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rose to the rank of a centurion, a tribune, the praefect of a legion, the inspector of the camp, the general, or, as it was then called, the duke, of a frontier; and at length, during the Gothic war, exercised the important office of commander in chief of the cavalry. In every station he distinguished himself by matchless valour", rigiddiscipline, and successful conduct. He was 'invested with the consulship by the emperor Valerian, who styles him, in the pompous language of that age, the deliverer of Illyricum, the re-. store/r of Gaul, and the rival of the Scipios. At the recommendation of Valerian, a senator of the, highest rank and merit, Ulpius Crinitus, whose__ blood was derived from_the same source as that of Trajan, adopted the Pannonian peasant, gave him his daughter in marriage, and relieved with his ample fortune the honourable poverty which Aurelian had preserved inviolate '3. ' The reign of Aurelian lasted only four years. and about nine months; but every instant of that short period was filled by some memorable atchievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who invaded Italy, rec'overed Gaul, Spain, and Britain out of the hands of Tetricus, and destroyed the proud xnonarchy

' He concludes a treaty with the Goths,

their sudden separation. A few such examples i'mpressed a salutary consternation. The punishments of Aurelian were terrible ; but he had selJdom occafion to punish more than once the same offence. His own conduct gave a sanction to his. laws, and the seditious legions dreaded a chief who had learned to obey, and who was worthy to Command.

The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit of the Goths. The troops which guarded the passes of Mount Haemus, and the banks of the Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehensron of a civil war; and it seems Probable that the remaining body of the Gothic and Vandalic tribes embraced the favourable opportunity, abandoned their settlements of the Ukraine, traversed the rivers, and swelled withv new multitudes the destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at length. encountered by Aurelian, and the bloody and doubtful conflict ended only with the approach

,v--ddring a twenty years war, the Goths and the

Gothic nation engaged to supply the armies of C HA P. Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries, . XI' , consisting entirely of cavalry, and stipulated in return" an undisturbed retreat, with a regular market as far as the Danube, provided by the emperor's care, but at their own expence. The treaty was observed with such religious fidelity, that when a party of five hundred men straggled from the camp in quest of plunder, the king or general of the barbarians commanded that the . guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death with darts, as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements. It is, however, not unlikely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic chiefs, contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths he trained in the exercise of arms, and near his own person: to the damsels he' gave a liberal and Roman education, and by bestowing them in marriage on some of his principal officers, gradually introduced between the two nations the closest and most endearing connections z'.

But the most important condition of peace was Mix; understood rather than expressed in' the treaty. thLern the Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces from Dacia, ZFOBLE; and tacitly relinquished that great province to ct the Goths and Vandals ". His manly judgment'

southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a desert, was yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still preserved the memory of Trajan's conquests. The old country of that name detained, however, a considerable number of its inhabitants, who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master '3. These degenerate-,R0mans continued to serve the empire, whose allegiance they had renounced by introducing among their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the usesul arts, and the conveniences of civilised life. 'An intercourse of. commerce and language was gradually established between the opposite banks of the Danube; and after Dahia became an independent state, it often proved the firmest barrier of the empire against the invasions of the savages of the North. A sense of interest attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent, interest very frequently ripens into fincere and useful friendship. This, various colony, which;