There is not, for instance, any difficul_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the

ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the

generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their

master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to

frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the

throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can

only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out

in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the

legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer, 1 named Marinus,

was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He

dreaded lest the treason of the Mæsian army should prove the

first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the

consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the

intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the

effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length

Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his

noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the

emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with

contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip’s rival

as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be

destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The

speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just

esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the

only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army

whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the

murder of Marinus. Decius, 2 who long resisted his own

nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a

leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the

soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event.

The legions of Mæsia forced their judge to become their

accomplice. They left him only the alternative of death or the

purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was

unavoidable. He conducted, or followed, his army to the confines

of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the

formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet

him. The Imperial troops were superior in number; but the rebels

formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced

leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a

few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the

empire was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the

victorious Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the

ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally

acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that,

immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of

Augustus, he had assured Philip, by a private message, of his

innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival

on Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to

the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be

sincere; but in the situation where fortune had placed him, it

was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be

forgiven. 3

1 (return) [ The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may

signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.]

2 (return) [ His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia,

(Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Cæsarib. et Epitom.,) seems to

contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent

from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the

Decii: but at the commencement of that period, they were only

plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship

with the haughty patricians. Plebeine Deciorum animæ, &c.

Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in

Livy. x. 9, 10.]

3 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 20, c. 22. Zonaras, l. xii. p.

624, edit. Louvre.]

The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of

peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to

the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the

first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great

people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol,

and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part

which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that

the name of Goths is frequently but improperly used as a general

appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.

In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of

Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very

naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and of

future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their

ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements.

The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned

Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a

Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to

the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. 4 These writers passed

with the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the

nation, celebrated its successful valor, and adorned the triumph

with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the

people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain,

but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first

origin of the Goths from the vast island, or peninsula, of

Scandinavia. 5 501 That extreme country of the North was not

unknown to the conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient

consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of

friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his

savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in

the peaceful and polished court of Ravenna. 6 Many vestiges,

which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest

the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the

Rhine. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part

of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less

enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even

at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle

ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst

Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the North,

the Goths and the Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes

hostile members of the same monarchy. 7 The latter of these two

names has prevailed without extinguishing the former. The Swedes,

who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have, in

every age, claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of

discontent against the court of Rome, Charles the Twelfth

insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated from

their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of

the world. 8

4 (return) [ See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is

surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent

edition, published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]

5 (return) [ On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some

old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]

501 (return) [ The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was

not their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of

the Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long

before, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the

north-west of Poland. A little before the birth of J. C., and in

the first years of that century, they belonged to the kingdom of

Marbod, king of the Marcomanni: but Cotwalda, a young Gothic

prince, delivered them from that tyranny, and established his own

power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni, already much weakened

by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the Goths at that time

must have been great: it was probably from them that the Sinus

Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards called

Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the

proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed

into Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany,

p. 200. Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.—G. ——M. St. Martin observes,

that the Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority

of Jornandes, who professed to derive it from the traditions of

the Goths. He is supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet

the Goths are unquestionably the same with the Getæ of the

earlier historians. St. Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas

Empire, iii. 324. The identity of the Getæ and Goths is by no

means generally admitted. On the whole, they seem to be one vast

branch of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread irregularly towards

the north of Europe, and at different periods, and in different

regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of the

south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these

Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are

strong grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by

the Danish Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas,

which Malte Brun considers genuine, the Goths were in possession

of Scandinavia, Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a

tract on the continent (Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the

Vistula and the Oder. In their southern migration, they followed

the course of the Vistula; afterwards, of the Dnieper. Malte

Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the historian of

Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the Goths. The

Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the

Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: “I think that I am

reading Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas.” Bopp, Conjugations

System der Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x—M.]

6 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 3.]

7 (return) [ See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large

extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former

wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year

1200.]

8 (return) [ Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. iii. When the

Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus

Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal

successor of Alaric. Harte’s History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p.

123.]

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple

subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and

Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had

acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the

uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god

of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the

general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine

animals of every species (without excepting the human) were

sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred

grove adjacent to the temple. 9 The only traces that now subsist

of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, 901 a

system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth

century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the

most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.

9 (return) [ See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 105.

The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who

began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years

afterwards, a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See

Dalin’s History of Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonee.]

901 (return) [ The Eddas have at length been made accessible to

European scholars by the completion of the publication of the

Sæmundine Edda by the Arna Magnæan Commission, in 3 vols. 4to.,

with a copious lexicon of northern mythology.—M.]

Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can

easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin;

the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The

latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted

to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side

of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by

his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a

most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a

long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death.

Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and

infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn

assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine

mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying

voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of

war. 10

10 (return) [ Mallet, Introduction a l’Histoire du Dannemarc.]

The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the

appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with

As-burg, or As-of, 11 words of a similar signification, has given

rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we

could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is

supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians which

dwelt on the banks of the Lake Mæotis, till the fall of

Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the North with

servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power he

was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of

the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of

forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and

a people which, in some remote age, might be subservient to his

immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial

fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighborhood

of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind. 12

11 (return) [ Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo,

Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a

city and people.]

12 (return) [ This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by

deducting the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a

cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot

safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvious

sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful

critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic

Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of

the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was

supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion to the

Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of

Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject

from the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed

at Upsal by Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M.

Schlozer. Gottingen, printed for Dietericht, 1779.—G. ——Gibbon,

at a later period of his work, recanted his opinion of the truth

of this expedition of Odin. The Asiatic origin of the Goths is

almost certain from the affinity of their language to the

Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when all

mythology was reduced to hero worship.—M.]

If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of

preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we

must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct

account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To

cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants

of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels,

with oars, 13 and the distance is little more than one hundred

miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and

Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At

least as early as the Christian æra, 14 and as late as the age of

the Antonines, 15 the Goths were established towards the mouth of

the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial

cities of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long

afterwards founded. 16 Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes

of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the

sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance

of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to

indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great

people. 17 The latter appear to have been subdivided into

Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. 18 The distinction among the

Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of

Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty

states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into

powerful monarchies. 181

13 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 44.]

14 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm

assent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow

that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years

before Christ.]

15 (return) [ Ptolemy, l. ii.]

16 (return) [ By the German colonies who followed the arms of the

Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were

completed by those adventurers in the thirteenth century.]

17 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14) and Procopius (in Bell.

Vandal. l. i. c. l) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant

ages, and possessed different means of investigating the truth.]

18 (return) [ The Ostro and Visi, the eastern and western Goths,

obtained those denominations from their original seats in

Scandinavia. In all their future marches and settlements they

preserved, with their names, the same relative situation. When

they first departed from Sweden, the infant colony was contained

in three vessels. The third, being a heavy sailer, lagged behind,

and the crew, which afterwards swelled into a nation, received

from that circumstance the appellation of Gepidæ or Loiterers.

Jornandes, c. 17. * Note: It was not in Scandinavia that the

Goths were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths; that division

took place after their irruption into Dacia in the third century:

those who came from Mecklenburgh and Pomerania were called

Visigoths; those who came from the south of Prussia, and the

northwest of Poland, called themselves Ostrogoths. Adelung, Hist.

All. p. 202 Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 431.—G.]

181 (return) [ This opinion is by no means probable. The Vandals

and the Goths equally belonged to the great division of the

Suevi, but the two tribes were very different. Those who have

treated on this part of history, appear to me to have neglected

to remark that the ancients almost always gave the name of the

dominant and conquering people to all the weaker and conquered

races. So Pliny calls Vindeli, Vandals, all the people of the

north-east of Europe, because at that epoch the Vandals were

doubtless the conquering tribe. Cæsar, on the contrary, ranges

under the name of Suevi, many of the tribes whom Pliny reckons as

Vandals, because the Suevi, properly so called, were then the

most powerful tribe in Germany. When the Goths, become in their

turn conquerors, had subjugated the nations whom they encountered

on their way, these nations lost their name with their liberty,

and became of Gothic origin. The Vandals themselves were then

considered as Goths; the Heruli, the Gepidæ, &c., suffered the

same fate. A common origin was thus attributed to tribes who had

only been united by the conquests of some dominant nation, and

this confusion has given rise to a number of historical

errors.—G. ——M. St. Martin has a learned note (to Le Beau, v.

