# CHAPTER VIII.—_Why certain Nations leave their ancestral Seats and overflow the Countries of others._

Having spoken above of the methods followed by the Romans in making
war, and related how the Etruscans were attacked by the Gauls, it seems
to me not foreign to these topics to explain that of wars there are two
kinds. One kind of war has its origin in the ambition of princes or
republics who seek to extend their dominions. Such were the wars waged
by Alexander the Great, and by the Romans, and such are those which we
see every day carried on by one potentate against another. Wars of this
sort have their dangers, but do not utterly extirpate the inhabitants
of a country; what the conqueror seeks being merely the submission of
the conquered people, whom, generally speaking, he suffers to retain
their laws, and always their houses and goods.

The other species of war is when an entire people, with all the
families of which it is made up, being driven out by famine or defeat,
removes from its former seat, and goes in search of a new abode and a
new country, not simply with the view to establish dominion over it,
but to possess it as its own, and to expel or exterminate the former
inhabitants. Of this most terrible and cruel species of warfare Sallust
speaks at the end of his history of the war with Jugurtha, where in
mentioning that after the defeat of Jugurtha the movement of the Gauls
into Italy began to be noticed, he observes that “_in the wars of the
Romans with other nations the struggle was for mastery; but that always
in their wars with the Gauls the struggle on both sides was for life_.”
For a prince or commonwealth, when attacking another State, will be
content to rid themselves of those only who are at the head of affairs;
but an entire people, set in motion in the manner described, must
destroy all who oppose them, since their object is to subsist on that
whereon those whom they invade have hitherto subsisted.

The Romans had to pass through three of these desperate wars; the first
being that in which their city was actually captured by those Gauls
who, as already mentioned, had previously taken Lombardy from the
Etruscans and made it their seat, and for whose invasion Titus Livius
has assigned two causes. First, that they were attracted, as I have
said before, by the fruitful soil and by the wine of Italy which they
had not in Gaul; second, that their population having multiplied so
greatly that they could no longer find wherewithal to live on at home,
the princes of their land decided that certain of their number should
go forth to seek a new abode; and so deciding, chose as leaders of
those who were to go, two Gaulish chiefs, Bellovesus and Siccovesus;
the former of whom came into Italy while the latter passed into Spain.
From the immigration under Bellovesus resulted the occupation of
Lombardy, and, subsequently, the first war of the Gauls with Rome. At a
later date, and after the close of the first war with Carthage, came
the second Gallic invasion, when more than two hundred thousand Gauls
perished in battle between Piombino and Pisa. The third of these wars
broke out on the descent into Italy of the Todi and Cimbri, who, after
defeating several Roman armies, were themselves defeated by Marius.

In these three most dangerous contests the arms of Rome prevailed; but
no ordinary valour was needed for their success. For we see afterwards,
when the spirit of the Romans had declined, and their armies had lost
their former excellence, their supremacy was overthrown by men of the
same race, that is to say by the Goths, the Vandals, and others like
them, who spread themselves over the whole of the Western Empire.

Nations such as these, quit, as I have said, their native land, when
forced by famine, or by defeat in domestic wars, to seek a new
habitation elsewhere. When those thus driven forth are in large
numbers, they violently invade the territories of other nations,
slaughtering the inhabitants, seizing on their possessions, founding
new kingdoms, and giving new names to provinces; as was done by Moses,
and by those tribes who overran the Roman Empire. For the new names
which we find in Italy and elsewhere, have no other origin than in
their having been given by these new occupants; as when the countries
formerly known as Gallia Cisalpina and Gallia Transalpina took the
names of Lombardy and France, from the Lombards and the Franks who
settled themselves there. In the same way Sclavonia was formerly known
as Illyria, Hungary as Pannonia, and England as Britain; while many
other provinces which it would be tedious to enumerate, have similarly
changed their designations; as when the name Judæa was given by Moses
to that part of Syria of which he took possession.

And since I have said above that nations such as those I have been
describing, are often driven by wars from their ancestral homes, and
forced to seek a new country elsewhere, I shall cite the instance of
the Maurusians, a people who anciently dwelt in Syria, but hearing of
the inroad of the Hebrews, and thinking themselves unable to resist
them, chose rather to seek safety in flight than to perish with their
country in a vain effort to defend it. For which reason, removing with
their families, they went to Africa, where, after driving out the
native inhabitants, they took up their abode; and although they could
not defend their own country, were able to possess themselves of a
country belonging to others. And Procopius, who writes the history of
the war which Belisarius conducted against those Vandals who seized on
Africa, relates, that on certain pillars standing in places where the
Maurusians once dwelt, he had read inscriptions in these words: “_We
Maurusians who fled before Joshua, the robber, the son of Nun_;”[7]
giving us to know the cause of their quitting Syria. Be this as it may,
nations thus driven forth by a supreme necessity, are, if they be in
great number, in the highest degree dangerous, and cannot be
successfully withstood except by a people who excel in arms.

 [7] Nos Maurusii qui fugimus a facie Jesu latronis filii Navæ.
 _Procop. Hist. Bell. Vand. II._


When those constrained to abandon their homes are not in large numbers,
they are not so dangerous as the nations of whom I have been speaking,
since they cannot use the same violence, but must trust to their
address to procure them a habitation; and, after procuring it, must
live with their neighbours as friends and companions, as we find Æneas,
Dido, the Massilians, and others like them to have lived; all of whom
contrived to maintain themselves in the districts in which they
settled, by securing the good will of the neighbouring nations.

Almost all the great emigrations of nations have been and continue to
be from the cold and barren region of Scythia, because from the
population there being excessive, and the soil ill able to support
them, they are forced to quit their home, many causes operating to
drive them forth and none to keep them back. And if, for the last five
hundred years, it has not happened that any of these nations has
actually overrun another country, there are various reasons to account
for it. First, the great clearance which that region made of its
inhabitants during the decline of the Roman Empire, when more than
thirty nations issued from it in succession; and next, the circumstance
that the countries of Germany and Hungary, whence also these nations
came, are now so much improved that men can live there in comfort, and
consequently are not constrained to shift their habitations. Besides
which, since these countries are occupied by a very warlike race, they
serve as a sort of bulwark to keep back the neighbouring Scythians, who
for this reason do not venture to attack them, nor attempt to force a
passage. Nevertheless, movements on a great scale have oftentimes been
begun by the Tartars, and been at once withstood by the Hungarians and
Poles, whose frequent boast it is, that but for them, Italy and the
Church would more than once have felt the weight of the Tartar arms.

Of the nations of whom I have been speaking, I shall now say no more.