They encounter those Suevi or proto-Suevi that live on the border of today’s Germany and France, subdue them or assimilate them and press on. Why? Because the good stuff is in the South – the Sun, the beaches, the women, the really fast chariots with spoilers – in other words, civilization. The process takes hundreds of years as the funnel keeps sending forth new hordes always southwards. Whatever Suevic tribes existed in their path become Germanized; others become the Suevi of Tacitus retreating beyond the Rhine; yet others retreat westwards towards Bretagne.In a way Europe and the Slavic lands are cloven asunder by these northern invaders (though, again, the “cleaving” can be left aside if we forgo the Veneti of Bretagne but we are not yet ready to do so, so let the cleaving go on).

Eventually, these new mixed peoples – let’s call them Galls – make it to the Alps and push around them on both sides. A kind of Thor’s Hammer forms with the handle reaching up to Scandinavia but the head of it pressed against the Alps. Finally, the Galls begin to raid Italy just as Rome rises.