261) on the origin of the Vandals. The difficulty appears to be

in rejecting the close analogy of the name with the Vend or

Wendish race, who were of Sclavonian, not of Suevian or German,

origin. M. St. Martin supposes that the different races spread

from the head of the Adriatic to the Baltic, and even the Veneti,

on the shores of the Adriatic, the Vindelici, the tribes which

gave their name to Vindobena, Vindoduna, Vindonissa, were

branches of the same stock with the Sclavonian Venedi, who at one

time gave their name to the Baltic; that they all spoke dialects

of the Wendish language, which still prevails in Carinthia,

Carniola, part of Bohemia, and Lusatia, and is hardly extinct in

Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The Vandal race, once so fearfully

celebrated in the annals of mankind, has so utterly perished from

the face of the earth, that we are not aware that any vestiges of

their language can be traced, so as to throw light on the

disputed question of their German, their Sclavonian, or

independent origin. The weight of ancient authority seems against

M. St. Martin’s opinion. Compare, on the Vandals, Malte Brun.

394. Also Gibbon’s note, c. xli. n. 38.—M.]

In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in

Prussia. About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province

of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and

destructive inroads. 19 In this interval, therefore, of about

seventy years we must place the second migration of the Goths

from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it

lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the

conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine,

a victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of

a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the

milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial

religion, the numbers and spirit of the Goths were equal to the

most dangerous adventures. The use of round bucklers and short

swords rendered them formidable in a close engagement; the manly

obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, gave uncommon

union and stability to their councils; 20 and the renowned Amala,

the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of Theodoric, king

of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit, the

prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the _Anses_, or

demigods of the Gothic nation. 21

19 (return) [ See a fragment of Peter Patricius in the Excerpta

Legationum and with regard to its probable date, see Tillemont,

Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 346.]

20 (return) [ Omnium harum gentium insigne, rotunda scuta, breves

gladii, et erga rages obsequium. Tacit. Germania, c. 43. The

Goths probably acquired their iron by the commerce of amber.]

21 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 13, 14.]

The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from

all the Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few

years afterwards combating under the common standard of the

Goths. 22 The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the

banks of the Prypec, a river universally conceived by the

ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes. 23 The

windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and

Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant

supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of

cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident

in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their

progress. The Bastarnæ and the Venedi were the first who

presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from

choice or compulsion, increased the Gothic army. The Bastarnæ

dwelt on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains: the

immense tract of land that separated the Bastarnæ from the

savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted, by the

Venedi; 24 we have some reason to believe that the first of these

nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, 25 and

was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini,

the Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans.

251 With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned

to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle

ages. 26 But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful

frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. 27 As the

Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race

of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, 271 and the Roxolani; and

they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the

Borysthenes, and of the Tanais. If we inquire into the

characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia, we

shall discover that those two great portions of human kind were

principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a

close dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or of

several wives, by a military force, consisting, for the most

part, either of infantry or cavalry; and above all, by the use of

the Teutonic, or of the Sclavonian language; the last of which

has been diffused by conquest, from the confines of Italy to the

neighborhood of Japan.

22 (return) [ The Heruli, and the Uregundi or Burgundi, are

particularly mentioned. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, l.

v. A passage in the Augustan History, p. 28, seems to allude to

this great emigration. The Marcomannic war was partly occasioned

by the pressure of barbarous tribes, who fled before the arms of

more northern barbarians.]

23 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part

of his incomparable map of Europe.]

24 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]

25 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]

251 (return) [ The Bastarnæ cannot be considered original

inhabitants of Germany Strabo and Tacitus appear to doubt it;

Pliny alone calls them Germans: Ptolemy and Dion treat them as

Scythians, a vague appellation at this period of history; Livy,

Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus, call them Gauls, and this is the

most probable opinion. They descended from the Gauls who entered

Germany under Signoesus. They are always found associated with

other Gaulish tribes, such as the Boll, the Taurisci, &c., and

not to the German tribes. The names of their chiefs or princes,

Chlonix, Chlondicus. Deldon, are not German names. Those who were

settled in the island of Peuce in the Danube, took the name of

Peucini. The Carpi appear in 237 as a Suevian tribe who had made

an irruption into Mæsia. Afterwards they reappear under the

Ostrogoths, with whom they were probably blended. Adelung, p.

236, 278.—G.]

26 (return) [ The Venedi, the Slavi, and the Antes, were the

three great tribes of the same people. Jornandes, 24. * Note

Dagger: They formed the great Sclavonian nation.—G.]

27 (return) [ Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and

even his cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]

271 (return) [ Jac. Reineggs supposed that he had found, in the

mountains of Caucasus, some descendants of the Alani. The Tartars

call them Edeki-Alan: they speak a peculiar dialect of the

ancient language of the Tartars of Caucasus. See J. Reineggs’

Descr. of Caucasus, p. 11, 13.—G. According to Klaproth, they are

the Ossetes of the present day in Mount Caucasus and were the

same with the Albanians of antiquity. Klaproth, Hist. de l’Asie,

p. 180.—M.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And

Gallienus.—Part II.

The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of

considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with

navigable rivers, which, from either side, discharge themselves

into the Borysthenes; and interspersed with large and lofty

forests of oaks. The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable

bee-hives deposited in the hollow of old trees, and in the

cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable

branch of commerce, the size of the cattle, the temperature of

the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and

the luxuriancy of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality of

Nature, and tempted the industry of man. 28 But the Goths

withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of

idleness, of poverty, and of rapine.

28 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 593. Mr.

Bell (vol. ii. p 379) traversed the Ukraine, in his journey from

Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is

a just representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the

Cossacks, it still remains in a state of nature.]

The Scythian hordes, which, towards the east, bordered on the new

settlements of the Goths, presented nothing to their arms, except

the doubtful chance of an unprofitable victory. But the prospect

of the Roman territories was far more alluring; and the fields of

Dacia were covered with rich harvests, sown by the hands of an

industrious, and exposed to be gathered by those of a warlike,

people. It is probable that the conquests of Trajan, maintained

by his successors, less for any real advantage than for ideal

dignity, had contributed to weaken the empire on that side. The

new and unsettled province of Dacia was neither strong enough to

resist, nor rich enough to satiate, the rapaciousness of the

barbarians. As long as the remote banks of the Niester were

considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications

of the Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the

inhabitants of Mæsia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving

themselves at an inaccessible distance from any barbarian

invaders. The irruptions of the Goths, under the reign of Philip,

fatally convinced them of their mistake. The king, or leader, of

that fierce nation, traversed with contempt the province of

Dacia, and passed both the Niester and the Danube without

encountering any opposition capable of retarding his progress.

The relaxed discipline of the Roman troops betrayed the most

important posts, where they were stationed, and the fear of

deserved punishment induced great numbers of them to enlist under

the Gothic standard. The various multitude of barbarians

appeared, at length, under the walls of Marcianopolis, a city

built by Trajan in honor of his sister, and at that time the

capital of the second Mæsia. 29 The inhabitants consented to

ransom their lives and property by the payment of a large sum of

money, and the invaders retreated back into their deserts,

animated, rather than satisfied, with the first success of their

arms against an opulent but feeble country. Intelligence was soon

transmitted to the emperor Decius, that Cniva, king of the Goths,

had passed the Danube a second time, with more considerable

forces; that his numerous detachments scattered devastation over

the province of Mæsia, whilst the main body of the army,

consisting of seventy thousand Germans and Sarmatians, a force

equal to the most daring achievements, required the presence of

the Roman monarch, and the exertion of his military power.

