Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/382

 34!8 PLINT'S NATUBAL HISTOBT. [Book I Y. the Cherusci^ : the fifth race is that of the Peucini', who are also the Basternae, adjoining the Daci previously mentioned. The more famous rivers that flow into the ocean are the Gruttalus^ the Vistillus or Vistula, the Albis"*, the Yisurgis^ the Amisius®, the Rhine, aiM the Mosa''. In the interior is the long extent of the Hercjnian^ range, which in grandeur is inferior to none. •wald in the west to the Saale in Franconia, and from the river Maine in the south as far as the sources of the Ehson and the Weser, so that they occupied exactly the modern country of Hessen, inchidmg perhaps a portion of the north-west of Bavaria. See Gribbon, vol. iii. 99, JSohn's Ed. ^ The Cherusci were the most celebrated of all the Grerman tribes, and are mentioned by Caesar as of the same importance as the Suevi, from whom they were separated by the Silva Bacensis. There is some diffi- culty in stating their exact locahty, but it is generally supposed that their country extended from the Visurgis or Weser in the west to the Albis or Elbe in the east, and from MeUbocus in the north to the neigh- bourhood of the Sudeti in the south, so that the Chamavi and Lango- bardi were their northern neighbours, the Chatti the western, the Her- munduri the southern, and the Sihngi and Semnones their eastern neighbours. Tliis tribe, mider their chief Arminius or Hermann, form- ing a confederation with many smaller tribes in a.d. 9, completely defeated the Romans in the famou.s battle of the Teutoburg Forest. In later times they were conquered by the Chatti, so that Ptolemy speaks of them only as a small tribe on the south of the Hartz mountain. Their name afterwards appears, in the beginning of the fourth centmy, in the con- federation of the Franks. 2 The Peucini are mentioned here, as also by Tacitus, as identical with the Bastemse. As already mentioned, supposing them to be names for distinct nations, they must be taken a*^ only names of individual tribes, and not of groups of tribes. It is generally supposed that their first settlements in Sarmatia were in the highlands between the Theiss and the March, whence they passed onward to the lower Danube, as far as its mouth, where a portion of them, settling in the island of Pence, ob- tained the name of Peucini. In the later geographers we find them settled between the Tyrus or Dniester, and the Borysthenes or Dnieper, the Peucini remaining at the mouth of the Danube. 3 According to Parisot, the GTuttalus is the same as the Alle, a tribu- tary of the Pregel. Cluver thinks that it is the same as the Oder. Other writers again consider it the same as the Pregel. 4 Or Elbe. ^ Now the Weser. ^ The modem Ems. 7 TheMeuse. described by the writers of various ages. The earUest mention of it is by Aristotle. Judging from the accovmts given by Csesar, Pomponius Mela, and Strabo, the ' Hercynia SUva' appears to have been a general name for almost all the mountains of Southern and Central G-ermany, that is, from the sources of the Danube to Transylvania, comprising the
 * The ' Hercynia Silva,' Hercynian Forest or Range, is very differently