Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1
by Edward Gibbon
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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     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 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 demi gods of the Gothic nation. ^21

[Footnote 19: 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.]

[Footnote 20: 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.]

[Footnote 21: 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 Bastarnae 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 Bastarnae
dwelt on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains: the
immense tract of land that separated the Bastarnae 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. ^* 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, ^!! 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.

[Footnote 22: 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.]

[Footnote 23: D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part
of his incomparable map of Europe.]

[Footnote 24: Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]

[Footnote 25: Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]

[Footnote *: The Bastarnae 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 Maesia. Afterwards they reappear under the
Ostrogoths, with whom they were probably blended. Adelung, p.
236, 278. - G.]

[Footnote 26: 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.]
[Footnote 27: Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and
even his cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]

[Footnote !!: 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, Aemilianus, 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 leafy
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 gain, 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.

[Footnote 28: 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 Maesia 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 Maesia. ^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 Maesia, 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.
[Footnote 29: In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead of
secundo Maesiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second
Maesia, 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 Maesia. 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 Haemus. ^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

[Footnote 30: 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.]

[Footnote 31: 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.]
[Footnote 32: Ammian. xxxi. 5.]

[Footnote 33: Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]

[Footnote 34: Victorioe Carpicoe, on some medals of Decius,
insinuate these advantages.]

[Footnote 35: Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much
glory) was posted in the pass of Thermopylae 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.]
[Footnote 36: 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
Caesars. ^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 praefect 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

[Footnote 37: 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.]

[Footnote 38: 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.]

[Footnote 39: 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.]

[Footnote 40: 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.

[Footnote 41: This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who
supposes that Valerian was actually declared the colleague of
Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]
[Footnote 42: Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor's reply is
omitted.]
[Footnote 43: 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 Maesia, 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

[Footnote 44: 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.]

[Footnote 45: Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the
deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of
Jornandes.]
[Footnote 46: I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)
the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a
German tribe.]
[Footnote 47: Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]
Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]

[Footnote 48: 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.]

[Footnote 49: 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, she
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

[Footnote 50: Haec ubi Patres comperere . . . . decernunt.
Victor in Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 51: 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.

[Footnote 52: 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 Aeris, a weight of
copper, in value about eighteen pounds sterling, was the usual
present made to foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi. 9.)]

[Footnote 53: See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the
time of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25,
edit. Louvre.]
[Footnote 54: For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in
Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 55: These improbable accusations are alleged by
Zosimus, l. i. p. 28, 24.]

[Footnote 56: 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 Aemilianus, governor of Pannonia and Maesia; 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
right 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 Aemilianus; 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
Aemilianus 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
[Footnote 57: Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]

[Footnote 58: Victor in Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 59: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

[Footnote 60: 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 Aemilianus, 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, ^* 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.
[Footnote 61: Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense. Eusebio
this emperor.]

[Footnote 62: Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station
Valerian's army in Rhaetia.]

[Footnote *: Aurelius Victor says that Aemilianus 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 Gallien
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.
[Footnote 63: 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.]

[Footnote 64: 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.]

[Footnote 65: 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.]

[Footnote 66: 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. ^* The present circle of Westphalia, the Landgraviate of
Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg, were the
ancient 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 appellation
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.
[Footnote 67: Various systems have been formed to explain a
difficult passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]

[Footnote 68: 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.]

[Footnote 69: See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M.
Freret, in the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
xviii.]

[Footnote 70: Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an
accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii.
p. 710, 1181.]
[Footnote *: 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.]
[Footnote 71: Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists
frequently allude to the morasses of the Franks.]

[Footnote 72: Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]

[Footnote 73: In a subsequent period, most of those old names are
occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver.
Germ. Antiq. l. iii.]

[Footnote 74: Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Aemilianus, 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

[Footnote 75: Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]

[Footnote 76: 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 Gallie nus, 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
[Footnote 77: Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Poene 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.]

[Footnote 78: 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.]

[Footnote 79: Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that
the Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

[Footnote 80: 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 Caesar, declared that they
esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose
arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal. ^84
[Footnote 81: Tacit. Germania, 38.]

[Footnote 82: Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

[Footnote 83: Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui
a servis separantur. A proud separation!]

[Footnote 84: Caesar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

     In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm
of Suevi appeared on the banks of the Mein, 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, ^* 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

[Footnote 85: Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]
[Footnote *: 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 Rhaetia, 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 Usipetae, 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.]

[Footnote 86: 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.]