29 (return) [ In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead of

secundo Mæsiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second

Mæsia, of which Marcianopolis was certainly the capital. (See

Hierocles de Provinciis, and Wesseling ad locum, p. 636.

Itinerar.) It is surprising how this palpable error of the scribe

should escape the judicious correction of Grotius. Note: Luden

has observed that Jornandes mentions two passages over the

Danube; this relates to the second irruption into Mæsia.

Geschichte des T V. ii. p. 448.—M.]

Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many

monuments of Trajan’s victories. 30 On his approach they raised

the siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest

of greater importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of

Thrace, founded by the father of Alexander, near the foot of

Mount Hæmus. 31 Decius followed them through a difficult country,

and by forced marches; but when he imagined himself at a

considerable distance from the rear of the Goths, Cniva turned

with rapid fury on his pursuers. The camp of the Romans was

surprised and pillaged, and, for the first time, their emperor

fled in disorder before a troop of half-armed barbarians. After a

long resistance, Philoppopolis, destitute of succor, was taken by

storm. A hundred thousand persons are reported to have been

massacred in the sack of that great city. 32 Many prisoners of

consequence became a valuable accession to the spoil; and

Priscus, a brother of the late emperor Philip, blushed not to

assume the purple, under the protection of the barbarous enemies

of Rome. 33 The time, however, consumed in that tedious siege,

enabled Decius to revive the courage, restore the discipline, and

recruit the numbers of his troops. He intercepted several parties

of Carpi, and other Germans, who were hastening to share the

victory of their countrymen, 34 intrusted the passes of the

mountains to officers of approved valor and fidelity, 35 repaired

and strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted

his utmost vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat

of the Goths. Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously

waited for an opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive

blow, his own glory, and that of the Roman arms. 36

30 (return) [ The place is still called Nicop. D’Anville,

Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307. The little stream, on whose

banks it stood, falls into the Danube.]

31 (return) [ Stephan. Byzant. de Urbibus, p. 740. Wesseling,

Itinerar. p. 136. Zonaras, by an odd mistake, ascribes the

foundation of Philippopolis to the immediate predecessor of

Decius. * Note: Now Philippopolis or Philiba; its situation among

the hills caused it to be also called Trimontium. D’Anville,

Geog. Anc. i. 295.—G.]

32 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 5.]

33 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]

34 (return) [ Victoriæ Carpicæ, on some medals of Decius,

insinuate these advantages.]

35 (return) [ Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much

glory) was posted in the pass of Thermopylæ with 200 Dardanians,

100 heavy and 160 light horse, 60 Cretan archers, and 1000

well-armed recruits. See an original letter from the emperor to

his officer, in the Augustan History, p. 200.]

36 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 16—18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22. In the

general account of this war, it is easy to discover the opposite

prejudices of the Gothic and the Grecian writer. In carelessness

alone they are alike.]

At the same time when Decius was struggling with the violence of

the tempest, his mind, calm and deliberate amidst the tumult of

war, investigated the more general causes that, since the age of

the Antonines, had so impetuously urged the decline of the Roman

greatness. He soon discovered that it was impossible to replace

that greatness on a permanent basis without restoring public

virtue, ancient principles and manners, and the oppressed majesty

of the laws. To execute this noble but arduous design, he first

resolved to revive the obsolete office of censor; an office

which, as long as it had subsisted in its pristine integrity, had

so much contributed to the perpetuity of the state, 37 till it

was usurped and gradually neglected by the Cæsars. 38 Conscious

that the favor of the sovereign may confer power, but that the

esteem of the people can alone bestow authority, he submitted the

choice of the censor to the unbiased voice of the senate. By

their unanimous votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was

afterwards emperor, and who then served with distinction in the

army of Decius, was declared the most worthy of that exalted

honor. As soon as the decree of the senate was transmitted to the

emperor, he assembled a great council in his camp, and before the

investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of the

difficulty and importance of his great office. “Happy Valerian,”

said the prince to his distinguished subject, “happy in the

general approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic!

Accept the censorship of mankind; and judge of our manners. You

will select those who deserve to continue members of the senate;

you will restore the equestrian order to its ancient splendor;

you will improve the revenue, yet moderate the public burdens.

You will distinguish into regular classes the various and

infinite multitude of citizens, and accurately view the military

strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your

decisions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, the palace,

the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire,

are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, excepting

only the ordinary consuls, 39 the præfect of the city, the king

of the sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity

inviolate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who

may not dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem, of

the Roman censor.” 40

37 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c.

viii. He illustrates the nature and use of the censorship with

his usual ingenuity, and with uncommon precision.]

38 (return) [ Vespasian and Titus were the last censors, (Pliny,

Hist. Natur vii. 49. Censorinus de Die Natali.) The modesty of

Trajan refused an honor which he deserved, and his example became

a law to the Antonines. See Pliny’s Panegyric, c. 45 and 60.]

39 (return) [ Yet in spite of his exemption, Pompey appeared

before that tribunal during his consulship. The occasion, indeed,

was equally singular and honorable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.]

40 (return) [ See the original speech in the Augustan Hist. p.

173-174.]

A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have

appeared not so much the minister, as the colleague of his

sovereign. 41 Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full of

envy and of suspicion. He modestly argued the alarming greatness

of the trust, his own insufficiency, and the incurable corruption

of the times. He artfully insinuated, that the office of censor

was inseparable from the Imperial dignity, and that the feeble

hands of a subject were unequal to the support of such an immense

weight of cares and of power. 42 The approaching event of war

soon put an end to the prosecution of a project so specious, but

so impracticable; and whilst it preserved Valerian from the

danger, saved the emperor Decius from the disappointment, which

would most probably have attended it. A censor may maintain, he

can never restore, the morals of a state. It is impossible for

such a magistrate to exert his authority with benefit, or even

with effect, unless he is supported by a quick sense of honor and

virtue in the minds of the people, by a decent reverence for the

public opinion, and by a train of useful prejudices combating on

the side of national manners. In a period when these principles

are annihilated, the censorial jurisdiction must either sink into

empty pageantry, or be converted into a partial instrument of

vexatious oppression. 43 It was easier to vanquish the Goths than

to eradicate the public vices; yet even in the first of these

enterprises, Decius lost his army and his life.

41 (return) [ This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who

supposes that Valerian was actually declared the colleague of

Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]

42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor’s reply is

omitted.]

43 (return) [ Such as the attempts of Augustus towards a

reformation of manness. Tacit. Annal. iii. 24.]

The Goths were now, on every side, surrounded and pursued by the

Roman arms. The flower of their troops had perished in the long

siege of Philippopolis, and the exhausted country could no longer

afford subsistence for the remaining multitude of licentious

barbarians. Reduced to this extremity, the Goths would gladly

have purchased, by the surrender of all their booty and

prisoners, the permission of an undisturbed retreat. But the

emperor, confident of victory, and resolving, by the chastisement

of these invaders, to strike a salutary terror into the nations

of the North, refused to listen to any terms of accommodation.

The high-spirited barbarians preferred death to slavery. An

obscure town of Mæsia, called Forum Terebronii, 44 was the scene

of the battle. The Gothic army was drawn up in three lines, and

either from choice or accident, the front of the third line was

covered by a morass. In the beginning of the action, the son of

Decius, a youth of the fairest hopes, and already associated to

the honors of the purple, was slain by an arrow, in the sight of

his afflicted father; who, summoning all his fortitude,

admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of a single soldier

was of little importance to the republic. 45 The conflict was

terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and rage.

