pannonia, while Zeuss (p. 471), Wiese (p. 28) and Schmidt (35, 36) believe that they did not depart permanently from the original abodes on the Elbe until the second half of the fourth century so that according to this view they must have returned to these original abodes. It is evident that a considerable number of the Langobards must have lived a long time on the lower Elbe — the names and institutions which have survived in Bardengau bear evidence of this. It is, however, highly probable that when the bulk of the nation migrated, a considerable part remained behind and afterwards became absorbed by the Saxon tribes in the neighborhood, while the emigrants alone retained the name of Langobards (Hartmann, II, part 1, 5).
After the Marcommanic war, information from Greek or Roman writers as to the fortunes of the Langobards is entirely lacking and for a space of three hundred years their name disappears from history.
Meanwhile the leaders Ibor and Aio, who had conducted the Langobards from Scadinavia and had ruled them up to this time, being dead, the Langobards, now 25 unwilling to remain longer under mere chiefs (dukes) ordained a king for themselves like other nations.35 Therefore Agelmund,36 the son of Aio first reigned over them37 tracing out of his pedigree the stock of the Gungingi 26 which among them was esteemed particularly noble. He held the sovereignty of the Langobards, as is reported by our ancestors, for thirty years.
35 More likely the reason was that the unity of a single command was found necessary. Schmidt believes (p. 76) that the people like other German nations, were divided according to cantons, that the government in the oldest times was managed by a general assembly that selected the chiefs of the cantons who were probably, as a rule, taken from the nobility and chosen for life. In peace they acted as judges in civil cases, and in war as leaders of the troops of the cantons. As commander-in-chief of the whole army, a leader or duke was chosen by the popular assembly, but only for the time of the war. Often two colleagues are found together, as Ibor and Aio. As a result of their long-continued wars during their wanderings, the kingly power was developed and the king became the representative of the nation in foreign affairs, in the making of treaties, etc. (p. 77). But the influence of the people upon the government did not fully disappear.
36 This name is found in a Danish song, and is written Hagelmund (Wiese, 3).
37 Mommsen observes (68) that even those who recognize a genuine germ of history in this legend must regard as fiction this connection of the leaders Ibor and Aio with the subsequent line of kings; that we have no indication regarding the duration of this early leadership, and that it may as well have lasted centuries as decades. The events already described probably required at least a number of generations for their accomplishment. The words in the text, “Ibor and Aio who had . . . ruled them up to this time,” appears to have been inserted by Paul upon conjecture to make a continuous line of rulers and is plainly an error (Waitz).
At this time a certain prostitute had brought forth seven little boys at a birth, and the mother, more cruel than all wild beasts, threw them into a fish-pond to be drowned. If this seems impossible to any, let him read over the histories of the ancients38 and he will find that one woman brought forth not only seven infants but even nine at one time. And it is sure that this occurred especially among the Egyptians. It happened therefore that when King Agelmund had stopped his horse and looked at the wretched infants, and had turned them hither and thither with the spear he carried in his hand, one of them put his hand on the royal spear and clutched it. The king moved by pity and marveling greatly at the act, pronounced that he would be a great man. And straightway he ordered him to be lifted from the fish-pond and commanded him to be brought to a nurse to be nourished with every care, and because he took him from 27 a fish-pond which in their language is called “lama”39 he gave him the name Lamissio.40 When he had grown up he became such a vigorous youth that he was also very fond of fighting, and after the death of Agelmund he directed the government of the kingdom.41 They say that when the Langobards, pursuing their way with their king, came to a certain river and were forbidden by the Amazons42 to cross to the other side, this man fought with the strongest of them, swimming in the river, and killed her and won for himself the glory of great praise and a passage also for the Langobards. For it had 28 been previously agreed between the two armies that if that Amazon should overcome Lamissio, the Langobards would withdraw from the river, but if she herself were conquered by Lamissio, as actually occurred, then the means of crossing the stream should be afforded to the Langobards.43 It is clear, to be sure, that this kind of an assertion is little supported by truth, for it is known to all who are acquainted with ancient histories that the race of Amazons was destroyed long before these things could have occurred, unless perchance (because the places where these things are said to have been done were not well enough known to the writers of history and are scarcely mentioned by any of them), it might have been that a class of women of this kind dwelt there at that time, for I have heard it related by some that the race of these women exists up to the present day in the innermost parts of Germany.44
38 See Pliny’s Natural History, Book VII, ch. 3, on monstrous births.
39 Lama is not a German but a Latin word, found in Festus and meaning a collection of water (Waitz). It lived on in the romance languages. DuCange introduces it from the statutes of Modena, and Dante used it (Inferno, Canto XX, line 79). It meant, however, in Italian at this later period “a low plain.” If Paul or his earlier authorities took it for Langobard this was because it was unknown to the Latin learning of that time, though it was a current peasant word in Northern Italy with which a discoverer of ancient Langobard tales could appropriately connect the indigenous king’s name (Mommsen, 68).
