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XVI.

motive of shame and honour, led them back against CHAP.
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 stand-
ard 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 hun-
dred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable bat-
tle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Cæsar, and so
salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six
thousand of the Alemanni were slain in the field,
without including those who were drowned in the
Rhine, or transfixed with darts whilst they attempted
to swim across the river. Chnodomar himself was
surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his
brave companions, who 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 contempt for the
abject humiliation of his captive. Instead of ex-
hibiting the vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a
grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul, he respect-
fully 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 *.

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After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the Julian sub-
provinces of the Upper Rhine, he turned his arms Franks,
against the Franks, who were seated nearer to the A. D. 358.
ocean on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and
who, from their numbers, and still more from their

* Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.

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XVI.

CHAP. 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 Strasburgh, 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 opportunity of adding so many heroes to the choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance of this handful of Franks apprised 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 to deliberate, he skilfully

✦ Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137.) draws a very lively picture of the manners of the Franks.

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XVI.

spread his legions from Cologne to the ocean; and CHAP.
by the terror, as well as by the success of his arms,
soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the cle-
mency, and to obey the commands, of their con-
queror. The Chamavians submissively retired to
their former habitations beyond the Rhine: but the
Salians were permitted to possess their new esta-
blishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxili-
aries of the Roman empire. The treaty was ratified
by solemn oaths; and perpetual inspectors were ap-
pointed to reside among the Franks, with the au-
thority of enforcing the strict observance of the con-
ditions. An incident is related, interesting enough
in itself, and by no means repugnant to the cha-
racter 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 in whom he could
rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and
groans, declared the sad perplexity of the Barba-
rians; and their aged chief lamented in pathetic
language, that his private loss was now embittered
by a sense of the public calamity. While the Cha-
mavians 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 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

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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 Barbarians withdrew

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XVI.

CHAP. the most part reduced to ashes. The barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations. on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their Gallic monarchy. From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine, the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation; and the scene of their devastations was three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the inclosure of their walls. The diminished legions, destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

Conduct of Julian.

Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he expresses himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatThe retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the living, left

ness.

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XVI.

him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of CHAP.
war and government; and when he awkwardly re-
peated some military exercise which it was necessary
for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O
"Plato, Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet
even this speculative philosophy, which men of busi-
ness are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of
Julian with the noblest precepts, and the most shin-
ing examples; had animated him with the love of
virtue, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death.
The habits of temperance recommended in the schools,
are still more essential in the severe discipline of a
camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the
measure of his food and sleep. Rejecting with dis-
dain the delicacies provided for his table, he satisfied
his appetite with the coarse and common fare which
was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During the
rigour of a Gallic winter he never suffered a fire in
his bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted
slumber, he frequently rose in the middle of the
night from a carpet spread on the floor, to despatch
any urgent business, to visit his rounds, or to steal a
few moments for the prosecution of his favourite
studies*. The precepts of eloquence, which he had
hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation,
were more usefully applied to excite or to assuage
the passions of an armed multitude: and although
Julian, from his early habits of conversation and
literature, was more familiarly acquainted with the
beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a
competent knowledge of the Latin tongue. Since
Julian was not originally designed for the character
of a legislator, or a judge, it is probable that the

*The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe discipline which he em-
braced, are displayed by Ammianus (xvi. 5.), who professes to praise, and by
Julian himself, who affects to ridicule (Mesopogon, p. 340.), a conduct, which,
in a prince of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of man-
kind.

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