TIIE GERMANS AND Ht's. The migrations of the Teutonic or Germanic tribes, during the years of decline of the Roman Empire. had a pro found influence upon the social and political de velopment of airline. and are known preeminent ly as 'the migrations' ( Vifikerwanderung). The Germans. in the centuries following the period when Tacitus gave his lucid and generally cor rect account of them in the Germania. were en gaged in intertribal strife, which resulted in the loss of identity of several of the weaker tribes, the remnants of which were merged in the new eonfederacies—Goths, Vandals. Alemanni. Franks 1.14v.), and 13urgundians. In the fourth cen tury A.D. the Goths were spread over the country north of the Danube. There came upon them from Asia a great migratory wave of the nomadic Huns (q.v.), an aggregation of Turko Tatar tribes, whose ancestors had held the Chinese Empire in temporary subjeetion. The Coths were 'unable to resist this inroad of over whelming numbers. and a part of them, the Visi goths, who were nearest the Dannhe. threw them selves on the mercy of the Emperor Valens, and crossed the river in 37a. Soon after. owing to ill-treatment at the hands of Homan offieials, they revolted against the Empire, defeated the Roman army in a battle under the walls of Adrianople (A.n. 37S), in which Valens was killed, and then moved westward under their King. Alarir (q.v.). into the valley of the Po. The forces of the Western Empire under the Vandal Stilieho checked their progress temporarily and drove them back into Pannonia; but after the miller of Stilielm in 40S they returned to Italy and rap tured Mime (410), soon after which Marie died. This followers, at first in the service of the Em pire. afterwards on their own account. went into Southern nand and Spain. and there founded the Visigothic kingdom, the Millie part of which continued until it was conquered by the Franks (507-10). The part south of the Pyrenees was conquered in the great Mohammedan invasion of 711. The Vandals left their homes, which lay between the Goths and the Ilaltie, and moved southeast and then westward to Pannonia, where they Were when the battle of Adrianople showed conclusively the weakness of the Roman Empire. After a restless period of several years they were again in motion in 406, united with the `nevi and Alani. They swept forward through the north of t4aul and southward into Spain. where they pre
ceded the Visigoths, who appeared in the Penin sula and overthrew them in the name of Rome. in •f29 they crossed the straits, conquered the North African provinces, set up a Vandal king dom, and entered upon a career of piracy on the Mediterranean. In 455 they raided and sacked Rome. The Vandal kingdom was overthrown in 534 by the armies of the Emperor Justinian (q.v ). The Burgundians, living on the Vistula near the Goths and the Vandals, migrated south ward to the Rhine frontier of the Roman Empire in the latter part of the third century. received some land from the Emperor Honoring, and spread over the Rhone and Saone valleys soon after the founding of the Visigothic kingdom. The Burgundian kingdom there established was conquered by the Franks in 534.
The Ostrogoths, who had as a whole been sub dued by the Huns when their cousins the Visi goths escaped across the Danube, settled in Pan nonia about 453. In 476 Theodorie, the ablest of all the barbarian chieftains of the period of the migrations. became King of the Ostrogoths. He offered the services of his people to put down the independent kingdom which had been set up in Italy, in defiance of the Empire, by Odoneer, a German adventurer. With the expectation of conquering for themselves new and pleasanter homes in Italy, the Ostrogothic people set out with all their impedimenta. The forces of Odoacer were successfully encountered in Lom hardy and he was driven back into his capital, Ravenna, where he endured a long siege. The city was finally taken and the defeated King was treacherously killed. Thendoric then set up a kingdom, acknowledging nominal subjection to the Emperor, but in reality acting as an inde pendent sovereign. He developed the most equit able and enlightened government then existing in the Roman world; hut his own strong head and hand were necessary to maintain it, and after his death the Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy grad ually lost its power, and was finally overthrown under Justinian in 553, when Nurses (q.v.) com pleted the reconquest of Italy for the Eastern Empire. The Ostrogothic occupation left a per manent influence upon the laws, customs, and language of Italy, although these remained at bottom thoroughly Italian, the German leaven being a comparatively small one.