40 This name is called Laiamicho or Lamicho in the Origo and the form used here by Paul seems to have been taken from the Edict of Rothari (Waitz).
41 This story of the origin of Lamissio is inconsistent with the statement in the Prologue of the Edict of Rothari and with the Madrid and La Cava manuscripts of the “Origo Gentis Langobardorum” which say that he was “of the race of Gugingus” (see Waitz, also Appendix II; Mommsen, p. 68; Waitz, Neues Archiv, V, 423).
42 This appears to be a transformation into classical form of some ancient German legend of swan-maidens or water-sprites (Schmidt, 17, note).
43 Schmidt (p. 50) believes that the story of Lamissio is a fabulous expansion of the original myth of Skeaf. The germ of the myth is that a hero of unknown origin came from the water to help of the land in time of need.
44 Perhaps the Cvenas whom fable placed by the Baltic sea or gulf of Bothnia in “The Land of Women” (Zeuss, 686, 687).
Therefore after passing the river of which we have spoken, the Langobards, when they came to the lands beyond, sojourned there for some time. Meanwhile, since they suspected nothing hostile and were the less uneasy on account of their long repose, confidence, 29 which is always the mother of calamities, prepared for them a disaster of no mean sort. At night, in short, when all were resting, relaxed by negligence, suddenly the Bulgarians, rushing upon them, slew many, wounded many more and so raged45 through their camp that they killed Agelmund, the king himself, and carried away in captivity his only daughter.
45 Read for dibachati, debacchati.
Nevertheless the Langobards, having recovered their strength after these disasters, made Lamissio, of whom we have spoken above, their king. And he, as he was in the glow of youth and quite ready for the struggles of war, desiring to avenge the slaughter of Agelmund, his foster-father, turned his arms against the Bulgarians. And presently, when the first battle began, the Langobards, turning their backs to the enemy, fled to their camp. Then king Lamissio seeing these things, began in a loud voice to cry out to the whole army that they should remember the infamies they had suffered and recall to view their disgrace; how their enemies had murdered their king and had carried off in lamentation as a captive, his daughter whom they had desired for their queen.46 Finally he urged them to defend themselves and theirs by arms, saying that it was better to lay down life in war than to submit as vile slaves to the taunts of their enemies. Crying aloud, he said 30 these things and the like and now by threats, now by promises, strengthened their minds to endure the struggles of war; moreover if he saw any one of servile condition fighting he endowed him with liberty, as well as rewards. At last inflamed by the urging and example of their chief who had been the first to spring to arms, they rush upon the foe, fight fiercely and overthrow their adversaries with great slaughter, and finally, taking victory from the victors, they avenged as well the death of their king as the insults to themselves. Then having taken possession of great booty from the spoils of their enemies, from that time on they became bolder in undertaking the toils of war.47
46 Abel (p. 251) infers from this the right of succession to the throne in the female line.
47 Schmidt (50) regards this struggle with the Bulgarians as having no authentic basis in history since the name of the Bulgarians does not occur elsewhere before the end of the fifth century.
After these things Lamissio, the second who had reigned, died, and the third, Lethu, ascended the throne of the kingdom, and when he had reigned nearly forty years, he left Hildeoc his son, who was the fourth in number, as his successor in the kingly power. And when he also died, Gudeoc, as the fifth, received the royal authority.48
48 Mommsen calls attention (p. 75) to the close relation of the Gothic and Langobard legends. The Goths wandered from the island of Scandza, where many nations dwell (Jordanes, Ch. 3), among them the Vinoviloth, who may be the Winnili. From there the Goths sailed upon three vessels under their king Berich to the mainland (Ch. 4, 17). The first people they encountered in battle were the Vandals (Ch. 4). Further on the Amazons were introduced, and Mommsen concludes (p. 76): “It may be that these Langobard and Gothic traditions are both fragments of a great legend of the origin of the whole German people or that the Gothic story-teller has stirred the Langobard to the making of similar fables. The stories of the Amazons are more favorable to the latter idea.”
Hodgkin (V, 98) also notices the similarity of Langobard history to that the Goths, as told by Jordanes. But Jordanes exhibits a pedigree showing fourteen generations before Theodoric, and thus reaching back very nearly to the Christian era, while Paul gives only five links of the chain before the time of Odoacar, the contemporary of Theodoric, and thus reaches back, at furthest, only to the era of Constantine. This seems to show that the Langobards had preserved fewer records of the deeds of their fathers. Hodgkin (V, 99) adds that it is hopeless to get any possible scheme of Lombard chronology out of these early chapters of Paul; that his narrative would place the migration from Scandinavia about A. D. 320, whereas the Langobards were dwelling south of the Baltic at the birth of Christ; that he represents Agelmund, whose place in the narrative makes it impossible to fix his date later than 350, as slain in battle by the Bulgarians, who first appeared in Europe about 479.
