A.D. 375.]

MOVEMENTS OF THE HUNS.

north derived a considerable reinforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the south, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the dominion of China: that the bravest warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the common hardships of their adverse fortune.* The Huns, with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agatbyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their vassals. Towards the north, they penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages, who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of human flesh and their southern inroads were pushed as far as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Sarmatic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners than the Huns; but they did not yield to those formidable barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked scimitar, fixed in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of age, and the tortures of lingering disease. On the banks of the Tanais, the military power

Mesures Itineraires, p. 154-167.) * See the Histoire des Huns, tom. ii, p. 125–144. The subsequent history (p. 145-277), of three or four Hunnic dynasties, evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a long residence in China. + Utque hominibus

VOL. III.

M

of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal valour, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest: the king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission.* A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian; where they still preserve their name and their independence. Another colony advanced with more intrepid courage, towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves with the northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced the offers of an honourable and advantageous union; and the Huns, who esteemed the valour of their less fortunate enemies, proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of the Gothic empire.

The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed in the full maturity of age and reputation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable approach of a host of unknown enemies,t on whom his barbarous subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded, and magnified by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate slaughter. To these real terrors, they added the surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity, of the Huns. These savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs; and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often placed on the bridges of antiquity. quietis et placidis otium est voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvant et bella. Judicatur ibi beatus qui in prœlio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos ut degeneres et ignavos conviciis atrocibus insectantur. (Ammian. 31. 2.) We must think highly of the conquerors of such men. * On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus (31, 2), Jornandes (De Rebus Geticis, c. 24), M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii, p. 279), and the Genealogical History of the Tartars (tom. ii, p. 617). + As we are possessed of the authentic

A.D. 375.]

AND VICTORIES OVER THE GOTHS.

163

They were distinguished from the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age.* A fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners; that the witches of Scythia, who for their foul and deadly practices had been driven from society, had copulated in the desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the offspring of this execrable conjunction. The tale, so full of horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous hatred of the Goths; but while it gratified their hatred, it increased their fear; since the posterity of demons and witches might be supposed to inherit some share of the preternatural powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents. Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the chiefs of the Roxolanit had formerly deserted the standard of Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses.

history of the Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables, which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of the mud or water of the Mæotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les Indes qu'ils avoient découvertes, &c. (Zosimus, 1. 4, p. 224. Sozomen, 1. 6, c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes, c. 24. Grandeur et Décadence, &c. des Romains, c. 17.) * Prodigiosæ formæ, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati stipites dolantur incompti. Ammian. 31, 2. Jornandes (c. 24) draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavendâ nigredine quædam deformis offa, non facies, habensque magis puncta quam lumina. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii, p. 380. + This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24) describes with the rancour of a Goth, might be originally derived from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. 1. 4, c. 9, &c.) The Roxolani

....

may be the fathers of the Pws, the Russians (D'Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1-10), whose residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki, cannot be very remote from that which the geographer of Ravenna (iv. 12. 4. 46. v. 28. 30) assigns to the Roxolani (A.D. 886). [Much valuable information has been collected by Schlözer, respecting the early history of the northern nations. But in his notice of the primitive Russians, he is less clear than usual. (Nordische Geschichte, vol. i,

:

The brothers of that unfortunate woman seized the favourable moment of revenge. The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the dangerous wound which he received from their daggers: but the conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate and the royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax, two warriors of apapproved valour and fidelity; who, by cautious marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric, more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing the victorious barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military skill deceived and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric. While the judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon had passed the river in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his retreat towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had already formed a new and judicious p. 222.) Nothing said by him favours Gibbon's suggestion. Yet the laxity of ancient ethnical nomenclature leaves us at liberty to conjecture that the Roxolani may have been a family of the Alani, distinguished by a prefixed epithet, which afterwards became the detached designation of an increasing tribe, and then of a numerous people. (See Cellarius on this subject, vol. i, 1. 2, c. 6, p. 407.-ED.]

A.D. 376.] GOTHS SEEK PROTECTION UNDER VALENS.

165

plan of defensive war; and the strong lines which he was preparing to construct between the mountains, the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and fertile territory that bears the modern name of Wallachia, from the destructive inroads of the Huns.* But the hopes and measures of the judge of the Visigoths were soon disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube was the only barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit, and invincible valour, of the barbarians of Scythia. Under the command of Fritigern and Alavivus,† the body of the nation hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored the protection of the Roman emperor of the east. Athanaric himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania.‡

After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance of glory and success, he made a progress through his dominions of Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria. The five years§ which he spent at Antioch were employed to watch, from a secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian monarch; to check the depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians; to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those of reason and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy his anxious

* The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost defines, the Gothic rampart. Mémoires de l'Académie, &c., tom. xxviii, p. 444-462.

M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi, p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same person as Ulphilas the Gothic bishop: and that Ulphilas, the grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of the Goths.

Ammianus (31, 3), and Jornandes (De Rebus Geticis, c. 24), describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.

§ The chronology of Ammianus is obscure and imperfect. Tillemont has laboured to clear and settle the Annals of Valens.

¶ Zosimus, 1. 4, p. 223. Sozomen, 1. vi, c. 38. The Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as far as the neighbourhood of Constantinople. Basil. Epis. 250, apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v p. 106.