er to the superior might of the Northern warriors, might not inaptly recall those other lines of the same book of the Iliad, where the downfall of Patroclus beneath Hector is likened to the forced yielding of the panting and exhausted wild boar, that had long and furiously fought with a superior beast of prey for the possession of the fountain among the rocks, at which each burned to drink.[1]
Although three centuries had passed away since the Germanic conquerors of Rome had crossed the Rhine, never to repass that frontier stream, no settled system of institutions or government, no amalgamation of the various races into one people, no uniformity of language or habits, had been established in the country at the time when Charles Martel was called on to repel the menacing tide of Saracenic invasion from the south. Gaul was not yet France. In that, as in other provinces of the Roman empire of the West, the dominion of the Cæsars had been shattered as early as the fifth century, and barbaric kingdoms and principalities had promptly arisen on the ruins of the Roman power. But few of these had any permanency; and none of them consolidated the rest, or any considerable number of the rest, into one coherent and organized civil and political society. The great bulk of the population still consisted of the conquered provincials, that is to say, of Romanized Celts, of a Gallic race which had long been under the dominion of the Cæsars, and had acquired, together with no slight infusion of Roman blood, the language, the literature, the laws, and the civilization of Latium. Among these, and dominant over them, roved or dwelt the German victors; some retaining nearly all the rude independence of their primitive national character; others softened and disciplined by the aspect and contact of the manners and institutions of civilized life; for it is to be borne in mind, that the Roman empire in the West was not crushed by any sudden avalanche
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Λέονθ’ ὡς, δηρινθήτην,
Ὥ τ’ ὄρεος κορυφῇσι περὶ κταμένης ἐλάφοιο,
Ἄμφω πεινάοντε, μέλα φρονέοντε μάχεσθον.Il., πʹ. 756.Ὡς δ’ ὅτε σῦν ἀκάμαντα λέων ἐβιήσατο χάρμῃ,
Τώ τ’ ὄρεός κορυφῇσι μέγα φρονέοντε μάχεσθον,
Πίδακος ἀμφ’ ὀλίγης· ἐθέλουσί δε πιέμεν ἄμφω·
Πολλὰ δέ τ’ ἀσθμαίνοντα λέων ἐδάμασσε βιῇφιν.Il., πʹ. 823.