The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the

second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third

only remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the

morass, which was imprudently attempted by the presumption of the

enemy. “Here the fortune of the day turned, and all things became

adverse to the Romans; the place deep with ooze, sinking under

those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armor heavy,

the waters deep; nor could they wield, in that uneasy situation,

their weighty javelins. The barbarians, on the contrary, were

inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall, their spears

long, such as could wound at a distance.” 46 In this morass the

Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably

lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. 47 Such

was the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an

accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; 48 who,

together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life

and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue. 49

44 (return) [ Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.

598. As Zosimus and some of his followers mistake the Danube for

the Tanais, they place the field of battle in the plains of

Scythia.]

45 (return) [ Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the

deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of

Jornandes.]

46 (return) [ I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)

the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a

German tribe.]

47 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]

Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]

48 (return) [ The Decii were killed before the end of the year

two hundred and fifty-one, since the new princes took possession

of the consulship on the ensuing calends of January.]

49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, gives them a very honorable

place among the small number of good emperors who reigned between

Augustus and Diocletian.]

This fatal blow humbled, for a very little time, the insolence of

the legions. They appeared to have patiently expected, and

submissively obeyed, the decree of the senate which regulated the

succession to the throne. From a just regard for the memory of

Decius, the Imperial title was conferred on Hostilianus, his only

surviving son; but an equal rank, with more effectual power, was

granted to Gallus, whose experience and ability seemed equal to

the great trust of guardian to the young prince and the

distressed empire. 50 The first care of the new emperor was to

deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the

victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich

fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still

more disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest

merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every

conveniency that could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate

their so much wished-for departure; and he even promised to pay

them annually a large sum of gold, on condition they should never

afterwards infest the Roman territories by their incursions. 51

50 (return) [ Hæc ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in

Cæsaribus.]

51 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth,

who courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were

gratified with such trifling presents as could only derive a

value from the hand that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse

garment of purple, an inconsiderable piece of plate, or a

quantity of copper coin. 52 After the wealth of nations had

centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their greatness, and even

their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady and moderate

liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved the

poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed

their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood

to flow, not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or

the gratitude of the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies

were liberally distributed among friends and suppliants, they

were sternly refused to such as claimed them as a debt. 53 But

this stipulation, of an annual payment to a victorious enemy,

appeared without disguise in the light of an ignominious tribute;

the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to accept such

unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince, who by a

necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the

object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of

Hostiliamus, though it happened in the midst of a raging

pestilence, was interpreted as the personal crime of Gallus; 54

and even the defeat of the later emperor was ascribed by the

voice of suspicion to the perfidious counsels of his hated

successor. 55 The tranquillity which the empire enjoyed during

the first year of his administration, 56 served rather to inflame

than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the

apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was

more deeply and more sensibly felt.

52 (return) [ A _Sella_, a _Toga_, and a golden _Patera_ of five

pounds weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the

wealthy king of Egypt. (Livy, xxvii. 4.) _Quina millia Æris_, a

weight of copper, in value about eighteen pounds sterling, was

the usual present made to foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi.

9.)]

53 (return) [ See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the

time of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25,

edit. Louvre.]

54 (return) [ For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in

Cæsaribus.]

55 (return) [ These improbable accusations are alleged by

Zosimus, l. i. p. 28, 24.]

56 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 19. The Gothic writer at least

observed the peace which his victorious countrymen had sworn to

Gallus.]

But the Romans were irritated to a still higher degree, when they

discovered that they had not even secured their repose, though at

the expense of their honor. The dangerous secret of the wealth

and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New

swarms of barbarians, encouraged by the success, and not

conceiving themselves bound by the obligation of their brethren,

spread devastation though the Illyrian provinces, and terror as

far as the gates of Rome. The defence of the monarchy, which

seemed abandoned by the pusillanimous emperor, was assumed by

Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mæsia; who rallied the

scattered forces, and revived the fainting spirits of the troops.

The barbarians were unexpectedly attacked, routed, chased, and

pursued beyond the Danube. The victorious leader distributed as a

donative the money collected for the tribute, and the

acclamations of the soldiers proclaimed him emperor on the field

of battle. 57 Gallus, who, careless of the general welfare,

indulged himself in the pleasures of Italy, was almost in the

same instant informed of the success, of the revolt, and of the

rapid approach of his aspiring lieutenant. He advanced to meet

him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies came in

sight of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the

ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his

rival. They admired the valor of Æmilianus; they were attracted

by his liberality, for he offered a considerable increase of pay

to all deserters. 58 The murder of Gallus, and of his son

Volusianus, put an end to the civil war; and the senate gave a

legal sanction to the rights of conquest. The letters of

Æmilianus to that assembly displayed a mixture of moderation and

vanity. He assured them, that he should resign to their wisdom

the civil administration; and, contenting himself with the

quality of their general, would in a short time assert the glory

of Rome, and deliver the empire from all the barbarians both of

the North and of the East. 59 His pride was flattered by the

applause of the senate; and medals are still extant, representing

him with the name and attributes of Hercules the Victor, and Mars

the Avenger. 60

57 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]

58 (return) [ Victor in Cæsaribus.]

59 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

60 (return) [ Banduri Numismata, p. 94.]

If the new monarch possessed the abilities, he wanted the time,

necessary to fulfil these splendid promises. Less than four

months intervened between his victory and his fall. 61 He had

vanquished Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more

formidable than Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent

Valerian, already distinguished by the honorable title of censor,

to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany 62 to his aid. Valerian

executed that commission with zeal and fidelity; and as he

arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved to revenge

him. The troops of Æmilianus, who still lay encamped in the

plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character,

but much more by the superior strength of his army; and as they

were now become as incapable of personal attachment as they had

always been of constitutional principle, they readily imbrued

their hands in the blood of a prince who so lately had been the

object of their partial choice. The guilt was theirs, 621 but the

advantage of it was Valerian’s; who obtained the possession of

the throne by the means indeed of a civil war, but with a degree

of innocence singular in that age of revolutions; since he owed

neither gratitude nor allegiance to his predecessor, whom he

dethroned.

61 (return) [ Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense. Eusebio

this emperor.]

62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station

Valerian’s army in Rhætia.]

621 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says that Æmilianus died of a

natural disorder. Tropius, in speaking of his death, does not say

that he was assassinated—G.]

Valerian was about sixty years of age 63 when he was invested

with the purple, not by the caprice of the populace, or the

clamors of the army, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman

world. In his gradual ascent through the honors of the state, he

had deserved the favor of virtuous princes, and had declared

himself the enemy of tyrants. 64 His noble birth, his mild but

unblemished manners, his learning, prudence, and experience, were

revered by the senate and people; and if mankind (according to

the observation of an ancient writer) had been left at liberty to

choose a master, their choice would most assuredly have fallen on

Valerian. 65 Perhaps the merit of this emperor was inadequate to

his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit,

were affected by the languor and coldness of old age. The

consciousness of his decline engaged him to share the throne with

a younger and more active associate; 66 the emergency of the

times demanded a general no less than a prince; and the

experience of the Roman censor might have directed him where to

bestow the Imperial purple, as the reward of military merit. But

instead of making a judicious choice, which would have confirmed

his reign and endeared his memory, Valerian, consulting only the

dictates of affection or vanity, immediately invested with the

supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth whose effeminate vices

had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private

station. The joint government of the father and the son subsisted

about seven, and the sole administration of Gallienus continued

about eight, years. But the whole period was one uninterrupted

series of confusion and calamity. As the Roman empire was at the

same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of

foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, we

shall consult order and perspicuity, by pursuing, not so much the

doubtful arrangement of dates, as the more natural distribution

of subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome, during the

reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The

Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general

appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less

considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only

serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the

reader.

63 (return) [ He was about seventy at the time of his accession,

or, as it is more probable, of his death. Hist. August. p. 173.

Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 893, note 1.]

64 (return) [ Inimicus tyrannorum. Hist. August. p. 173. In the

glorious struggle of the senate against Maximin, Valerian acted a

very spirited part. Hist. August. p. 156.]

65 (return) [ According to the distinction of Victor, he seems to

have received the title of Imperator from the army, and that of

Augustus from the senate.]

66 (return) [ From Victor and from the medals, Tillemont (tom.

iii. p. 710) very justly infers, that Gallienus was associated to

the empire about the month of August of the year 253.]

I. As the posterity of the Franks compose one of the greatest and

most enlightened nations of Europe, the powers of learning and

ingenuity have been exhausted in the discovery of their

unlettered ancestors. To the tales of credulity have succeeded

the systems of fancy. Every passage has been sifted, every spot

has been surveyed, that might possibly reveal some faint traces

of their origin. It has been supposed that Pannonia, 67 that

Gaul, that the northern parts of Germany, 68 gave birth to that

celebrated colony of warriors. At length the most rational

critics, rejecting the fictitious emigrations of ideal

conquerors, have acquiesced in a sentiment whose simplicity

persuades us of its truth. 69 They suppose, that about the year

two hundred and forty, 70 a new confederacy was formed under the

name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the

Weser. 701 The present circle of Westphalia, the Landgraviate of

Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg, were the

ancient seat of the Chauci who, in their inaccessible morasses,

defied the Roman arms; 71 of the Cherusci, proud of the fame of

Arminius; of the Catti, formidable by their firm and intrepid

infantry; and of several other tribes of inferior power and

renown. 72 The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these

Germans; the enjoyment of it their best treasure; the word that

expressed that enjoyment the most pleasing to their ear. They

deserved, they assumed, they maintained the honorable epithet of

Franks, or Freemen; which concealed, though it did not

extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the

confederacy. 73 Tacit consent, and mutual advantage, dictated the

first laws of the union; it was gradually cemented by habit and

experience. The league of the Franks may admit of some comparison

with the Helvetic body; in which every canton, retaining its

independent sovereignty, consults with its brethren in the common

cause, without acknowledging the authority of any supreme head or

representative assembly. 74 But the principle of the two

confederacies was extremely different. A peace of two hundred

years has rewarded the wise and honest policy of the Swiss. An

inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard to the

most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.

67 (return) [ Various systems have been formed to explain a

difficult passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]

68 (return) [ The Geographer of Ravenna, i. 11, by mentioning

Mauringania, on the confines of Denmark, as the ancient seat of

the Franks, gave birth to an ingenious system of Leibritz.]

69 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M.

Freret, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.

xviii.]

70 (return) [ Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an

accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii.

p. 710, 1181.]

701 (return) [ The confederation of the Franks appears to have

been formed, 1. Of the Chauci. 2. Of the Sicambri, the

inhabitants of the duchy of Berg. 3. Of the Attuarii, to the

north of the Sicambri, in the principality of Waldeck, between

the Dimel and the Eder. 4. Of the Bructeri, on the banks of the

Lippe, and in the Hartz. 5. Of the Chamavii, the Gambrivii of

Tacitua, who were established, at the time of the Frankish

confederation, in the country of the Bructeri. 6. Of the Catti,

in Hessia.—G. The Salii and Cherasci are added. Greenwood’s Hist.

of Germans, i 193.—M.]

71 (return) [Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists

frequently allude to the morasses of the Franks.]

72 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]

73 (return) [ In a subsequent period, most of those old names are

occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver.

Germ. Antiq. l. iii.]

74 (return) [ Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And

Gallienus.—Part III.

The Romans had long experienced the daring valor of the people of

Lower Germany. The union of their strength threatened Gaul with a

more formidable invasion, and required the presence of Gallienus,

the heir and colleague of Imperial power. 75 Whilst that prince,

and his infant son Salonius, displayed, in the court of Treves,

the majesty of the empire, its armies were ably conducted by

their general, Posthumus, who, though he afterwards betrayed the

family of Valerian, was ever faithful to the great interests of

the monarchy. The treacherous language of panegyrics and medals

darkly announces a long series of victories. Trophies and titles

attest (if such evidence can attest) the fame of Posthumus, who

is repeatedly styled the Conqueror of the Germans, and the Savior

of Gaul. 76

75 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]

76 (return) [ M. de Brequigny (in the Memoires de l’Academie,

tom. xxx.) has given us a very curious life of Posthumus. A

series of the Augustan History from Medals and Inscriptions has

been more than once planned, and is still much wanted. * Note: M.

Eckhel, Keeper of the Cabinet of Medals, and Professor of

Antiquities at Vienna, lately deceased, has supplied this want by

his excellent work, Doctrina veterum Nummorum, conscripta a Jos.

Eckhel, 8 vol. in 4to Vindobona, 1797.—G. Captain Smyth has

likewise printed (privately) a valuable Descriptive Catologue of

a series of Large Brass Medals of this period Bedford, 1834.—M.

1845.]

But a single fact, the only one indeed of which we have any

distinct knowledge, erases, in a great measure, these monuments

of vanity and adulation. The Rhine, though dignified with the

title of Safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier

against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks

were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river

to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those

mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist,

the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years, the greatest

part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the

theatre of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the

flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost

destroyed; 77 and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in

the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins

of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians.

78 When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of

plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain,

79 and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant

province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who

seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and

complexion, were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. 80

77 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Pœne direpto, both

the sense and the expression require deleto; though indeed, for

different reasons, it is alike difficult to correct the text of

the best, and of the worst, writers.]

78 (return) [ In the time of Ausonius (the end of the fourth

century) Ilerda or Lerida was in a very ruinous state, (Auson.

Epist. xxv. 58,) which probably was the consequence of this

invasion.]

79 (return) [ Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that

the Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

80 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]

II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at

present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in

ancient times, a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition

of the Suevi. None were permitted to enter the holy precincts,

without confessing, by their servile bonds and suppliant posture,

the immediate presence of the sovereign Deity. 81 Patriotism

contributed, as well as devotion, to consecrate the Sonnenwald,

or wood of the Semnones. 82 It was universally believed, that the

nation had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At

stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic

blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the memory of

their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and

human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the

interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to

those of the Danube. They were distinguished from the other

Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which

they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head; and they

delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and

terrible in the eyes of the enemy. 83 Jealous as the Germans were

of military renown, they all confessed the superior valor of the

Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who, with a

vast army, encountered the dictator Cæsar, declared that they

esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose

arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal. 84

81 (return) [ Tacit.Germania, 38.]

82 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

83 (return) [ Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui

a servis separantur. A proud separation!]

84 (return) [ Cæsar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of

Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood

of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or

of glory. 85 The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced

into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from

so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, 851 or

_Allmen_, to denote at once their various lineage and their

common bravery. 86 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many

a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but

their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of

light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the

youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the

horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most

precipitate retreat. 87

85 (return) [ Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]

851 (return) [ The nation of the Alemanni was not originally

formed by the Suavi properly so called; these have always

preserved their own name. Shortly afterwards they made (A. D.

357) an irruption into Rhætia, and it was not long after that

they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still they have always been

a distinct people; at the present day, the people who inhabit the

north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,

Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in

Ortenau, the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider

themselves Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and

the Usipetæ, inhabitants of the interior and of the north of

Westphalia, formed, says Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic

nation; they occupied the country where the name of the Alemanni

first appears, as conquered in 213, by Caracalla. They were well

trained to fight on horseback, (according to Tacitus, Germ. c.

32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the Alemanni:

finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The

Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a

multitude of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc.

xviii. 2, xxix. 4.—G. ——The question whether the Suevi was a

generic name comprehending the clans which peopled central

Germany, is rather hastily decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood,

who has studied the modern German writers on their own origin,

supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and Marcomanni, one people, under

different appellations. History of Germany, vol i.—M.]

