# 8. The Causes which lead Peoples to quit their own Country and to inundate the Lands of Others

Since we have just been discussing the procedure adopted by the Romans in their wars, and how the Tuscans were attacked by the Gauls, it will not be irrelevant here, I think, to point out that there are two ways in which wars come about. Sometimes they are due to the ambition of princes or of republics which are seeking to set up an empire; under which head fall the wars waged by Alexander the Great and those waged by the Romans, and those which are continually being waged between this power and that. Such wars are dangerous, but they do not entirely remove the inhabitants of the country invaded; for the victor is content provided its people became subject to his obedience, often lets them keep their own laws, and always leaves them their houses and their chattels. The other way in which war is brought about is when a whole people with all its families leaves a place, driven thence either by famine or by war, and sets out to look for a new home and a new country in which to live. In this case it does not, as in the previous case, merely govern there, but it takes possession of every single thing, and expels or kills the old inhabitants. This is war of the most cruel and terrifying kind. It is to such wars that Sallust refers when, towards the end of his Jugurtha, he says that, after Jugurtha’s defeat, the progress of the Gallic invasion of Italy began to be felt; and of this invasion says also that, whereas the Roman people fought with all other peoples merely for supremacy, with the Gauls the fight was always as to which of them should survive. For to a prince or to a republic that invades a foreign province it suffices if he gets rid of those who rule there, but to whole peoples it is essential to get rid of all the inhabitants since they want to live on that on which the others used to live.

The Romans sustained three of these extremely dangerous wars. During the first Rome was captured and occupied by those Gauls who, as we said, had taken Lombardy from the Tuscans and established themselves there. For this war Livy assigns two causes. First, as we said, they were attracted by the delicious Italian fruit and wines which in Gaul were not to be had. Secondly, the population of the kingdom of Gaul had multiplied to such an extent that they could no longer find enough food there, so the princes in those parts deemed it necessary that some of them should go in search of new lands, and, after discussing the matter, chose as the commanders of those who were to depart, Bellovesus and Sigovesus, two Gallic kings, of whom the first went to Italy, and the second crossed into Spain. The result of Bellovesus’ going to Italy was the occupation of Lombardy, and from this arose the first war which the Gauls made on Rome. The next was that which occurred after the first Punic war, when between Piombino and Pisa the Romans killed more than two hundred thousand Gauls. The third was that in which the Germans and the Cimbri invaded Italy, where, after defeating several Roman armies, they were beaten by Marius. The Romans, then, won these three highly hazardous wars, and to win them called for more than a modicum of virtue; for we see how, when, later on, the virtue of Rome declined and its armies lost their former virtue, their empire was destroyed by peoples of the same type, namely, by Goths, Vandals and such-like peoples, who occupied the whole of the Western empire.

Peoples such as these quit their own lands when constrained to do so by necessity, as had been said above; and the necessity is due either to famine or to a war or to hardships undergone in their own country; for in such a case they are constrained to go in search of new lands. And such peoples when they are very numerous and then make a violent incursion into the lands of others, kill the inhabitants, seize their goods, and establish a new kingdom under a new name. This was done by Moses and by the peoples who overran the Roman empire. For the new names now used in Italy and other provinces are due simply to their having been so called by their new conquerors. Thus, Lombardy used to be called Cisalpine Gaul; France used to be called Trans-Alpine Gaul, but got its present name from the Franks, who gave it this name when they occupied it. Slavonia used to be called Illyria; Hungary, Pannonia; England, Britannia; and so of many other provinces with changed names which it would be tedious to recount. So, too, Moses gave the name Judea to that part of Syria which he occupied.

Since I said above that such peoples are sometimes forced to go and look for new lands because they are driven from those they inhabit by war, I propose, as an instance of this, to cite the Moors, peoples that originally dwelt in Syria. When these peoples heard that the Hebrews were coming, they thought resistance impossible, so decided that it would be better to leave their country and save themselves rather than to lose themselves in an attempt to save their country. So with their families they deserted it and went to Africa, where they established themselves, after expelling the inhabitants whom they found in those parts. Thus, a people which could not defend its own country, succeeded in taking somebody else’s. Procopius, who writes of the war Belisarius waged with the Vandals, who occupied Africa, tells us he came across inscriptions on certain columns in places where the Moors used to live, which said: ‘We are the Moors, who fled before the face of Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun.’ This makes it clear why the Moors left Syria.

Peoples, therefore, who have been driven out by sheer necessity, are very formidable, and, unless confronted by good armies, can never be held back. But when those who are constrained to abandon their country are not numerous, they are not so dangerous as the peoples we have been discussing. For they have not the same force at their disposal, but must resort to artifice in order to get territory, and, having obtained it, must make alliances and form confederations in order to hold it; as we see that Aeneas, Dido, the Massilians, and such-like, did, all of whom maintained their footing in the place where they had settled by the consent of their neighbours.

The larger migrations, involving whole peoples, have come from Scythia, a country that is cold and poor. In it, when the population becomes large, the land is not fertile enough to sustain it, and they are forced to emigrate; for there are many causes to drive them out and none to keep them at home. And if for the last five hundred years there have been no inundations of these peoples, there are several causes that account for this. First, there was the great evacuation which occurred in that country during the decline of the Empire, when more than thirty peoples emigrated. Secondly, Germany and Hungary, from which emigrations of these peoples also took place, are now prosperous lands where people can live in comfort, so that there is no need to change their habitation. On the contrary, since these peoples are extremely warlike, they form a bastion which prevents the Scythians who live on their borders from attempting either to conquer them or to pass through them. There have also frequently been very great movements among the Tartars, which the Hungarians and the people of Poland have withstood; and it has often been their boast that, if it had not been for them, Italy and the Church would on many an occasion have felt the weight of Tartar armies. But of these peoples I think I have now said enough.