and wheeling them on a sudden towards the centre, enclosed the rear of the German host. The dismayed barbarians, on whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld with despair a wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and implacable enemy. Reduced to this distressed condition, the Allemanni no longer disdained to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors at the head of his camp, and with every circumstance of martial pomp that could display the greatness and discipline of Rome. The legions stood to their arms in wellordered ranks and awful silence. The principal commanders, distinguished by the ensigns of their rank, appeared on horseback on either side of the imperial throne. Behind the throne, the consecrated images of the emperor, and his predecessors, the golden eagles, and the various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure† taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple of their conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground in silence. They were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak. By the assistance of interpreters they extenuated their perfidy, magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of fortune and the advantages of peace; and, with an ill-timed confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer of the emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with contempt, and their demand with indignation; reproached the barbarians, that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of the laws of peace; and finally dismissed them with the choice only of submitting to his unconditioned mercy, or awaiting the utmost severity of his resentment. Aurelian had resigned a distant province to the Goths; but it was dangerous to trust or pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose formidable power kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms. Immediately after this conference, it should seem that The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number; but we are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if to Cæsar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful spectacle; a long line of the masters of the world. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210. Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration, worthy of a 366 THE ROMANS SURPRISED. [CHI. XI. some unexpected emergency required the emperor's presence in Pannonia. He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the destruction of the Allemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer operation of famine. But an active despair has often triumphed over the indolent assurance of success. The barbarians, finding it impossible to traverse the Danube and the Roman camp, broke through the posts in their rear, which were more feebly or less carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy.* Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished, received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the Allemanni, and of the ravage which they had already committed in the territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting, the rapid flight of an enemy, whose infantry and cavalry moved with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards the emperor himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head of a chosen body of auxiliaries (among whom were the hostages and cavalry of the Vandals), and of all the prætorian guards who had served in the wars on the Danube.t As the light troops of the Allemanni had spread themselves from the Alps to the Apennines, the incessant vigilance of Aurelian and his officers was exercised in the dis covery, the attack, and the pursuit, of the numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this desultory war, three considerable battles are mentioned, in which the principal force of both armies was obstinately engaged. The success was various. In the first, fought near Placentia, the Romans received so severe a blow, that, according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended.§ The crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the legions in the dusk of the evening, and it is most probable, after the fatigue and disorder of a long march. The fury of their charge was irresistible; but at length, after a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied his troops, and restored in some degree, the honour of his arms. The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the Dexippus, p. 12. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. Grecian sophist. * Hist. August. p. 215. spot which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the the brother of Hannibal.* Thus far the successful Germans had advanced along the Emilian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this place the decisive moment of giving them a total and irretrievable defeat.† The flying remnant of their host was exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Allemanni. Fear has been the original parent of superstition: and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in the valour and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public consternation, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate, the Sibylline books were consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive either of religion or or policy, recommended this salutary measure, chided the tardiness of the senate,‡ and offered to supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal offer, it does not appear that any human victims expiated with their blood the sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books enjoined ceremonies of a inore harmLess nature: processions of priests in white robes, attended by a chorus of youths and virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country; and sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated. However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were subservient to the success of war; and if, in the decisive battle of Fano, the Allemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres combating on the side of Aurelian, he received a real and effectual aid from this imaginary reinforcement.