In these times the fuel of great enmities was consumed between Odoacar who was ruling in Italy now for some years,49 and Feletheus, who is also called Feva,50 32 king of the Rugii. This Feletheus dwelt in those days on the further shore of the Danube, which the Danube itself separates from the territories of Noricum. In these territories of the Noricans at that time was the monastery of the blessed Severinus,51 who, endowed with the sanctity of every abstinence, was already renowned for his many virtues, and though he dwelt in these places up to the end of his life, now however, Neapolis (Naples) keeps his remains.52 He often admonished this Feletheus of whom we have spoken and his wife, whose name was Gisa, in saintly language that they should desist from iniquity, and when they spurned his pious words, he predicted a long while beforehand that that would occur which afterwards befel them. Odoacar then, having collected together the nations which were subject to his sovereignty, that is the Turcilingi and the Heroli and the portion of the Rugii he already possessed53 and also the peoples of Italy, came into Rugiland and fought with the Rugii, and sweeping them away final defeat he destroyed also Feletheus their king, and after the whole province was devastated, he returned 33 to Italy and carried off with him an abundant multitude of captives. Then the Langobards, having moved out of their own territories,54 came into Rugiland,55 which is called in the Latin tongue the country of the Rugii, and because it was fertile in soil they remained in it a number of years.
49 Here the tradition of the Langobards, as stated by Paul, begins again to correspond, at least in part, with known or probable historical facts.
50 The manuscripts of the “Origo Gentis Langobardorum” spell this Theuvane (M. G., Script. Rer. Langob., p. 3) which is required by the meter if the word comes from an epic song (Bruckner, Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, Vol. 32, p. 56).
51 At Eiferingen, at the foot of Mount Kalenberg, not far from Vienna (Waitz).
52 St. Severinus was the apostle of Noricum. He was born either in Southern Italy or in Africa. After the death of Attila he traveled through the territory along the Danube preaching Christianity and converting many. He died A. D. 482, and his body was taken to Italy and finally buried at Naples (Waitz).
53 The statement that Rugians fought upon both sides was the result of Paul’s effort to reconcile the accounts of two contradictory authorities (Mommsen, 103).
54 Wiese (p. 33) believes that they were then dwelling in upper Silesia not far from the head waters of the Vistula.
55 Bluhme considers this to be Moravia (Hodgkin, V, 142). It is more probably the region on the left bank of the Danube between Linz and Vienna (Schmidt, 51).
Meanwhile, Gudeoc died, and Claffo, his son, succeeded him. Claffo also having died, Tato, his son, rose as the seventh to the kingly power. The Langobards also departed from Rugiland, and dwelt in open fields, which are called “feld” in the barbarian tongue.56 While they sojourned there for the space of three years, a war sprang up between Tato and Rodolf, king of the Heroli.57 Treaties formerly bound them together, and 34 the cause of the discord between them was this: the brother of King Rodolf had come to Tato for the purpose of concluding peace, and when, upon the completion of his mission, he sought again his native country, it happened that his way passed in front of the house of the king’s daughter, who was called Rumetruda. Looking upon the company of men and the noble escort, she asked who this might be who had such a magnificent train. And it was said to her that the brother of king Rodolf was returning to his native country, having accomplished his mission. The girl sent to invite him to deign to take a cup of wine. He with simple heart came as he had been invited, and because he was small in stature, the girl looked down upon him in contemptuous pride and uttered against him mocking words. But he, overcome equally with shame and rage, answered back such words as brought still greater confusion upon the girl. Then she, inflamed by a woman’s fury and unable to restrain the rage of her heart, sought to accomplish a wicked deed she had conceived in her mind. 35 She feigned patience, put on a lively countenance, and stroking him down with merry words, she invited him to take a seat, and arranged that he should sit in such a place that he would have the window in the wall at his shoulders. She had covered this window with costly drapery as if in honor of her guest, but really, lest any suspicion should strike him, and the atrocious monster directed her own servants that when she should say, as if speaking to the cup-bearer, “Prepare the drink,” they should stab him from behind with their lances. And it was done; presently the cruel woman gave the sign, her wicked orders were accomplished, and he, pierced with wounds and falling to the earth, expired. When these things were announced to king Rodolf he bewailed his brother’s cruel murder, and impatient in his rage, burned to avenge that brother’s death. Breaking the treaty he had negotiated with Tato, he declared war against him.58 Why say more? The lines of battle on both sides come together in the open fields. 36 Rodolf sends his men into the fight, but staying himself in camp, he plays at draughts, not at all wavering in his hope of victory. The Heroli were indeed at that time well trained in martial exercises, and already very famous from their many victories. And either to fight more freely or to show their contempt for a wound inflicted by the enemy, they fought naked, covering only the shameful things of the body.59 Therefore, while the king himself in undoubting reliance on the power of these men, was safely playing at draughts, he ordered one of his followers to climb into a tree which happened to be by, that he might tell him more quickly of the victory of his troops, and he threatened to cut off the man’s head if he announced that the ranks of the Heroli were fleeing. The man, when he saw that the line of the Heroli was bent, and that they were hard pressed by the Langobards, being often asked by the king what the Heroli were doing, answered that they were fighting excellently. And not daring to speak, he did not reveal the calamity he saw until all the troops had turned their backs upon the foe. At last, though late, breaking into voice he cried: “Woe to thee wretched Herolia who art punished by the anger of the Lord of Heaven.” Moved by these words the king said: “Are my Heroli fleeing?” And he replied: “Not I, but thou, king, thyself hast said this.” Then, as is wont to happen in such circumstances, while the king and all, greatly alarmed, hesitated what to do, the Langobards came 37 upon them and they were violently cut to pieces. The king himself, acting bravely to no purpose, was also slain. While the army of the Heroli indeed was scattering hither and thither, so great was the anger of heaven upon them, that when they saw the green-growing flax of the fields, they thought it was water fit for swimming, and while they stretched out the arms as if to swim, they were cruelly smitten by the swords of the enemy.60 Then the Langobards, when the victory was won, divide among themselves the huge booty they had found in the camp. Tato indeed carried off the banner of Rodolf which they call Bandum, and his helmet which he had been accustomed to wear in war.61 And now from that time all the courage of the Heroli so decayed that thereafter they had no king over them 38 in any way.62 From this time on the Langobards, having become richer, and their army having been augmented from the various nations they had conquered, began to aspire to further wars, and to push forward upon every side the glory of their courage.
