The Emperor, Claudius II., turned back this double invasion. He defeated and drove back the Alemanni, and then, in the year 270, won a great victory over the Goths, in the neighborhood of Thessalonica. His successor, Aurelian, followed up the advantage, and in the following year made a treaty with the Goths, by which the Danube became the frontier between them and the Romans. The latter gave up to them the province of Dacia, lying north of the river, and withdrew their colonists and military garrisons to the southern side.

Both the Franks and Saxons profited by these events. They let their mutual hostility rest for awhile, built fleets, and sailed forth in the West on voyages of plunder, like their relatives, the Goths, in the East. The Saxons descended on the coasts of Britain and Gaul; the Franks sailed to Spain, and are said to have even entered the Mediterranean. When Probus became Emperor, in the year 276, he found a great part of Gaul overrun and ravaged by them and by the Alemanni, on the Upper Rhine. He succeeded, after a hard struggle, in driving back the German invaders, restored the line of stockade from the Rhine to the Danube, and built new fortresses along the frontier. On the other hand, he introduced into Germany the cultivation of the vine, which the previous Emperors had not permitted, and thus laid the foundation of the famous vineyards of the Rhine and the Moselle.

300.

Probus endeavored to weaken the power of the Germans, by separating and colonizing them, wherever it was possible. One of his experiments, however, had a very different result from what he expected. He transported a large number of Frank captives to the shore of the Black Sea; but, instead of quietly settling there, they got possession of some vessels, soon formed a large fleet, sailed into the Mediterranean, plundered the coasts of Asia Minor, Greece and Sicily, where they even captured the city of Syracuse, and at last, after many losses and marvellous adventures, made their way by sea to their homes on the Lower Rhine.

Towards the close of the third century, Constantine, during the reign of his father, Constantius, suppressed an insurrection of the Franks, and even for a time drove them from their islands on the coast of Holland. He afterward crossed the Rhine, but found it expedient not to attempt an expedition into the interior. He appears to have had no war with the Alemanni, but he founded the city of Constance, on the lake of the same name, for the purpose of keeping them in check.

The boundaries between Germany and Rome still remained the Rhine and the Danube, but on the east they were extended to the Black Sea, and in place of the invasions of Cæsar, Drusus and Germanicus, the Empire was obliged to be content when it succeeded in repelling the invasions made upon its own soil. Three hundred years of very slow, but healthy growth on the one side, and of luxury, corruption and despotism on the other, had thus changed the relative position of the two races.

CHAPTER V.

THE RISE AND MIGRATIONS OF THE GOTHS.

(300—412.)