86 (return) [ This etymology (far different from those which

amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius

Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]

87 (return) [ The Suevi engaged Cæsar in this manner, and the

manœuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello

Gallico, i. 48.)]

This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense

preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms

of his successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to

themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire,

they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death

of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of

Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the

feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni

penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhætian Alps into

the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed

the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. 88

88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the

Excerpts. Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]

The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of

their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far

distant wars, Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine.

All the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In

this emergency, the senators resumed the defence of the republic,

drew out the Prætorian guards, who had been left to garrison the

capital, and filled up their numbers, by enlisting into the

public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians.

The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army

more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with

spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the

unwarlike Romans. 89

89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 34.]

When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was

delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than

alarmed with the courage of the senate, since it might one day

prompt them to rescue the public from domestic tyranny as well as

from foreign invasion. His timid ingratitude was published to his

subjects, in an edict which prohibited the senators from

exercising any military employment, and even from approaching the

camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless. The rich and

luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character, accepted,

as a favor, this disgraceful exemption from military service; and

as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths,

their theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the

more dangerous cares of empire to the rough hands of peasants and

soldiers. 90

90 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints

breathe as uncommon spirit of freedom.]

Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formidable aspect,

but more glorious event, is mentioned by a writer of the lower

empire. Three hundred thousand are said to have been vanquished,

in a battle near Milan, by Gallienus in person, at the head of

only ten thousand Romans. 91 We may, however, with great

probability, ascribe this incredible victory either to the

credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated exploits of

one of the emperor’s lieutenants. It was by arms of a very

different nature, that Gallienus endeavored to protect Italy from

the fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king

of the Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded

with the Alemanni in their wars and conquests. 92 To the father,

as the price of his alliance, he granted an ample settlement in

Pannonia. The native charms of unpolished beauty seem to have

fixed the daughter in the affections of the inconstant emperor,

and the bands of policy were more firmly connected by those of

love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still refused the name of

marriage to the profane mixture of a citizen and a barbarian; and

has stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious title of

concubine of Gallienus. 93

91 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]

92 (return) [ One of the Victors calls him king of the

Marcomanni; the other of the Germans.]

93 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.

398, &c.]

III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths from

Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the

Borysthenes, and have followed their victorious arms from the

Borysthenes to the Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and

Gallienus, the frontier of the last-mentioned river was

perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans and Sarmatians;

but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual firmness

and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited

the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy

soldiers; and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained

the station, and displayed the abilities, of a general. Though

flying parties of the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the

banks of the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the confines of

Italy and Macedonia, their progress was commonly checked, or

their return intercepted, by the Imperial lieutenants. 94 But the

great stream of the Gothic hostilities was diverted into a very

different channel. The Goths, in their new settlement of the

Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of the Euxine:

to the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and

wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could

attract, and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

94 (return) [ See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in

the Augustan History.]

The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from

the narrow entrance 95 of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to

the ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. 96 On that

inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art

the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most

affecting tragedies. 97 The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the

arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and

religion over savage fierceness, serve to represent an historical

truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula,

were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal manners by a

gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which settled

along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus, whose

capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Mæotis

communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate

Greeks and half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an

independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war, 98 was

at last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, 99 and, with

the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman

arms. From the reign of Augustus, 100 the kings of Bosphorus were

the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents,

by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the Isthmus,

they effectually guarded, against the roving plunderers of

Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from its peculiar

situation and convenient harbors, commanded the Euxine Sea and

Asia Minor. 101 As long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal

succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important

charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the

fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on

the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of

Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste of fertile

soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force,

sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. 102

These ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very

singular construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks

framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and

occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a

tempest. 103 In these floating houses, the Goths carelessly

trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the

conduct of sailors pressed into the service, and whose skill and

fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of plunder had

banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness of

temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence,

which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of

such a daring spirit must have often murmured against the

cowardice of their guides, who required the strongest assurances

of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would

scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at

least, is the practice of the modern Turks; 104 and they are

probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient

inhabitants of Bosphorus.

95 (return) [ It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical

History of the Tartars, p 598.]

96 (return) [ M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at

Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont

habite les bords du Danube]

97 (return) [ Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

98 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of

Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.]

99 (return) [ Appian in Mithridat.]

100 (return) [ It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius,

vi. 21. Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three

days’ march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]

101 (return) [ See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the

sincerity and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great

war of his nation against the kings of Bosphorus.]

102 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

103 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were

called Camarœ.]

104 (return) [ See a very natural picture of the Euxine

navigation, in the xvith letter of Tournefort.]

The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the

left hand, first appeared before Pityus, 105 the utmost limits of

the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and

fortified with a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance

more obstinate than they had reason to expect from the feeble

garrison of a distant fortress. They were repulsed; and their

disappointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name.

As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit,

defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but

as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honorable but

less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and by

the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their

former disgrace. 106

105 (return) [ Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias,

or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The

garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred

foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine. * Note: Pityus is

Pitchinda, according to D’Anville, ii. 115.—G. Rather Boukoun.—M.

Dioscurias is Iskuriah.—G.]

106 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 30.]

Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the

navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.

107 The course of the Goths carried them in sight of the country

of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and

they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich

temple at the mouth of the River Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in

the retreat of the ten thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks,

108 derived its wealth and splendor from the magnificence of the

emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a

coast left destitute by nature of secure harbors. 109 The city

was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to

defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been

strengthened by a reënforcement of ten thousand men. But there

are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of

discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond,

dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their

impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine

negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fascines,

ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the

defenceless city sword in hand. A general massacre of the people

ensued, whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the

opposite gates of the town. The most holy temples, and the most

splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruction. The

booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense: the

wealth of the adjacent countries had been deposited in Trebizond,

as in a secure place of refuge. The number of captives was

incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without

opposition through the extensive province of Pontus. 110 The rich

spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been

found in the port. The robust youth of the sea-coast were chained

to the oar; and the Goths, satisfied with the success of their

first naval expedition, returned in triumph to their new

establishment in the kingdom of Bosphorus. 111

107 (return) [ Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the

distance 2610 stadia.]

108 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348, edit.

Hutchinson. Note: Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von

Trapezunt, p. 6, &c) assigns a very ancient date to the first

(Pelasgic) foundation of Trapezun (Trebizond)—M.]

109 (return) [ Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is

Tournefort’s.]

110 (return) [ See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of

Neo-Cæoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]

111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 32, 33.]

The second expedition of the Goths was undertaken with greater

powers of men and ships; but they steered a different course,

and, disdaining the exhausted provinces of Pontus, followed the

western coast of the Euxine, passed before the wide mouths of the

Borysthenes, the Niester, and the Danube, and increasing their

fleet by the capture of a great number of fishing barks, they

approached the narrow outlet through which the Euxine Sea pours

its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the continents of

Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped near the

temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the

entrance of the Strait; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded

invasions of the barbarians that this body of troops surpassed in

number the Gothic army. But it was in numbers alone that they

surpassed it. They deserted with precipitation their advantageous

post, and abandoned the town of Chalcedon, most plentifully

stored with arms and money, to the discretion of the conquerors.

