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Updated: May 29, 2025
Two chiefs of barbarian hordes, Westralph and Chnodomar, invaded the region; other barbarians, Burgunds by name, who came from the region of Mayence, in torn drove away the first invaders and established themselves at about the year 416. These Burgunds, who gave their name to the region, were a pastoral people and less savage than the other tribes that poured in from Germany.
The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example inspired.
Instead of exhibiting the vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile.
Taxation, on those left to tax, falls an intolerable burden; we have seen how Shah Sapor is dealing with one end of the empire; at the other end, in Gaul, one Magnentius rose against Constantius, and the latter thoughtfully invited in the Germans to put him down and help themselves to what they found handy; and a certain Chnodomar, a king in those trans-Rhenish regions, has taken him much at his word.
Result: a strip forty miles wide along the left bank of the Rhine from source to mouth has been conquered and annexed; three times as much this side is a perfectly desolate No-man's land; forty-five important cities, including Cologne and Strasbourg, have been reduced to ashes, with innumerable smaller towns and villages; all open towns in north-eastern Gaul have been abandoned; the people of the walled cities are starving on what corn they can grow on vacant corner lots and in their own back-gardens; hundreds of thousands have been killed out, or carried off into slavery in Germany; and King Chnodomar has every reason to think that God is behaving in a very reasonable manner.
Chnodomar himself was surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the abject humiliation, of his captive.
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