enemies on this subject, he would notwithstanding for once oblige them, and therefore appointed the next day but one, and the plain of Verceil for their meeting. At the time appointed, the two armies marched thither; the Romans ranged themselves into two wings: Catulus commanded a body of twenty thousand men, and Sylla was in the number of his officers. The Cimbri formed with their infantry an immense square battalion: their cavalry, consisting of fifteen thousand men, was magnificently mounted; each soldier bore upon his helmet the head of some savage beast, with its mouth gaping wide; an iron cuirass covered his body, and he carried a long halberd in his hand. The extreme heat of the weather was very favourable to the Romans. They had been careful to get the sun on their backs; while the Cimbri little accustomed to its violence, had it in their faces*. Besides this, the dust hid from the eyes of the Romans the astonishing multitude of their enemies, so that they fought with the more confidence, and of course more courage. The Cimbri, exhausted and dispirited, were quickly routed A precaution, which they had taken to prevent their being dispersed, only served to forward their ruin; they had linked the soldiers of the foremost ranks to one another with chains; in these they were entangled, and thereby exposed the more to the blows of the Romans. Such as could fly, met with new dangers in their camp; for their women who sat upon their chariots, clothed in black, received them as enemies, and massacred without distinction their fathers, brothers, and husbands; they even carried their rage to such a height, as to dash out the brains of their children; and completed the tragedy, by throwing themselves under their chariot wheels. After their example, their husbands in despair turned their arms against one another, and seemed to join with the Romans in promoting their own defeat. In the dreadful slaughter of that day, a hundred and twenty thousand are said to have perished; and if we except a few families of the Cimbri, which remained in their own country, and a small

* We are told that the Cimbri were on the point of gaining the victory, when the sun, breaking through the clouds, blinded them. If this story be true, the fate of the world hung upon a sunbeam! It apparently often does hang upon a very slender thread. "Si le nez de Cleopatre eût été plus court, toute la face de la terre auroit changé," says Pascal, 1 P. A. 9, s. 56.-ED.

number who escaped, one may say, that this fierce and valiant nation was all mowed down at one single stroke. This last victory procured Marius the honours of a triumph, and the services he thereby rendered the commonwealth appeared so great, that he received the glorious title of Third Founder of Rome.

Thus have we given, in a few words, what historians relate of the expedition of the Cimbri; it drew upon them for a moment the attention of all Europe. But as literature, and the fine arts, can alone give lasting fame to a nation, and as we easily lose the remembrance of those evils we no longer fear, this torrent was no sooner withdrawn within its ancient bounds, but the Romans themselves lost sight of it, so that we scarcely find any farther mention of the Cimbri in any of their writers. Strabo only informs us, that they afterwards sought the friendship of Augustus, and sent for a present a vase, which they made use of in their sacrifices; and Tacitus tells us, in one word, that the Cimbri had nothing left but a celebrated name, and a reputation as ancient as it was extensive.

I do not pretend to decide whether the first inhabitants of these countries were all of them, without any mixture, of Germanic origin, Cimbri and Teutones*. For although to

* Whether the ancient Cimbri, and their confederates the Teutones, who made the irruption into the Roman empire in the time of Marius, were a Celtic or a Gothic people may perhaps admit of some disquisition. They who contend that they were Celts, may urge the resemblance of the name of Cimbri to that of Cymri, by which the Britons have always called themselves in their own language: they may also produce the authority of Appian, who expressly calls the Cimbri Celts; as well as of several of the Roman authors, who scruple not to name them Gauls. It may further be observed in favour of this opinion, that the emigration of so large a body of the old Celtic inhabitants, would facilitate the invasion of the Gothic tribes who succeeded them in these northern settlements, and will account for the rapid conquests of Odin and his Asiatic followers: it might also be conjectured, that the small scattered remains of these old Celtic Cimbri, were the savage men who lurked up and down in the forests and mountains, as described by

"Appianus in Illyricis Cimbros Celtas, addito quos Cimbros vocant, appellavit. Et evolve Florum, lib. iii. cap. 3. Salustium Bell. Jugurth. in fine. Rufum Brev. cap. vi. qui omnes Cimbros diserté Gallos et ab extremis Gallia profugos, nominarunt." Speneri Notitia Germaniæ Antiquæ. Hal. Magd. 1717, 4to. p. 123.

me this appears very probable, with regard to Denmark, it cannot be denied that the Finns and Laplanders anciently

the ancient Icelandic historians, and who, in their size and ferocity, so well correspond with the descriptions given us of their countrymen that invaded the Roman empire. Thus far such an opinion is equally consistent both with the Roman and northern historians. On the other hand, that the Cimbri of Marius were not a Celtic, but a German or a Gothic people, is an opinion that may be supported with no slight arguments. On this head it may be observed, with our author, Mons. Mallet, "that the ancients generally considered this people as a branch of the Germans," and that their tall stature and general character rather corresponds with the description of the Germans than of the Celts that as for the name of Cimbri or Cimber, it is resolvable into a word in the German language, which signifies warrior or warlike": and that the authorities of the Roman historians cannot much be depended on, because (as has been before observed) they were seldom exact in the names they gave to the barbarous nations. It may further be urged, that the facility with which the Cimbri made their way through Germany into Gaul, renders it probable that they were rather a branch of the German people, than of a race in constant enmity with them, like the Celts, and who, upon that account, would have been opposed in their passage; especially as the Germans appear in these countries rather to have prevailed over the Celts, and to have forced them westward, driving them out of many of their settlements. But lastly, if the Cimbri had been a Celtic people, then such of them as were left behind in their own country, and were afterwards swal