Whilst they hesitated whether they should prefer the sea or land,

Europe or Asia, for the scene of their hostilities, a perfidious

fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, 1111 once the capital of the

kings of Bithynia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided the

march, which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon, 112

directed the resistless attack, and partook of the booty; for the

Goths had learned sufficient policy to reward the traitor whom

they detested. Nice, Prusa, Apamæa, Cius, 1121 cities that had

sometimes rivalled, or imitated, the splendor of Nicomedia, were

involved in the same calamity, which, in a few weeks, raged

without control through the whole province of Bithynia. Three

hundred years of peace, enjoyed by the soft inhabitants of Asia,

had abolished the exercise of arms, and removed the apprehension

of danger. The ancient walls were suffered to moulder away, and

all the revenue of the most opulent cities was reserved for the

construction of baths, temples, and theatres. 113

1111 (return) [ It has preserved its name, joined to the

preposition of place in that of Nikmid. D’Anv. Geog. Anc. ii.

28.—G.]

112 (return) [ Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]

1121 (return) [ Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D’Anv.

ii. 23.—G.]

113 (return) [ Zosimus, l.. p. 32, 33.]

When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of

Mithridates, 114 it was distinguished by wise laws, a naval power

of two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military

engines, and of corn. 115 It was still the seat of wealth and

luxury; but of its ancient strength, nothing remained except the

situation, in a little island of the Propontis, connected with

the continent of Asia only by two bridges. From the recent sack

of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen miles 116 of the

city, which they had devoted to destruction; but the ruin of

Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident. The season was

rainy, and the Lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the

springs of Mount Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little

river of Rhyndacus, which issues from the lake, swelled into a

broad and rapid stream, and stopped the progress of the Goths.

Their retreat to the maritime city of Heraclea, where the fleet

had probably been stationed, was attended by a long train of

wagons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked by the

flames of Nico and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. 117 Some

obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured

their retreat. 118 But even a complete victory would have been of

little moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned

them to hasten their return. To navigate the Euxine before the

month of May, or after that of September, is esteemed by the

modern Turks the most unquestionable instance of rashness and

folly. 119

114 (return) [ He besieged the place with 400 galleys, 150,000

foot, and a numerous cavalry. See Plutarch in Lucul. Appian in

Mithridat Cicero pro Lege Manilia, c. 8.]

115 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]

116 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23,

24.]

117 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

118 (return) [ Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince

Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince

Odenathus.]

119 (return) [Footnote 119: Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He

sailed with the Turks from Constantinople to Caffa.]

When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths

in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of

ships, 120 our ready imagination instantly computes and

multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the

judicious Strabo, 121 that the piratical vessels used by the

barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of

containing more than twenty-five or thirty men we may safely

affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in

this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine,

they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the

Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the

Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them;

till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in

a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the

Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was

attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From

thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the

Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the

numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Ægean

Sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been very

necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their various

incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At

length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of Piræus, five

miles distant from Athens, 122 which had attempted to make some

preparations for a vigorous defence. Cleodamus, one of the

engineers employed by the emperor’s orders to fortify the

maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to repair

the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Scylla. The

efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became

masters of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while

the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and

intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the

harbor of Piræus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave

Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack

of Athens, collected a hasty band of volunteers, peasants as well

as soldiers, and in some measure avenged the calamities of his

country. 123

120 (return) [ Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as

undertaken by the Heruli.]

121 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]

122 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]

123 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, vii.

42. Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. Zonaras, l. xii. 635. Syncellus, p.

382. It is not without some attention, that we can explain and

conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some

traces of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own

and his countrymen’s exploits. * Note: According to a new

fragment of Dexippus, published by Mai, the 2000 men took up a

strong position in a mountainous and woods district, and kept up

a harassing warfare. He expresses a hope of being speedily joined

by the Imperial fleet. Dexippus in rov. Byzantinorum Collect a

Niebuhr, p. 26, 8—M.]

But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining

age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the

undaunted spirit of the northern invaders. A general

conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of

Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta, which had formerly

waged such memorable wars against each other, were now unable to

bring an army into the field, or even to defend their ruined

fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread

from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus.

The Goths had already advanced within sight of Italy, when the

approach of such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus

from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his

presence seems to have checked the ardor, and to have divided the

strength, of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli,

accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of

his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with

the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before

been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. 124 Great numbers of

the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious

voyage, broke into Mæsia, with a design of forcing their way over

the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt

would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the

Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an

escape. 125 The small remainder of this destroying host returned

on board their vessels; and measuring back their way through the

Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores

of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer, will probably survive

the memory of the Gothic conquests. As soon as they found

themselves in safety within the basin of the Euxine, they landed

at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of Mount Hæmus; and, after

all their toils, indulged themselves in the use of those pleasant

and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage was a short

and easy navigation. 126 Such was the various fate of this third

and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult to

conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could

sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as

their numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks,

and by the influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually

renewed by troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the

standard of plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of

German or Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious

opportunity of freedom and revenge. In these expeditions, the

Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor and danger; but

the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes

distinguished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories

of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the

mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of

Scythians was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude. 127

124 (return) [Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a

long time faithful and famous.]

125 (return) [ Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought

with propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous

of his fame Hist. August. p. 181.]

126 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 20.]

127 (return) [ Zosimus and the Greeks (as the author of the

Philopatris) give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes,

and the Latin writers, constantly represent as Goths.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And

Gallienus.—Part IV.

In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual,

however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are

passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that

the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with

increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes, 128 was

finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The

arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect

that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by a

hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They

were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high.

The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles,

who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place

the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of

Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of

Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. 129 Yet the length of the

temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five feet,

about two thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter’s at

Rome. 130 In the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to

that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading

arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the

oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest artists of

antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in

the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The

temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of

the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and

the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor.

131 But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste

for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a

foreign superstition. 132

128 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]

129 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i.

præfat l vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 14.]

130 (return) [ The length of St. Peter’s is 840 Roman palms; each

palm is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves’s

Miscellanies vol. i. p. 233; on the Roman Foot. * Note: St.

Paul’s Cathedral is 500 feet. Dallaway on Architecture—M.]

131 (return) [ The policy, however, of the Romans induced them to

abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which by

successive privileges had spread itself two stadia round the

temple. Strabo, l. xiv. p. 641. Tacit. Annal. iii. 60, &c.]

132 (return) [ They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods.

See Epistol Gregor. Thaumat.]

Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might

deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the

fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told that in the

sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and

were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian

learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy

than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the

profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to

the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the

exercise of arms. 133 The sagacious counsellor (should the truth

of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In

the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has

displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science

has generally been the age of military virtue and success.

133 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was

perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in

his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]

IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor,

had triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of

Arsaces. Of the many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king

of Armenia, had alone preserved both his life and his

independence. He defended himself by the natural strength of his

country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives and malecontents;

by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his own courage.

Invincible in arms, during a thirty years’ war, he was at length

assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The

patriotic satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and

dignity of the crown, implored the protection of Rome in favor of

Tiridates, the lawful heir. But the son of Chosroes was an

infant, the allies were at a distance, and the Persian monarch

advanced towards the frontier at the head of an irresistible

force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country, was saved

by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above

twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of

Persia. 134 Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the

distresses or the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the

strong garrisons of Carrhæ and Nisibis 1341 to surrender, and

spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.

134 (return) [ Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras,

l. xii. p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian

serves to rectify the confused account of the Greek. The latter

talks of the children of Tiridates, who at that time was himself

an infant. (Compare St Martin Memoires sur l’Armenie, i. p.

301.—M.)]

1341 (return) [ Nisibis, according to Persian authors, was taken

by a miracle, the wall fell, in compliance with the prayers of

the army. Malcolm’s Persia, l. 76.—M]

The loss of an important frontier, the ruin of a faithful and

natural ally, and the rapid success of Sapor’s ambition, affected

Rome with a deep sense of the insult as well as of the danger.

Valerian flattered himself, that the vigilance of his lieutenants

would sufficiently provide for the safety of the Rhine and of the

Danube; but he resolved, notwithstanding his advanced age, to

march in person to the defence of the Euphrates.