56 The country between the Theiss and the Danube in Hungary as Schmidt (52) believes, quoting a passage from the Annals of Eginhard for the year 796: “Pippin having driven the Huns beyond the Theiss, destroyed completely the royal residence which these people called the Ring, and the Langobards the Feld.” Since Procopius, (B. G. II, 14) says that the Langobards were then tributary to the Heroli, Wiese believes (pp. 35, 36) that they were compelled by the Heroli to give up their fertile Rugiland. The Langobards became Christianized, at least in part, about this time (Abel, 241; Schmidt, 51, 52).
57 The Heroli were, says Zeuss (p. 476), the most migratory among all the German tribes and have wandered over nearly the whole of Europe. They appeared on the Dneister and Rhine; they plundered in Greece and in Spain, and were found in Italy and in Scandinavia. Hodgkin believes that the tribe was split up into two divisions, one of which moved from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and the other eventually made its appearance on the Rhine. It was the eastern branch, which at the close of the 5th century was in Hungary on the eastern shore of the Danube, with which the Langobards had their struggle (Hodgkin, V, 104). The customs of the tribe were barbarous. They engaged in human sacrifices, put the sick and the aged to death, and it was the duty of a warrior’s widow to die upon her husband’s tomb (Hodgkin, 105).
58 Procopius (B. G., II, 14 et seq.) gives a different account of the origin of this war. He states (Hodgkin, V, 106) that the warriors of the tribe having lived in peace for three years, chafed at this inaction and taunted Rodolf, calling him womanish and soft-hearted, until he determined to make war upon the Langobards, but gave no pretext for his attack. Three times the Langobards sent ambassadors to placate him, who offered to increase the tribute paid by their nation, but Rodolf drove them from his presence. Procopius’ reason for the war is more favorable to the Langobards than that given by Paul. But it is quite possible that a rude people such as they were, might consider it more disgraceful to admit that they had paid tribute and humbly besought justice than that they had themselves given just cause for war.
59 Jordanis (ch. 49) says they fought light-armed. Procopius (Persian war, II, 25) speaks of their lack of defensive armor.
60 Procopius (B. G., II, 14) gives another account of the battle. He says the sky above the Langobards was covered with black clouds, while above the Heroli it was clear, an omen which portended ruin to the Heroli, since the war god was in the storm cloud (Wiese, 39). They disregarded it, however, and pressed on hoping to win by their superior numbers, but when they fought hand to hand, many of the Heroli were slain, including Rodolf himself, whereupon his forces fled in headlong haste and most of them were killed by the pursuing Langobards. The account of Procopius, a contemporary (490-565), is in the main more reliable than that of Paul, whose story is clearly of a legendary character. The place of the battle is uncertain. The date, too, is doubtful. Procopius places it at 494, but after a careful argument, Schmidt (53, 54) places it about 508.
61 Bruckner sees in the superfluous phrase “which he had been accustomed to war in war,” the marks of the translation of a German composite word used probably in some early Langobard song (Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, vol. 43, part I, p. 55).
62 It is not true that the Heroli never afterwards had a king (see next chapter). As to their subsequent history, Procopius says (B. G., II, 14) they first went to Rugiland, and driven thence by hunger, they entered Pannonia and became tributaries of the Gepidæ, then they crossed the Danube, probably into upper Moesia and obtained permission of the Greek emperor to dwell there as his allies. This took place in the year 512 (Hodgkin, V, 112). They soon quarreled with the Romans and although under Justinian they came to profess Christianity they were guilty of many outrages. They killed their king Ochon, but finding the anarchy which followed unendurable, they sent to Thule (Scandinavia) for a royal prince to rule them (Hodgkin, 113), and Todasius set forth for that purpose with two hundred young men to the country where the Heroli were living. That fickle people had now obtained a king, Suartuas, from the emperor Justinian, but they changed their minds again and deserted to Todasius, whereupon Suartuas escaped to Constantinople, and when Justinian determined to support him by force of arms, the Heroli joined the confederacy of the Gepidæ (p. 116).
