The slave traffic was now very brisk. The Roman prefects, tribunes, etc., sold the prisoners of war made in the German invasions; while the Germans, in their turn, when successful, carried away or sold their booty to the human traffickers from various regions. Thus Aurelian, who was a military tribune previous to becoming emperor, sold several hundred Franks, Suevians, etc., probably in the city of Maguncia (Mayence). Soon the forays became more and more destructive, and for several centuries invasion succeeded invasion until the impoverishment and ruin of the people were accomplished. The issue of a long train of interacting social circumstances was the same in Gaul as in Italy: senators and oligarchs owned the lands and the cities, and proudly domineered, while the rest of the population sank into tenants, serfs, and bondmen, and most of them into chattels. These last had, of course, nothing to defend against the invaders, who even at times in many ways alleviated their condition: therefore the invaders were often received with open arms by the enslaved populations. When the destroyers of the Roman rule over Gaul finally settled therein, many of the nobles and rich magnates understood how to ingratiate themselves with their new masters, and thus shared in their spoils of lands and slaves. By far the greater number, however, were themselves ruined and enslaved. In Gaul, as over the whole ancient and Roman world, not the slaveholders but their slaves survived the general destruction, nay, finally stepped into the places once occupied by their enslavers and masters. XVI. GERMANS. AUTHORITIES: _Tacitus, Codex Legum Antiquorum Barbarorum, Jacob Grimm, Mentzel, Wirth, Puetter, Zimmerman, etc._ The Germans, in all probability, were the last of the Aryan stock who immigrated into Europe. History first discovers them finally settled in central Europe; and for how long a time they had previously roamed in the primitive forests of these regions it is impossible to conjecture. With the exception of the left bank of the Rhine, Switzerland, and the northern slopes of the Tyrolean Alps--which regions, in the course of centuries were conquered from various Keltic tribes--the Germany proper of to-day is about the same as when Cæsar met the barbarians on the Rhine. Then the Germans were rude savages, with but little agriculture; living on milk, cheese, and flesh; and their condition was in many respects similar, perhaps even inferior, to that of the Tartars, Kalmucks, and Bashkirs, who still rove over northern and central Asia.