a Germanis quidem Camp exercitum aut locum ubi exercitus castra metatur, significat; inde ipsis vir castrensis et militaris Kemffer et Kempher et Kemper et Kimber et Kamper, pro varietate dialectorum vocatur; vocabu lum hoc nostro (sc. Anglico) Sermone nondum penitus exolevit; Norfol ciences enim plebeio et proletario sermone dicunt "He is a Kemper Old Man." i. e. Senex vegetus est. Sheringham, p. 57. See also, Kemperye Man, in the "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry," vol. i. p. 70. Sheringham afterwards adds, Illud autem hoc loco omittendum non est, Cimbros quoque à proceritate corporis hoc nomen habere potuisse ... Kimber enim aliá significatione hominem giganteá corporis mole præditum designat. "Danico hodie idiomate, (inquit Pontanus, in additam. ad Hist. Dan. lib. 1). Kimber sive Kempe et Kemper non bellatorum tantùm sed proprie Gigantem notat.” Sheringham, p. 58. From hence it should seem, that a gigantic person was called Kimber, from his resemblance to the ancient Cimbri; rather than that this people were called Cimbri, from their gigantic size; so that this favours the opinion that the Cimbri were a different race from the ancient Danes, &c., because no nation would think of calling themselves giants; for if they were all uniformly gigantic, there would appear to themselves nothing remarkable in their size; whereas this would strike another people as a primary and leading distinction.

possessed a much more considerable part of Scandinavia than they do at present. This was the opinion of Grotius and Leibnitz. According to them, these people were formerly spread over the southern parts of Norway and Sweden, whence, in process of time, they have been driven out by new colonies of Scythians and Germans, and banished among the northern rocks; in like manner as the ancient inhabitants of Britain have been dispossessed by the Saxons of the greatest and most pleasant part of their island, and constrained to conceal themselves among the mountains in Wales, where, to this day, they retain their language, and preserve some traces of their ancient manners. But whether the Finns were formerly the entire possessors of Scandinavia, or were only somewhat more numerous than they are at present, it is very certain that this nation has been established there from the earliest ages, and has always differed from the other inhabitants of the north, by features so strong and remarkable, that we must acknowledge their origin to be as different from that of the others, as it is utterly unknown to us. The language of the Finns has nothing in common with that of any neighbouring people, neither does it resemble any dialect of the ancient Teutonic or Celtic tongues. The learned, who have taken the pains to compare the great Finland Bible printed at Abo, with a multitude of others, could never find the least resemblance between this and any other known language, so that after all their researches on this head, they have been obliged to propose mere conjectures, among which

lowed up among the succeeding Gothic tribes who invaded Scandinavia, would have given a tincture of their Celtic language to that branch of the Teutonic, which was spoke in these countries: or, at least, we should have found more Celtic names of mountains, rivers, &c., in the Cimbric Chersonese than in other Gothic settlements: but I do not find that either of these is the case; the old Icelandic seems to be as free from any Celtic mixture, as any other Gothic dialect; nor is there any remarkable prevalence of Celtic names in the peninsula of Jutland, more than in any part of Germany; where I believe its former Celtic inhabitants have up and down left behind them a few names of places, chiefly of natural situations, as of rivers, mountains, &c. This at least is the case in England, where, although the Britons were so entirely extirpated, that scarce a single word of the Welsh language was admitted by the Saxons; and although the names of towns and villages are almost universally of Anglo-Saxon derivation, yet the hills, forests, rivers, &c., have generally retained their old Celtic names.-P.

mankind are divided according to the particular light in which every one views the subject *.

CHAPTER II.

THE GROUNDS OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF DENMARK, AND OF THE DIFFERENT OPINIONS CONCERNING IT

Ox whatever side we direct our inquiries concerning the first inhabitants of Denmark, I. believe nothing certain can be added to the account given of them above. It is true, if we will take for our guides certain modern authors, our knowledge will not be confined within such scanty limits. They will lead us step by step through an uninterrupted succession of kings and judges, up to the first ages of the world, or at least to the deluge and there, receiving the descendants of Noah, as soon as they set foot out of the ark, will conduct them across the vast extent of deserts into Scandinavia, in order to found those states and kingdoms, which subist at present. Such is the scheme of Petreius, Lyschander, and other authors, who have followed what is called, among Danish historians, the Gothlandic hypothesis †, because it is built upon some pretended monuments found in the isle of Gothland, on the coast of Sweden: monuments which bear so many marks of imposition, that at present they are by common consent thrown aside among the most ill-concerted impostures.

The celebrated Rudbeck, a learned Swede, zealous for the glory of his countrymen, has endeavoured no less to procure

The reader will find, by referring to page 40, that at the present day, the Finnic language is no longer a mystery, and that so far from having " nothing in common with that of any neighbouring people," it has every thing in common with the languages of the neighbouring Lapps, Esthonians, Permians, &c.-Ed.

+ Petreius is a Danish author of the sixteenth century: Lyschander was historiographer to King Christian IV. His work, printed in Denmark at Copenhagen in 1669, bears this title: "An Abridgment of the Danish Histories from the beginning of the world to our own times." The arguments on which these authors found their accounts did not merit the pains which Torfæus and others have taken to refute them. The reader may consult, on this subject, the last-cited writer, in his "Series of Kings of Denmark," lib. i. c. 8.