But after these things Tato indeed did not long rejoice in the triumph of war, for Waccho, the son of his brother Zuchilo,63 attacked him and deprived him of his 39 life. Tato’s son Hildechis also fought64 against Waccho, but when Waccho prevailed and he was overcome, he fled to the Gepidæ and remained there an exile up to the end of his life. For this reason the Gepidæ from that time incurred enmities with the Langobards. At the same time Waccho fell upon the Suavi and subjected them to his authority.65 If any one may think that this is a lie and not the truth of the matter, let him read over the prologue of the edict which King Rothari composed66 of the laws of the Langobards and he will find 40 this written in almost all the manuscripts as we have inserted it in this little history. And Waccho had three wives, that is, the first, Ranicunda, daughter of the king of the Turingi (Thuringians); then he married Austrigusa, the daughter of the king of the Gepidæ, from whom he had two daughters; the name of one was Wisegarda, whom he bestowed in marriage upon Theudepert, king of the Franks, and the second was called Walderada, who was united with Cusupald, another king of the Franks, and he, having her in hatred,67 gave her over in marriage to one of his followers called Garipald.68 And Waccho had for his third wife the daughter of the king of the Heroli,69 by name Salinga. From her a son was born to him, whom he called Waltari, and who upon the death of Waccho reigned as the eighth70 king 41 over the Langobards. All these were Lithingi; for thus among them a certain noble stock was called.
The Langobard Migrations from the First to the Sixth Century.
63 This is a misunderstanding by Paul of the words of the Origo from which his account is taken, which says: “And Waccho the son of Unichis killed king Tato, his uncle, together with Zuchilo.” (M. G. H. Script. Rer. Langob., p. 3) See Appendix II.
64 Procopius (III, 35) makes Hildechis the son of Risulf, a cousin of Waccho (Hodgkin, V, 117, note 2). He states that Risulf would have been entitled to the throne upon Waccho’s death, but in order to get the crown for his own son, Waccho drove Risulf by means of a false accusation from the country; that Risulf fled with his two sons, one of whom was called Hildechis, to the Warni, by whom, at the instigation of Waccho, he was murdered; that Hildechis’ brother died there of sickness and Hildechis escaped and was first received by a Slav people and afterwards by the Gepidæ (Schmidt, 59).
65 It is hard to see what people are designated by this name. The Suavi who dwelt in the southwestern part of Germany, now Suabia, are too far off. Hodgkin (p. 119) suggests a confusion between Suavia and Savia, the region of the Save. Schmidt (55) says, “There is ground to believe that this people is identical with the Suevi of Vannius who possessed the mountain land between the March and the Theiss.” Other events in Waccho’s reign are mentioned by Procopius (II, 22), but omitted by Paul. For instance, in the year 539, Vitiges, the Ostrogoth, being hard pressed by Belisarius, sent ambassadors to Waccho offering large sums of money to become his ally, but Waccho refused because a treaty had been concluded between the Langobards and Byzantines.
66 Paul here refers to the famous “Origo Gentis Langobardorum” from which, or from a common original, Paul has taken much of his early Langobard history. See Appendix II. Paul appears to have considered the Origo as the Prologue to Rothari’s Edict. The two were, however, different, though both were prefixed to the Edict in at least some of the MSS. Mommsen (58, note) thinks it probable that the Origo was not an official but a private work, prefixed to the Edict for the first time in the year 668. Rothari composed the Edict and not the Origo, though Paul seems to have considered him the author of the latter (Jacobi, 5).
67 Gregory of Tours relates (IV, 9) that he repudiated her because he was accused by the clergy, probably on account of some ecclesiastical impediment.
68 Garipald was duke of the Bavarians (Greg. Tours, IV, 9; Waitz; see infra III, 10, 30).
69 And yet Paul has just told us in the preceding chapter that at this time the Heroli had no king.
70 An error in enumeration, Tato being mentioned as seventh and Waccho omitted (Waitz).
Waltari, therefore, when he had held the sovereignty for seven years,71 departed from this life,72 and after him Audoin73 was the ninth74 who attained the kingly power (546-565), and he, not long afterwards, led the Langobards into Pannonia.75
71 Probably 539 to 546 or thereabouts. (Hartmann, II, 1, 30).
72 Procopius says by disease (B. G., III, 35).
73 The same, probably, as the Anglo-Saxon and English “Edwin” (Hodgkin, V, 122, note 1).
74 The race of Lethingi became extinct with Waltari. Audoin came from the race of Gausus (see Chronicon Gothanum, M. G. H. LL., IV, p. 644).
