Like the
Rhone, it is rapid; broad like the Loire; encased, like the Meuse;
serpentine, like the Seine; limpid and green, like the Somme;
historical, like the Tiber; royal like the Danube; mysterious, like the
Nile; spangled with gold, like an American river; and like a river of
Asia, abounding with fantoms and fables.
From historical records we find that the first people who took
possession of the banks of the Rhine were the half-savage Celts, who
were afterward named Gauls by the Romans. When Rome was in its glory,
Caesar crossed the Rhine, and shortly afterward the whole of the river
was under the jurisdiction of his empire. When the Twenty-second Legion
returned from the siege of Jerusalem, Titus sent it to the banks of the
Rhine, where it continued the work of Martius Agrippa. After Trajan and
Hadrian came Julian, who erected a fortress upon the confluence of the
Rhine and the Moselle; then Valentinian, who built a number of castles.
Thus, in a few centuries, Roman colonies, like an immense chain, linked
the whole of the Rhine.
At length the time arrived when Rome was to assume another aspect. The
incursions of the northern hordes were eventually too frequent and too
powerful for Rome; so, about the sixth century, the banks of the Rhine
were strewed with Roman ruins, as at present with feudal ones.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25