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 chap, xlii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 367 that you are continually seeking for nations to whom, either in peace or war, you may relinquish these useless possessions. The Gepidse are your brave and faithful allies ; and, if they have anticipated your gifts, they have shewn a just confidence in your bounty." Their presumption was excused by the mode of revenge which Justinian embraced. Instead of asserting the rights of a sovereign for the protection of his subjects, the emperor invited a strange people to invade and possess the Roman provinces between the Danube and the Alps ; and the ambition of the Gepidae was checked by the rising power and fame of the Lombabds. 8 This corrupt appellation has been The Lom- diffused in the thirteenth century by the merchants and bankers, the Italian posterity of these savage warriors ; but the original name of Langobards is expressive only of the peculiar length and fashion of their beards. I am not disposed either to question or to justify their Scandinavian origin ; 9 nor to pursue the migrations of the Lombards through unknown regions and marvellous adventures. About the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered, for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce beyond the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the tremendous belief that their heads were formed like the heads of dogs and that they drank the blood of their enemies whom they vanquished in battle. The smallness of their numbers was recruited by the adoption of their bravest slaves; and alone, amidst their powerful neighbours, they defended by 8 Gens Germana feritate ferocior, says Velleius Paterculus of the Lombards (ii. 106). Langobardos paucitas nobilitat. Plurimis ao valentissimis nationibus cincti non per obsequiurn sed prasliis et periclitando tuti sunt (Tacit, de Moribus German, e. 40). See likewise Strabo (1. vii. p. 446 [2, § 4]). The best geographers place them beyond the Elbe, in the bishopric of Magdeburg and the middle march of Brandenburg ; and their situation 'will agree with the patriotic remark of the Count de Hertzberg, that most of the Barbarian conquerors issued from the same countries which still produce the armies of Prussia. [Cp. Ptolemy, Geogr. ii. 11, 8 and 17 ; he places them west of the Elbe.] 9 The Scandinavian origin of the Goths and Lombards, as stated by Paul Warnefrid, surnamed the deacon, is attacked by Cluverius (Germania Antiq. 1. iii. c. 26, p. 102, <fec), a native of Prussia, and defended by Grotius (Prolegom. ad Hist. Goth. p. 28, &c), the Swedish ambassador. [Other derivations suggested for hRugo-bardi are bord (cp. English sea-board) and barta "axe" (cp. halbert). The name would then mean, accordingly, the long-shore-men, or the long-halbert-bear- ing-men (Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, v. 85). For the Lombard legend of their Scandinavian origin, see Hodgkin, ib. 90 sqq. ; L. Schmidt, Zur Geschichte der Langobarden (1885).]