75 Justinian, says Procopius (B. G, III, 33), had given this and other lands to the Langobards together with great sums of money (Schmidt, 58). They appear to have been in fact subsidized as allies and confederates of the Roman Empire (Hartmann, II, 1, 12), and it seems to have been at Justinian’s instigation that Audoin married a Thuringian princess, the great-niece of Theoderic, who after the overthrow of the Thuringians had fled to Italy, and later had been brought by Belisarius to the court of Constantinople (Hartmann, II, 1, 14). The invasion of Pannonia probably occurred not far from 546 (id., p. 30).
Then the Gepidæ and the Langobards at last give birth to the strife which had been long since conceived and the two parties make ready for war.76 When battle 42 was joined, while both lines fought bravely and neither yielded to the other, it happened that in the midst of struggle, Alboin, the son of Audoin and Turismod, the son of Turisind encountered each other. And Alboin, striking the other with his sword, hurled him headlong from his horse to destruction. The Gepidæ, seeing that the king’s son was killed, through whom in great part the war had been set on foot, at once, in their discouragement, start to flee. The Langobards, sharply following them up, overthrow them and when a great number had been killed they turn back to take off the spoils of the dead. When, after the victory had been won, 43 the Langobards returned to their own abodes, they suggested to their king Audoin that Alboin, by whose valor they had won the victory in the fight, should become his table companion so that he who had been a comrade to his father in danger should also be a comrade at the feast. Audoin answered them that he could by no means do this lest he should break the usage of the nation. “You know,” he said, “that it is not the custom among us that the son of the king should eat with his father unless he first receives his arms from the king of a foreign nation.”
76 Paul does not state the cause of this war. Schmidt believes (p. 58) that it was probably begun at the instigation of Justinian whose interest it was to break up the friendship of two peoples who threatened to become dangerous to his empire and that in addition to this, the desire of the Langobards to get the important city of Sirmium, then held by the Gepidæ coöperated, and above all, the hostile feeling which had been called out by contests for the throne. It must be remembered that the Heroli, enemies to the Langobards, had been received in the confederacy of the Gepidæ and that Hildechis, the descendant of Tato, was harbored by the Gepid king Turisind, just as Ustrigotthus, Turisind’s rival for the Gepid throne, and son of his predecessor, Elemund, had found refuge at the court of Audoin. Prior to this, both nations had sought the alliance of the emperor (Hodgkin, V, 122-126). Justinian decided to help the Langobards since they were weaker and less dangerous to him than the Gepidæ, so a Roman army of about 10,000 cavalry and 1500 Heroli marched against the Gepidæ. Upon the way they annihilated a division of 3,000 Heroli who were allied to the Gepidæ, and the Gepidæ made a separate peace with the Langobards (p. 129). Audoin demanded of Turisind, king of the Gepidæ, the delivery of Hildechis, but the latter escaped and wandered about in different countries (Schmidt, 60).
A second war between the Langobards and Gepidæ occurred about 549 (Procopius, IV, 18), when a desperate panic seized both armies at the beginning of a battle, whereupon the two kings concluded a two years’ truce. At the end of this time hostilities began anew. Justinian took the side of the Langobards and sent troops into the field, one division of which, under command of Amalafrid, joined the Langobards, while the rest of the troops remained by command of the emperor in Ulpiana to quell certain disturbances (Schmidt, 60, 61). The Langobards pushed into the territory of the Gepidæ and defeated their adversaries. The field of battle was probably near Sirmium. Procopius (B. G., IV, 25) puts this battle in the seventeenth year of the war (March, 551, to March, 552). Probably this is the same battle which Paul relates. The Gepidæ now begged for peace which was accorded to them through the intervention of Justinian. As a condition the Langobards and the emperor demanded the delivery of Hildechis. But as the Gepidæ were resolved not to violate the sanctity a guest, and as the Langobards refused to deliver Ustrigotthus, neither of these were surrendered, but both perished by assassination, not without the knowledge of the two kings (Schmidt, 62; Hodgkin, V, 134).
When he heard these things from his father, Alboin, taking only forty young men with him, journeyed to Turisind, king of the Gepidæ with whom he had before waged war, and intimated the cause in which he had come. And the king, receiving him kindly, invited him to his table and placed him on his right hand where Turismod, his former son had been wont to sit. In the meantime, while the various dishes were made ready, Turisind, reflecting that his son had sat there only a little while before, and recalling to mind the death of his child and beholding his slayer present and sitting in his place, drawing deep sighs, could not contain himself, but at last his grief broke forth in utterance. “This place,” he says, “is dear to me, but the person who sits in it is grievous enough to my sight.” Then another son of the king who was present, aroused by his father’s speech, began to provoke the Langobards with insults declaring (because they wore white bandages from their calves down) that they were like mares with white feet up to the legs, saying: “The mares that you take after have white fetlocks.”77 Then one of the Langobards thus answered these things: “Go to the field of Asfeld and there you can find by experience beyond a doubt how stoutly those you call mares succeed in kicking; there the bones of your brother are scattered in the midst of the meadows like those of a wild beast.” When they 45 heard these things, the Gepidæ, unable to bear the tumult of their passions, are violently stirred in anger and strive to avenge the open insult. The Langobards on the other side, ready for the fray, all lay their hands on the hilts of their swords. The king leaping forth from the table thrust himself into their midst and restrained his people from anger and strife, threatening first to punish him who first engaged in fight, saying that it is a victory not pleasing to God when any one kills his guest in his own house. Thus at last the quarrel having been allayed, they now finished the banquet with joyful spirits. And Turisind, taking up the arms of Turismod his son, delivered them to Alboin and sent him back in peace and safety to his father’s kingdom. Alboin having returned to his father, was made from that time his table companion. And when he joyfully partook with his father of the royal delicacies, he related in order all the things which had happened to him among the Gepidæ in the palace of Turisind.78 Those who were present were astonish and applauded the boldness of Alboin nor did they less extol in their praises the most honorable behavior of Turisind.