[Footnote 87: The Suevi engaged Caesar in this manner, and the
manoeuvre 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 Rhaetian
Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and
displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of
Rome. ^88

[Footnote 88: 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 he defence
of the republic, drew out the Praetorian 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

[Footnote 89: 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

[Footnote 90: 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

[Footnote 91: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]

[Footnote 92: One of the Victors calls him king of the
Marcomanni; the other of the Germans.]

[Footnote 93: 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.

[Footnote 94: 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 Maeotis 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 This 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.

[Footnote 95: It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical
History of the Tartars, p 598.]

[Footnote 96: M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at
Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont
habite les bords du Danube]
[Footnote 97: Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

[Footnote 98: Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of
Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.]

[Footnote 99: Appian in Mithridat.]

[Footnote 100: 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.]

[Footnote 101: 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.]

[Footnote 102: Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

[Footnote 103: Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were
called Camaroe.]

[Footnote 104: 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

[Footnote 105: 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.]

[Footnote 106: 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 reenforcement 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

[Footnote 107: Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the
distance 2610 stadia.]

[Footnote 108: 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.]

[Footnote 109: Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is
Tournefort's.]
[Footnote 110: See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of
Neo- Caeoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]

[Footnote 111: 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,
^* 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, Apamaea,
Cius, ^! 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
[Footnote *: It has preserved its name, joined to the preposition
of place in that of Nikmid. D'Anv. Geog. Anc. ii. 28. - G.]

[Footnote 112: Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]

[Footnote !: Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D'Anv. ii.
23. - G.]
[Footnote 113: Zosimus, l. . p. 32, 33.]

     When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of
Mithridates, ^114 it was distinguished by wise laws, a nava 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

[Footnote 114: 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.]

[Footnote 115: Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]

[Footnote 116: Pocock's Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23,
24.]
[Footnote 117: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

[Footnote 118: Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince
Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince
Odenathus.]
[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 Aegean
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
Piraeus, 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 Piraeus, 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

[Footnote 120: Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as
undertaken by the Heruli.]

[Footnote 121: Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]

[Footnote 122: Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]

[Footnote 123: 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, he 2000 men. He 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 Maesia, 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 Haemus; 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
[Footnote 124: Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a
long time faithful and famous.]

[Footnote 125: Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought
with propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous
of his fame Hist. August. p. 181.]

[Footnote 126: Jornandes, c. 20.]

[Footnote 127: 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, Aemilianus, 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

[Footnote 128: Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]

[Footnote 129: Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i.
praefat l vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi.
14.]

[Footnote 130: 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.]
[Footnote 131: 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.]

[Footnote 132: 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.
[Footnote 133: 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 Carrhae and Nisibis ^* to surrender, and
spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.
[Footnote 134: 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.)]

[Footnote *: 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 Praetorian praefect. ^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

[Footnote 135: Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to
the Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]

[Footnote 136: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

[Footnote 137: Hist. Aug. p. 174.]

[Footnote 138: Victor in Caesar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]

[Footnote 139: Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630.
Peter Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]

[Footnote 140: 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
Caesarea, 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
Caesarea 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

[Footnote 141: 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.]

[Footnote 142: Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]

[Footnote 143: John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this
probable event by some fabulous circumstances.]

[Footnote 144: 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.]

[Footnote 145: 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.

[Footnote 146: Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]

[Footnote 147: 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.]

[Footnote 148: 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.]

[Footnote 149: 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 ^! 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.

[Footnote 150: 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.]
[Footnote !: 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.]
[Footnote 151: 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 Arcopagus 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

[Footnote 152: See his life in the Augustan History.]

[Footnote 153: 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 columbae,
     Brachia non hederae, non vincant oscula conchae."]

[Footnote 154: 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. Graec. l. iv.]
[Footnote 155: A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has
perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former
Gallienoe Augustoe, 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.]

[Footnote 156: This singular character has, I believe, been
fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor
was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the
elevation of the family of Constantine could not have the most
remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus.]

     At the time when the reins of government were held with so
loose a hand, it is not surprising, that a crowd of usurpers
should start up in every province of the empire against the son
of Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing
the thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens,
that induced the writers of the Augustan History to select that
celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a
popular appellation. ^157 But in every light the parallel is idle
and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council
of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an
uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in
irregular succession through the extent of a vast empire? Nor
can the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the
account the women and children who were honored with the Imperial
title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced
only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the
western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his
mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the
confines of the Danube, Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in
Pontus, ^158 Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in
Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Aemilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in
Africa. ^* To illustrate the obscure monuments of the life and
death of each individual, would prove a laborious task, alike
barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
with investigating some general characters, that most strongly
mark the condition of the times, and the manners of the men,
their pretensions, their motives, their fate, and their
destructive consequences of their usurpation. ^159

[Footnote 157: Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to
complete the number.

     Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on the thirty tyrants
at the end of his Leben Constantius des Grossen. Breslau, 1817.
- M.]

[Footnote 158: The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but
there was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat
of all the others.]
[Footnote *: Captain Smyth, in his "Catalogue of Medals," p. 307,
substitutes two new names to make up the number of nineteen, for
those of Odenathus and Zenobia. He subjoins this list: -
         1.                         2.                 3.  Of
those whose coins        Those whose coins     Those of whom no  
are undoubtedly true.       are suspected.       coins are
known. Posthumus.                    Cyriades.           
Valens. Laelianus, (Lollianus, G.)     Ingenuus.           
Balista Victorinus                     Celsus.             
Saturninus. Marius.                       Piso Frugi.        
Trebellianus. Tetricus.                                         

  - M. 1815 Macrianus.
Quietus.
Regalianus (Regillianus, G.)
Alex. Aemilianus.
Aureolus.
Sulpicius Antoninus]

[Footnote 159: Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them
somewhat differently.]

     It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of
Tyrant was often employed by the ancients to express the illegal
seizure of supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of
it. Several of the pretenders, who raised the standard of
rebellion against the emperor Gallienus, were shining models of
virtue, and almost all possessed a considerable share of vigor
and ability. Their merit had recommended them to the favor of
Valerian, and gradually promoted them to the most important
commands of the empire. The generals, who assumed the title of
Augustus, were either respected by their troops for their able
conduct and severe discipline, or admired for valor and success
in war, or beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of
victory was often the scene of their election; and even the
armorer Marius, the most contemptible of all the candidates for
the purple, was distinguished, however by intrepid courage,
matchless strength, and blunt honesty. ^160 His mean and recent
trade cast, indeed, an air of ridicule on his elevation; ^* but
his birth could not be more obscure than was that of the greater
part of his rivals, who were born of peasants, and enlisted in
the army as private soldiers. In times of confusion, every
active genius finds the place assigned him by nature: in a
general state of war, military merit is the road to glory and to
greatness. Of the nineteen tyrants Tetricus only was a senator;
Piso alone was a noble. The blood of Numa, through twenty-eight
successive generations, ran in the veins of Calphurnius Piso,
^161 who, by female alliances, claimed a right of exhibiting, in
his house, the images of Crassus and of the great Pompey. ^162
His ancestors had been repeatedly dignified with all the honors
which the commonwealth could bestow; and of all the ancient
families of Rome, the Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny
of the Caesars. The personal qualities of Piso added new lustre
to his race. The usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed,
confessed, with deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have
respected the sanctity of Piso; and although he died in arms
against Gallienus, the senate, with the emperor's generous
permission, decreed the triumphal ornaments to the memory of so
virtuous a rebel. ^163
[See Roman Coins: From The British Museum. Number four depicts
Crassus.]
[Footnote 160: See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History,
p. 197. The accidental identity of names was the only
circumstance that could tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust.]

[Footnote *: Marius was killed by a soldier, who had formerly
served as a workman in his shop, and who exclaimed, as he struck,
"Behold the sword which thyself hast forged." Trob vita. - G.]

[Footnote 161: "Vos, O Pompilius sanguis!" is Horace's address to
the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292, with Dacier's and Sanadon's
notes.]
[Footnote 162: Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former
of these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna.
In every generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or
more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the
throne by Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 13;) a second headed a
formidable conspiracy against Nero; and a third was adopted, and
declared Caesar, by Galba.]

[Footnote 163: Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of
enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of
Gallienus.]

     The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to the father,
whom they esteemed. They disdained to serve the luxurious
indolence of his unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was
unsupported by any principle of loyalty; and treason against such
a prince might easily be considered as patriotism to the state.
Yet if we examine with candor the conduct of these usurpers, it
will appear, that they were much oftener driven into rebellion by
their fears, than urged to it by their ambition. They dreaded
the cruel suspicions of Gallienus; they equally dreaded the
capricious violence of their troops. If the dangerous favor of
the army had imprudently declared them deserving of the purple,
they were marked for sure destruction; and even prudence would
counsel them to secure a short enjoyment of empire, and rather to
try the fortune of war than to expect the hand of an executioner.

When the cla