During his progress through Asia Minor, the naval enterprises of

the Goths were suspended, and the afflicted province enjoyed a

transient and fallacious calm. He passed the Euphrates,

encountered the Persian monarch near the walls of Edessa, was

vanquished, and taken prisoner by Sapor. The particulars of this

great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the

glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long

series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on

the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence

in Macrianus, his Prætorian præfect. 135 That worthless minister

rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,

and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. 136 By his weak or

wicked counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation

where valor and military skill were equally unavailing. 137 The

vigorous attempt of the Romans to cut their way through the

Persian host was repulsed with great slaughter; 138 and Sapor,

who encompassed the camp with superior numbers, patiently waited

till the increasing rage of famine and pestilence had insured his

victory. The licentious murmurs of the legions soon accused

Valerian as the cause of their calamities; their seditious

clamors demanded an instant capitulation. An immense sum of gold

was offered to purchase the permission of a disgraceful retreat.

But the Persian, conscious of his superiority, refused the money

with disdain; and detaining the deputies, advanced in order of

battle to the foot of the Roman rampart, and insisted on a

personal conference with the emperor. Valerian was reduced to the

necessity of intrusting his life and dignity to the faith of an

enemy. The interview ended as it was natural to expect. The

emperor was made a prisoner, and his astonished troops laid down

their arms. 139 In such a moment of triumph, the pride and policy

of Sapor prompted him to fill the vacant throne with a successor

entirely dependent on his pleasure. Cyriades, an obscure fugitive

of Antioch, stained with every vice, was chosen to dishonor the

Roman purple; and the will of the Persian victor could not fail

of being ratified by the acclamations, however reluctant, of the

captive army. 140

135 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to

the Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]

136 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

137 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 174.]

138 (return) [ Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]

139 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630.

Peter Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]

140 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 185. The reign of Cyriades

appears in that collection prior to the death of Valerian; but I

have preferred a probable series of events to the doubtful

chronology of a most inaccurate writer]

The Imperial slave was eager to secure the favor of his master by

an act of treason to his native country. He conducted Sapor over

the Euphrates, and, by the way of Chalcis, to the metropolis of

the East. So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry, that,

if we may credit a very judicious historian, 141 the city of

Antioch was surprised when the idle multitude was fondly gazing

on the amusements of the theatre. The splendid buildings of

Antioch, private as well as public, were either pillaged or

destroyed; and the numerous inhabitants were put to the sword, or

led away into captivity. 142 The tide of devastation was stopped

for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa.

Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a

great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and

defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of

the followers of Zoroaster. 143 But the ruin of Tarsus, and of

many other cities, furnishes a melancholy proof that, except in

this singular instance, the conquest of Syria and Cilicia

scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms. The

advantages of the narrow passes of Mount Taurus were abandoned,

in which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his

cavalry, would have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and

Sapor was permitted to form the siege of Cæsarea, the capital of

Cappadocia; a city, though of the second rank, which was supposed

to contain four hundred thousand inhabitants. Demosthenes

commanded in the place, not so much by the commission of the

emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country. For a long

time he deferred its fate; and when at last Cæsarea was betrayed

by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the

Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to

take him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe who

might either have honored or punished his obstinate valor; but

many thousands of his fellow-citizens were involved in a general

massacre, and Sapor is accused of treating his prisoners with

wanton and unrelenting cruelty. 144 Much should undoubtedly be

allowed for national animosity, much for humbled pride and

impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is certain, that the

same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild aspect of a

legislator, showed himself to the Romans under the stern features

of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent

establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him

a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and

the treasures of the provinces. 145

141 (return) [ The sack of Antioch, anticipated by some

historians, is assigned, by the decisive testimony of Ammianus

Marcellinus, to the reign of Gallienus, xxiii. 5. * Note: Heyne,

in his note on Zosimus, contests this opinion of Gibbon and

observes, that the testimony of Ammianus is in fact by no means

clear, decisive. Gallienus and Valerian reigned together.

Zosimus, in a passage, l. iiii. 32, 8, distinctly places this

event before the capture of Valerian.—M.]

142 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]

143 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this

probable event by some fabulous circumstances.]

144 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Deep valleys were filled

up with the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like

beasts, and many perished for want of food.]

145 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25 asserts, that Sapor, had he

not preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of

Asia.]

At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he

received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long

train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable

merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied with an epistle,

respectful, but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest

and most opulent senators of Palmyra. “Who is this Odenathus,”

(said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the present

should be cast into the Euphrates,) “that he thus insolently

presumes to write to his lord? If he entertains a hope of

mitigating his punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot

of our throne, with his hands bound behind his back. Should he

hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his

whole race, and on his country.” 146 The desperate extremity to

which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the

latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms.

Infusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the

villages of Syria 147 and the tents of the desert, 148 he hovered

round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part

of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several

of the women of the great king; who was at last obliged to repass

the Euphrates with some marks of haste and confusion. 149 By this

exploit, Odenathus laid the foundations of his future fame and

fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was

protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra.

146 (return) [ Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]

147 (return) [ Syrorum agrestium manu. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus

Victor the Augustan History, (p. 192,) and several inscriptions,

agree in making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra.]

148 (return) [ He possessed so powerful an interest among the

wandering tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. l. ii. c. 5) and

John Malala, (tom. i. p. 391) style him Prince of the Saracens.]

149 (return) [ Peter Patricius, p. 25.]

The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ

of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the

rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but

invested with the Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude,

a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the

Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the

neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of

his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the

vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome,

and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the

object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian

sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with

straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was

preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a

more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass

and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. 150 The tale is

moral and pathetic, but the truth 1501 of it may very fairly be

called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of

the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; 151 nor is it natural

to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a

rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever

treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it

is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever

fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in

hopeless captivity.

150 (return) [ The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult,

the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are

accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So

little has been preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that

the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the victory Sapor, an

event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliotheque Orientale. *

Note: Malcolm appears to write from Persian authorities, i.

76.—M.]

1501 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself records a speech of the

emperor Galerius, which alludes to the cruelties exercised

against the living, and the indignities to which they exposed the

dead Valerian, vol. ii. ch. 13. Respect for the kingly character

would by no means prevent an eastern monarch from ratifying his

pride and his vengeance on a fallen foe.—M.]

151 (return) [ One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of

Armenia; since Armenia was then a province of Persia, the king,

the kingdom, and the epistle must be fictitious.]

The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported with impatience the

censorial severity of his father and colleague, received the

intelligence of his misfortunes with secret pleasure and avowed

indifference. “I knew that my father was a mortal,” said he; “and

since he has acted as it becomes a brave man, I am satisfied.”

Whilst Rome lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage

coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the

perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. 152 It is difficult to

paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of

Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he

became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he

attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his

genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except

the important ones of war and government. He was a master of

several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant

poet, 153 a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most

contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state

required his presence and attention, he was engaged in

conversation with the philosopher Plotinus, 154 wasting his time

in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his initiation to

the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of

Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty;

the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of

the public disgrace. 155 The repeated intelligence of invasions,

defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and

singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production

of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be

ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras

cloth from Gaul. There were, however, a few short moments in the

life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he

suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant;

till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he

insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his

character. 156

152 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History.]

153 (return) [ There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium,

composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews:—“Ite ait,

O juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non

murmura vestra columbæ, Brachia non hederæ, non vincant oscula

conchæ.”]

154 (return) [ He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined

city of Campania to try the experiment of realizing Plato’s

Republic. See the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius’s

Biblioth. Græc. l. iv.]

155 (return) [A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has

perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former

Gallienæ Augustæ, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes

that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and

was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as

the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman

mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius

Pollio (Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious and natural solution.

Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa

from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a

medal in the French king’s collection, we read a similar

inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus

Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained

by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of

some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,

Janvier, 1700, p. 21—34.]

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There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that