77 Or hoofs. Fetilus for petilus. The white hoof of a horse was so called. Others make it foetidae, “evil-smelling.” See Gibbon, ch. 45. Hodgkin, V, 136.
78 Read Turisindi with many MSS. instead of Turismodi.
At this period the emperor Justinian was governing the Roman empire with good fortune. He was both prosperous in waging wars and admirable in civil matters. For by Belisarius, the patrician, he vigorously subdued the Persians and by the same Belisarius he 46 reduced to utter destruction the nation of the Wandals, captured their king Gelismer and restored all Africa to the Roman empire after ninety-six years. Again by the power of Belisarius he overcame the nation of the Goths in Italy and took captive Witichis their king. He subdued also the Moors who afterwards infested Africa together with their king Amtalas, by John the ex-consul, a man of wonderful courage. In like manner too, he subjugated other nations by right of war. For this reason, on account of his victories over them all, he deserved to have his surnames and to be called Alamannicus, Gothicus, Francicus, Germanicus, Anticus, Alanicus, Wandalicus, and Africanus. He also arranged in wonderful brevity the laws of the Romans whose prolixity was very great and whose lack of harmony was injurious. For all the laws of the emperors which were certainly contained in many volumes he abridged into twelve books, and he ordered this volume called the Justinian Code. On the other hand, the laws of special magistrates or judges which were spread over almost two thousand books, he reduced to the number of fifty and called that work by the name of “Digests” or “Pandects.” He also composed anew four books of “Institutes” in whom the texture of all laws is briefly described; he also ordered that the new laws which he himself had ordained, when reduced to one volume, should be called in the same way the “New Code” (Novels). The same emperor also built within the city of Constantinople to Christ our Lord, who is the wisdom of God the Father, a church which he called by the Greek name “Hagia Sophia,” that is, “Divine Wisdom.” 47 The workmanship of this so far excels that of all other buildings that in all the regions of the earth its like cannot be found. This emperor in fact was Catholic in his faith, upright in his deeds, just in his judgments, and therefore, to him all things came together for good. In his time Cassiodorus was renowned in the city of Rome79 for knowledge both human and divine. Among other things which he nobly wrote, he expounded particularly in a most powerful way the obscure parts of the Psalms. He was in the first place a consul, then a senator, and at last a monk. At this time also Dionisius, an abbott established in the city of Rome, computed a reckoning of Easter time by a wonderful argumentation 80 Then also, at Constantinople, Priscian of Cæsarea explored the depths of the grammatical art, as I might say, and then also, Arator, a subdeacon of the Roman church, a wonderful poet, wrote the acts of the apostles in hexameter verses.
79 His work was done mostly at Ravenna and Viviers in Bruttium (where he retired to a monastery). His fame was not confined to Rome but extended throughout Italy, and the entire Roman world.
80 In his Cyclus Paschalis he also introduced the annunciation of the birth of Christ as the starting-point of chronology.
In these days also the most blessed father Benedict, first in a place called Sublacus (Subiaco), which is distant forty miles81 from the city of Rome, and afterwards 48 in the stronghold of Cassinum (Monte Cassino82), which is called Arx, was renowned for his great life and his apostolic virtues. His biography, as is known, the blessed Pope Gregory composed in delightful language in his Dialogues. I also, according to my meager talent, have braided together in the following manner in honor of so great a father, each of his miracles by means of corresponding distichs in elegiac meter.83 . . . We have woven also in this manner a hymn in iambic Archilochian meter, containing each of the miracles of the same father.84 . . .
I may here briefly relate a thing that the blessed Pope Gregory did not at all describe in his life of this most holy father. When, by divine admonition, he had come almost fifty miles from Sublacus to this place where his body reposes, three ravens, whom he was accustomed to feed, followed him, flying around him. And at every crossway, while he came hither, two angels appearing in the form of young men, showed him which way he ought to take. And in this place [Cassinum] a certain servant of God then had a dwelling, to whom a voice from heaven said:
Leave these sacred spots, another friend is at hand.
