The valley of the Margus is the famous Plain of the Triballi (Τριβαλλἱκον πἑδιον; the mountains, those of the Macedonian, Illyrian, and Bulgarian frontiers.
There is the special evidence of Strabo that the Triballi and Mœsi were Thracians, and that the Thracians and Dacians spoke the same language. On the other hand, we learn from the same writer, that immediately to the west of the Triballi, the Thracian type ended and the Illyrian began. Without at present asking what this class may be, it is important to know that three such large groups are reducible to any single class at all. Neither is internal evidence wholly wanting for Upper Mœsia, the only portion of the Lower Danube now under notice. There is but a short list of geographical names: it contains, however, a Thermi-dava and a Pic-ensii.
We know almost as much of the wars of the Macedonians against the Triballi, as of those of the Romans against the Mœsi. Philip and Alexander each imperfectly reduced them. The reign of Augustus is signalized by the Dalmatian and Pannonian triumphs. Upper Mœsia was reduced at the same time.
Montenegro.—In the small Republic of Montenegro, of which the southern side is bounded by Albania, the population is Slavonic, differing from that of Bosnia and Hertzegovna only in being independent of the Porte, and Christian instead of Mahometan. The impracticable character of the country, and the martial spirit of its occupants, have preserved this single spot free from Turkish conquest. How far the blood is pure is doubtful: since the influence of the Roman conquest of Dalmatia, as well as that of the Greek settlements about Epidaurus is undetermined, neither is there any clear line of demarcation between the earliest ancestors of the Skipetar and the early ancestors of Slavonians in regard to their respective frontiers, north and south. It is probable, indeed, that the very earliest occupants of the Montenegro (Czernogora, or, Black Mountain) may have belonged to the former population; at present, however, the antipathy between the two nations is extreme; and in no part of the whole Slavonic area are the Slavonic characteristics more marked than in Montenegro.
CHAPTER VIII.
FRISIAN, SAXON, DUTCH, AND GOTHIC GERMANS.—GERMANIZED KELTS.—GERMANIZED SLAVES.—PRUSSIA.—ISOLATION OF ITS AREAS.—EAST AND WEST PRUSSIA.—PRUSSIAN POLAND.—POMERANIA.—PRUSSIAN SILESIA.—PRUSSIAN SAXONY.—BRANDENBURG.—UCKERMARK.—SOUTH-WESTERN PORTION.—WESTPHALIAN AND RHENISH PRUSSIA.—MECKLENBURG.—SAXONY.—LINONES OF LUNEBURG.—HANOVER AND OLDENBURG.—HOLLAND.—HESSE-CASSEL, HESSE-DARMSTADT, NASSAU.—BADEN.—WURTEMBURG.—WEIMAR.—RHENISH BAVARIA.—DANUBIAN BAVARIA.
AS a general rule the Germanic, or Gothic, stock has not only held its own area from the earliest time, but has encroached on that of others, so that although there are many parts of Europe, which, once the occupancy of non-Germanic populations, have now become more or less German, the converse rarely, if ever, can be shown to have taken place. Hence, almost all the districts which were originally German, are German now. The chief exception, if it be one, occurs in Belgium, where the Gallo-Roman family, has, perhaps, encroached on the Gothic.
But, though the Old Germany be Germanic still, there is a great part of the Modern Germany which was not so even at the beginning of the historical period. Some portion of the present area was Keltic, and a still greater was Sarmatian. Besides which, the original population of no inconsiderable section is uncertain. All this somewhat reduces the simplicity of the ethnology. And to this, it must be added, that the Teutonic (or German) branch of the great Gothic stock falls into some important divisions. The Frisians of Friesland represent one of these, our Anglo-Saxon ancestors another, the Old Saxons of Westphalia a third, the Low Dutch of Holland a fourth, the High Dutch of Bavaria a fifth, the Goths of the Old Ostrogoth and Visigoth conquests a sixth. Now the intestine movements of these different divisions have always been great; so that, although we shall rarely hear of any Germanic population having been overlaid by Slavonians or Kelts, the phenomenon of Saxons superseded by Low Dutch, Low Dutch by High and other similar displacements will be common.
The divisions, then, of the Germanic area are as follows:—
1st. There is the pure and proper country of the indigenous Germans, wherein all the important elements of admixture are limited to the different divisions and subdivisions of the Germanic family.