§ But whatever confidence might be placed in ideal ramparts, *The little river, or rather torrent, of Metaurus, near Fano, has been immortalized by finding such an historian as Livy, and such a poet as Horace. It is recorded by an inscription found at Pesaro. See Gruter, 276, 3. One should imagine, he said, that you were assembled in a Christian church, not in the temple of all the gods. § Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 215, 216, gives a long account of the experience of the past, and the dread of the future, induced the Romans to construct fortifications of a grosser and more substantial kind. The seven hills of Rome had been surrounded by the successors of Romulus, with an ancient wall of more than thirteen miles.* The vast enclosure may seem disproportioned to the strength and numbers of the infant state. But it was necessary to secure an ample extent of pasture and arable land, against the frequent and sudden incursions of the tribes of Latium, the perpetual enemies of the republic. With the progress of Roman greatness the city and its inhabitants gradually increased, filled up the vacant space, pierced through the useless walls, covered the field of Mars, and, on every side, followed the public highways in long and beautiful suburbs.† The extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near fifty, but is reduced by accurate measurement to about twenty-one miles.§ It was a great but melancholy labour, since the defence of the capital betrayed the decline of the monarchy. The Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the legions the safety of the frontier camps, were very far from entertaining a suspicion that it would ever become necessary to fortify the seat of empire against the inroads of the barbarians.** The victory of Claudius over the Goths, and the success of Aurelian against the Allemanni, had already restored to these ceremonies, from the registers of the senate. *Plin. Hist. Natur. 3, 5. To confirm our idea, we may observe, that for a long time mount Cælius was a grove of oaks, and mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that, in the fourth century, the Aventine was a vacant and solitary retirement; that till the time of Augustus, the Esquilino was an unwholesome burying ground: and that the numerous inequalities remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal, sufficiently prove that it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven hills, the Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent valleys, were the primitive habitation of the Roman people. But this subject would require a dissertation. Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes, is the expression of Pliny. Hist. August. p. 222. Both Lipsius and Isaac Vossius have eagerly embraced this measure. § See Nardini, Koma Antica, lib. 1, c. 8. **For Aurelian's walls, see Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216, 222. Zosimus, lib. 1, p. 43. Eutropius, 9, 15. Aurel. Victor. in Aurelian. Victor Junior in Aurelian. Euseb. Hieronym. et Idatius in Chronic. Tacit. Hist. 4, 23. the arms of Rome their ancient superiority over the barbarous nations of the north. To chastise domestic tyrants, and to reunite the dismembered parts of the empire, was a task reserved for the second of those warlike emperors. Though he was acknowledged by the senate and people, the frontiers of Italy, Africa, Illyricum, and Thrace, confined the limits of his reign. Gaul, Spain, and Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, were still possessed by two rebels, who alone, out of so numerous a list, had hitherto escaped the dangers of their situation; and to complete the ignominy of Rome these rival thrones had been usurped by women. A rapid succession of monarchs had risen and fallen in the provinces of Gaul. The rigid virtues of Posthumus served only to hasten his destruction. After suppressing a competitor, who had assumed the purple at Mentz, he refused to gratify his troops with the plunder of the rebellious city; and in the seventh year of his reign, became the victim of their disappointed avarice.* The death of Victorinus, his friend and associate, was occasioned by a less worthy cause. The shining accomplishmentst of that prince were stained by a licentious passion, which he indulged in acts of violence, with too little regard to the laws of society, or even to those of love. He was slain at Cologne, by a conspiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After the murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable, that a female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of Gaul, and still more singular that she was the mother of the unfortunate Victorinus. * His competitor was Lollianus, or Ælianus, if indeed these names mean the same person. See Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1177. [The coins which bear the name of Lollianus are held to be spurious, except one, which is in the museum of the prince of Waldeck. Many have the name of Lælianus, which appears to have been properly that of the competitor of Posthumus. Eckhel, Doct. Num. Vet. tom. vii. p. 449.GUIZOT.] + The character of this prince by Julius Aterianus (ap. Hist. August. p. 187) is worth transcribing, as it seems fair and impartial. Victorino qui post Junium Posthumium Gallias rexit neminem existimo præferendum; non in virtute Trajanum; non Antoninum in clementia; non in gravitate Nervam; non in gubernando ærario Vespasianum; non in censura totius vitæ ac severitate militari Pertinacem vel Severum. Sed omnia hæc libido et cupiditas voluptatis mulierariæ sic perdidit, ut nemo audeat virtutes ejus in literas mittere, quem constat omnium judicio meruisse puniri. He ravished the wife of 2 B VOL. I. |