49And when he had come here, that is to the citadel of Cassinum he always restrained himself in great abstinence, but especially at the time of Lent he remained shut up and removed from the noise of the world. I have taken all these things from the song of the poet Marcus, who coming hither to this same father, composed some verses in his praise, but to guard against too great prolixity, I have not described them in these books. It is certain, however, that this illustrious father came to this fertile place overlooking a rich valley, being called by heaven for this purpose, that there should be here a community of many monks, as has actually occurred under God’s guidance. These things, which were not to be omitted, having been briefly told, let us return to the regular order of our history.
81 A Roman mile is 142 yards less than the English statute mile.
82 A famous monastery, 45 miles N. W. of Naples, the cradle of the Benedictine order.
83 The sixty-four distichs which follow are found in Appendix III, as they have no proper connection with the history. They had been written by Paul previously, and certain additions to them contained in other MSS. are published by Bethmann (331).
84 These verses are also contained in Appendix III.
Now Audoin, king of the Langobards, of whom we have spoken, had to wife Rodelinda, who bore him Alboin, a man fitted for wars and energetic in all things. Then Audoin died,85 and afterwards Alboin, the tenth king, entered upon the government of his country according to the wishes of all, and since he had everywhere a name very illustrious and distinguished for power, Chlothar, the king of the Franks, joined to him in marriage his daughter Chlotsuinda. From her he begot one daughter only, Alpsuinda by name. Meanwhile Turisind, king of the Gepidæ, died, and Cunimund succeeded him in the sovereignty. And he, 50 desiring to avenge the old injuries of the Gepidæ, broke his treaty with the Langobards and chose war rather than peace.86 But Alboin entered into a perpetual treaty with the Avars, who were first called Huns, and afterwards Avars, from the name of their own king.87 Then he set out for the war prepared by the Gepidæ. When the latter were hastening against him in a different direction, the Avars, as they had agreed with Alboin, invaded their country. A sad messenger coming to Cunimund, announced to him that the Avars had entered his territories. Although cast down in spirit, and put into sore straits on both sides, still he urged his people to fight first with the Langobards, and that, if they should be able to overcome these, they should then drive the army of the Huns from their country. Therefore battle is joined and they fight with all their might. The Langobards become the victors, raging against the 51 Gepidæ in such wrath that they reduce them to utter destruction, and out of an abundant multitude scarcely the messenger survives.88 In this battle Alboin killed Cunimund, and made out of his head, which he carried off, a drinking goblet. This kind of a goblet is called among them “scala,”89 but in the Latin language “patera.” And he led away as a captive,90 Cunimund’s daughter, Rosemund by name, together with a great multitude of both sexes and every age, and because Chlotsuinda had died he married her, to his own injury, as afterwards appeared. Then the Langobards secured such great booty that they now attained the most ample 52 riches, but the race of the Gepidæ were so diminished that from that time on they had no king. But all who were able to survive the war were either subjected to the Langobards or groan even up to the present time in bondage to a grievous mastery, since the Huns possess their country. But the name of Alboin was spread abroad far and wide, so illustrious, that even up to this time his noble bearing and glory, the good fortunes of his wars and his courage are celebrated, not only among the Bavarians and the Saxons, but also among other men of the same tongue in their songs. It is also related by many up to the present time that a special kind of arms was made under him.
85 Probably about 565 (Hodgkin, V, 137).
86 Paul apparently confounds two wars in one. Alboin in the first overcomes Cunimund; then the emperor Justin prepares to aid the Gepidæ and Alboin offers to make peace and to marry Rosemund. His offer is refused and in the second war Cunimund is killed (Waitz).
87 These were a horde of Asiatics who had entered Europe in the closing years of the reign of Justinian, had extorted large subsidies from him and had penetrated westward as far as Thuringia (Hodgkin, V, 137). Their chief bore the title of cagan or khan. The treaty made by Alboin with the khan Baian shows that the Avars drove a hard bargain with the Langobards. Baian consented to the alliance only on condition that the Langobards should give the Avars a tenth part of their livestock and that in the event of victory the Avars should receive one-half of the spoils and the whole of the lands of the Gepidæ (Schmidt, 63-64).
88 The destruction of the kingdom of the Gepidæ occurred in 566 or 567 (Hartmann, II, 1, 31).
89 Compare the Norse word skaal, skoal, German Schale. Hodgkin, however, thinks it is related rather to the German Schädel, our skull (V, 139).
90 It appears he first saw Rosemund when he went to the court of Turisind to get his arms (Schmidt, 62). On account of political considerations he had to marry Chlotsuinda, daughter of the Frankish king, Chlothar I, but when she died, he sued for the hand of Rosemund, and when it was refused, he forcibly carried her away into his kingdom (p. 63). Cunimund vainly demanded the return of his daughter, and was unwilling that she should marry the hated Langobard. War followed, in which at first the Langobards had the better, but finally they were defeated as the Gepidæ had brought Justin II, who had succeeded Justinian, over to their side. The result was that Rosemund was set free. Then Alboin sought allies and found them in the Avars (id.). When Cunimund heard of this he again sought the aid of Justin and promised to cede Sirmium and other possession to the empire in return for assistance. Justin delayed and remained neutral, but finally took Sirmium after the Gepidæ were defeated (Schmidt, 64).
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