THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW ORDER 15On the last day of the year 406 a confederacy of various Germanic
peoples, of whom the two branches of the Vandals, the Silings and
the Hasdings, together with the Sueves, are named in the sources,
with the non-Germanic nomad Alans and other unspecified tribes,
crossed the frozen Rhine into the Roman Empire. These peoples
spent the next three years moving from the area of their crossing, on
the middle Rhine around Mainz, firstly northwards to the Channel
and then south-west towards the Pyrenees, finally reaching them at
their western end by the autumn of 409. Difficulties of obtaining food
sufficient for their needs and lack of the secure possession of land on
which to settle kept them thus constantly on the move. Living off the
land as they passed, they are reported to have caused much destruc-
tion and hardship in Gaul. Political disorder followed in their wake.
Why these tribes united, however briefly and loosely, and broke
into the Roman Empire, deserting their former homelands and reli-
gious cult-sites, is more of a mystery than may appear at first sight. It
was by no means a natural development, long anticipated, but was
clearly the product of unusual circumstances. Not the least striking
feature is that the Alans were previously reported, in the 370s, living
to the east of the river Don and north of the Caucasus. A consider-
able migration was required to bring them to the Rhine in 406. Nor
did such apparently Uralo-Altaic nomads make natural allies for small
western-Germanic tribes such as the Vandals and the Sueves, who had
lived on the frontiers of the Roman Empire for the previous four
centuries. Whatever its origins may have been, the breaking of the
Rhine frontier in the winter of 406-7 initiated the final disintegration
of the western Roman Empire, and with it the end of Roman rule in
Spain.
To this end other events within the frontiers also had a part to play.
Just prior to these happenings on the Rhine, sometime earlier in 406,
the units of the Roman army that were stationed in Britain rebelled.
They set up, and for little apparent reason then murdered, two em-
perors before fastening upon a third, called Constantine, either late
in 406 or more probably early in 407. This Constantine, chosen,
Orosius tells us, because the soldiers thought that his name, that of
the first Christian emperor, would be lucky, immediately crossed the
channel with his army to Boulogne, and benefiting from the chaos of
the barbarian incursion, made himself the master of Gaul during the
course of 407.' As it had been usual in the fourth century for Spain
to follow the lead of Gaul in terms of political adherence, it is no
surprise to find that by 409 the peninsula had also become attached