inclined to place, with the celebrated Torfæus, about 70 years before the birth of Christ. All that passed in Denmark before that period would be intirely unknown to us, if the famous expedition of the Cimbri into Italy had not drawn upon them the attention of a people who enjoyed the advantage of having historians. It is a single gleam, which for a moment throws light upon the ages of obscurity: short and transient as it is, let us nevertheless catch it, in order to discover, if possible, a feature or two of the character of this people.
The history of Rome § informs us, that in the consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo, about one hundred and eleven years before the Christian aera I, the republic was agitated by intestine divisions which already began to threaten it's liberty, when the intrigues of the several factions were all at once suspended by the sudden news of an irruption of Barbarians. More than three hundred thousand men, known by the name of Cimbri and Teutones, who chiefly issued from the Cimbric Chersonese and the neighbouring islands, had forsaken their country to go in search of a more
§ See PLUTARCH in Mario. OROS. 1. 5. - 5.- Vel. PATERCUL. 1. 2.- T. LIV. epit. 1. 68.--Flor. 1. 3. c. 30. Anno Urb. cond. 640.
