The standard work on the world of the Germans. This book offers a magnificent panorama of 1,000 years of Germanic history. The thrilling narrative spans from the first conflicts of the Germans with the Romans, through the Migration Period and the fall of the Roman Empire, to the Viking conquests in the Middle Ages. In the days of Marius, the Cimbri and Teutons instilled fear and terror in the Romans. When the Romans attempted to subjugate Germania a hundred years later, they failed in costly wars. Although the Limes secured the eastern border of the Roman Empire for some time, it was repeatedly overrun by Germans from the third century onwards. Ultimately, in the storm of the Migration Period, the Western Roman Empire fell, and the emergence of Germanic successor states signaled the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages.