[32] The number of Romans killed at Cannæ (216 B.C.) is variously estimated, but it can hardly have been under 50,000.
[33] A somewhat indefinite region north and east of the Caspian Sea.
[34] The modern Don, flowing into the Sea of Azof.
[35] One of two constellations in the northern hemisphere, called respectively the Great Bear and the Lesser Bear, or Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The Great Bear is commonly known as the Dipper.
[36] That is, agriculture. The Huns were even less settled in their mode of life than were the early Germans described by Tacitus.
[37] A strange creature of classical mythology, represented as half man and half horse.
[38] The White Sea. It is hardly to be believed that the Huns dwelt so far north. This was, of course, a matter of sheer speculation with the Romans.
[39] St. Martin was born in Pannonia somewhat before the middle of the fourth century. For a time he followed his father's profession as a soldier in the service of the Roman emperor, but later he went to Gaul with the purpose of aiding in the establishment of the Christian Church in that quarter. In 372 he was elected bishop of Tours and shortly afterwards he founded the monastery with which his name was destined to be associated throughout the Middle Ages. This monastery, which was one of the earliest in western Europe, became a very important factor in the prolonged combat with Gallic paganism, and subsequently a leading center of ecclesiastical learning.
[40] Childeric I., son of the more or less mythical Merovius, was king from 457 to 481. Clovis became ruler of the Salian branch of the Franks in this latter year. The tomb of Childeric was discovered at Tournai in 1653.
[41] Ægidius and his son Syagrius were the last official representatives of the Roman imperial power in Gaul; and since the fall of the Empire in the West even they had taken the title of "king of the Romans" and had been practically independent sovereigns in the territory between the Somme and the Loire, with their capital at Soissons, northeast of Paris.