The Whole North Into Gaul

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I have been researching the possibility of Alemannic participation in the Battle; they are not mentioned by the sources at all, but Attila would have had to pass through their territory in order to get to Gaul.

Reading Drinkwater's The Alamanni and Rome, he suggests that, based on Archaeological evidence, the Alamanni served in the old Roman Limitanei Garrisons on the Rhine. His argument is that these Garrisons had been established (and recruiting Right-Bank Germans) since the 3rd century, and were difficult to uproot, therefore providing an "Arm" of Roman military presence from the Swiss Alps to the North sea, which would have been useful in Aetius' time as a force for checking Barbarians internally, and preventing more from coming into the Empire. He even goes so far as to suggest that the Alamanni provided manpower for Aetius' army.

Although some of this is doubtful (I would imagine that much of the Rhine Frontier was not under direct Roman influence, although it could be supported that it was based on the recapture of Cologne and Trier in the 430's/440's), my interest is that in discussing possible Alamannic participation at Chalons, he says that Geuenich suggests that the "Neckar" part of Sidonius' description of Attila's forces was a rhetorical bit, and these could have been any franks.

This reference would be useful for my article, in the section of Frankish troops participating at the Battle of Chalons. I have determined the Author must be Dieter Geuenich, who writes in German, and the book is from 1997(-ish). Does anyone know of this particular passage and can reference it to me? Even if I could find the text it's in German.