GERMA'NIA was the general name under which the Romans designated not only great part of modern Germany, but also a portion of Belgium and the n. and north eastern districts of Gaul, the two last being more especially characterized as "Germania Prima" and " Secunda," while Germany proper was also called " Germania Magna," "Germania Trans-Rhenana," or "Germania Barbara." The boundaries of the region comprehended under these designations were—on the west, the Rhine and Celtic Gaul; on the e., the Vistula and the Carpathian mountains; on the s., the Danube; and on the n., the sea, which was divided by the Chnbrian Chersonesus (Jutland) into the German and the Suevic (Baltic) seas. The first occurrence in connection with the history of the people of Germania with which we are acquainted, was the appearance of warlike tribes of Cimbri and Teutones in the present Steiermark or Stiria, where they defeated the Roman consul Papirius, in the year 113 B.C. Eleven years later, they again came into collision with the Roman arms, but the result was their signal defeat by Marius. The names Germani and Germania do not seem to have been appellations in use among the people themselves, and it is probable that the Romans borrowed them from the Gauls or Celts, in whose language the word "gairm," a loud cry (like the Homeric ban agathos, "good at the war-shout "), may possibly have served to designate this people, whose habit it was to accompany their attack on an enemy by loud cries. The Tungri were the first German people that crossed the Rhine, but other tribes soon followed; and when Julius Cwsar opened his Gallic campaigns (58 n.c.), he found the Germanic nations of the Triboci, Nemetes, and Vangiones in possession of the districts lying between the left bank of the Rhine and the 'Vosges, while he even encountered a rival pretender to the'supremacy of Gaul in the person of Ariovistus, the leader of the Suevic tribe of the Marcomanni. All these tribes were, however, finally reduced to subjection with the rest of Gaul, while the Tencteri and lisipetes, who had invaded Belgium, were driven, together with the Sicambri, across the Rhine to their former settlements by the victorious general, who for the first time (55 n.c.) led a Roman army into Trans-Rhenic Germany. The quiet which CBsar's victories had secured in the Rhenish districts was again so seriously disturbed by the lisipetes and several of the neighboring tribes in the year 16 n.c., that Augustus. who had hastened to Gaul on the outbreak of disturbances, saw that stringent measures must he adopted to keep the Germans in check, and sent Drusus at the head of eight legions into Germany. The first step of the Roman general was to dig a canal fossa Drusiana") from the Rhine to the Yssel, by which the Roman gal leys could sail from the heart of the continent to the ocean; and so successful were his measures, that in the course of four campaigns be had carried the Roman arms as far as the Albis (Elbe), subdued the Frisii, Batavi, and Chauci in the n., and defeated the Catti of the Moenus (Maine) districts. Drusus, who died 9 B.C., began the series of forts, bridges, and roads which were completed and extended under succeeding com manders. The attempt made by Yarns, under the direction of Augustus, to introduce the Roman provincial forms of administration into Germany, brought, however, a sudden check to the advance and consolidation of Roman power; for the tribes of central Germany, indignant at this attempted subversion of their national institutions, ranged themselves under the leadership of Arminius, a chief of the Cherusci, who organized a general revolt. The result of this movement was the destruction, at the
Saltus Teutobergiensis, of the three legions commanded by Yarns, and the subsequent loss of all the Roman possessions between the Weser and the Rhine. The news of this disastrous event threw the city of Rome into consternation. Germanicus, who was sent forth in 14 A.D. to restore Roman supremacy, would probably have again wholly subjugated the Germanic tribes had he not been recalled by Tiberius in the midst of his victories. From this time forth the Romans ceased their attempts to conquer Germany, and contented themselves with repelling the incursions which the tribes made on their frontiers, and endeavoring by their influence to foster the intestine disturbances which were perpetually generated through the ambition and jealousy of rival leaders, such as Arminius, Marbodius, and the Goth, Catualda. After the murder of Arminius by his own people, the power of the Cherusci declined, while the Longobardi and Catti began to assert a recognized preponderance among the neighltoring tribes. Occasional encoun ters took place between the people of central Germany and thelegions who guarded the well-protected Roman boundary-line, which extended from the Rhine to the^Taunus, and from thence to the Danube; and from time to time the Batavii and other warlike tribes of the n. and n.w., who, like them, had been brought into partial dependence on the Romans, rose in formidable insurrection; but after Trajan had restored order and strengtheped' the forts, peace remained undisturbed in the n. till the beginning of the 3d c., while, with the exception of the sanguinary war of the Marcomanni and Quadi under Aurelius Autoninus in the year 166 A.D., there was a similar absence of hostilities in the south. But with the 3d c., the tide of war turned, and the Romans were now compelled to defend their own empire from the inroads of the numerous Germanic tribes, foremost among whom stood the powerful confederacies of the Alemanni and Franks.• In their track followed, during the next two centuries, successive hordes of the Vandals, Suevi, Heruli, Goths, and Longobards, who soon formed for themselves states and principalities on the ruins of the old Roman provinces. From this period till the establishment of the western empire in the person of Charlemagne. the history of Germany is a blank; but the condition of the country when he entered on the pos session of his German pattiniony, showed that since the retirement of the Romans the lesser tribes had become gradually absorbed in the larger, for on his accession the lathl was held by a few great nations only, as the Saxons, Frisians, Franks, Suabians, and Bavarians, whose leaders exorcized sovereign power within their own territories, and, in return for military services, parcelled out their lands to their followers.