328

BATTLE OF STRASBURG.

[CH. XIL the Allemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed three days and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin, which he had victoriously wielded against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of the barbarians, and moderated by his experience the martial ardour which his example inspired. He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received from a deserter, that the Cæsar, with a feeble army of thirteen thousand men, occupied a post about one-andtwenty miles from their camp of Strasburg. With this inadequate force, Julian resolved to seek and to encounter the barbarian host; and the chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties of the Allemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two columns, the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamours of the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted them to justify by their valour the eager impatience, which, in case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with equal fury to the charge. The Cæsar, who conducted in person his right wing, depended on the dexterity of his

* Ammianus (16, 12) describes with his inflated eloquence, the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens ingenti robore lacer torum, ubi ardor proelii sperabatur immanis, equo spumante, sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandæ vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et miles, et utilis prætor cæteros ductor Decentium Cæsarem superavit æquo marte congressus.

A.D. 357.]

JULIAN'S VICTORY.

829

archers, and the weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken by an irregular mixture of lighthorse and of light-infantry, and he had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred of his most renowned cuirassiers. The fugitives were stopped and rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every motive of shame and honour, led them back against the victorious enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry was obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper; and as the barbarians, who served under the standard of the empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes and two hundred and fortythree soldiers, in this memorable battle of Strasburg, so glorious to the Cæsar,t and so salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Allemanni were slain in the field, without including those who were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they attempted to swim across the river. Chnodomar himself was surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave companions who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward

After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the rigour of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next campaign, these troops nebly retrieved their honour. Zosimus, l. 3. p. 142. + Julian himself (ad

S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks of the battle of Strasburg with the modesty of conscious merit έμαχεσάμην οὐκ ἀκλεῶς, ἴσως καὶ εἰς ὑμᾶς αφίκετο ή τοιάυτη μάχη. Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius: and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct and success of a single day. Ammianus, 16, 12. Libanius adds two thousand more to the number of the slain. (Orat. 10, p. 274.) But these trifling differences disappear before the sixty thousand barbarians whom Zosimus has sacrificed to the glory of his hero. 1. 3, p. 141). We might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not swelled the army of thirty-five thousand Allemanni to an innumerable multitude of barbarians, πλῆθος ἄπειρον βαρβάρων. It is our

830

CHNODOMAR MADE CAPTIVE.

[CH. XIL contempt for the abject humiliation of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the vanquished king of the Allemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an honourable treatment; but the impatient barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile.*

After Julian had repulsed the Allemanni from the provinces of the Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were seated nearer to the ocean on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid valour, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the barbarians.† Although they were strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of war, which they considered as the supreme honour and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which followed the battle of Strasburg, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the Meuse. In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the enemy in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense with the ancient law, which commanded them to conquer or to die. The Cæsar immediately sent his captives to the court of Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present,§ rejoiced in the own fault if this detection does not inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions. * Ammian. 16, 12. Libanius, Orat. 10, +Libanius (Orat. 3, p. 137) draws a very lively picture of the manners of the Franks. Ammianus, 17, 2. Libanius, Orat. 10, p. 278. The Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men; and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he compares them to the Lacedemonians, who were besieged and taken in the island of Sphacteria.

p. 276.

§ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat, 10, p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor copa rópalı, which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. 17, 2) as a mean evasion of

A.D. 358.]

VICTORY OVER THE FRANKS.

331

opportunity of adding so many heroes to the choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance of this handful of Franks, apprized Julian of the difficulties of the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and astonished the active barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him in his winter-quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency, and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman empire. The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the barbarians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by a sense of the public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Cæsar addressed the assembly in the following terms: "Behold

the truth. Dom. Bouquet. (Historiens de France, tom. i, p. 733) by substituting another word, ivóμice, would suppress both the difficulty and the spirit of this passage. * Ammian. 17, 18. Zosimus, 1. 8, p. 146-150, (his narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable) and Julian .ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression, væεdežáμŋv pèv põi. ραν του Σαλίων ἔθνους, Χαμάβους δὲ ἐξήλασα. This difference uf

332

JULIAN'S ADVANCE INTO GERMANY.

[CH. XIX the son, the prince whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue, than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will avenge the perfidy not on the innocent, but on the guilty." The bar barians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and admiration.*

It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of Gaul from the barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after whose example he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic war.t Cæsar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in which he twice passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman eagles beyond that great river in three successful expeditions. The con sternations of the Germans, after the battle of Strasburg, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle, felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses, constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed by the flames; and the Cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles, till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest, undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened, with secret

treatment confirms the opinion, that the Salian Franks were permitted to retain the settlement in Toxandria. *This interesting story which Zosimus has abridged, is related by Eunapius (in Excerpt. Le gationum, p. 15-17) with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric; but the silence of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, ren'ders the truth of it extremely suspicious. + Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates (Orat. 4, p. 178) that this hero had composed the history of his Gallic campaigns. But Zosimus (1. 3, p. 140) seems to have derived his information only from the Orations (Aoyoig) and the Epistles of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against the Germans. See Ammian. 17, 1-10, 18, 2, and Zosim. 1.3 p. 144. Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.