XI. which Zenobia had erected in the East, on the CHAP. ruins of the afflicted empire. discipline It was the rigid attention of Aurelian, even to His severe the minutest articles of discipline, which bestowed such uninterrupted success on his arms. His military regulations are contained in a very concise epistle to one of his inferior officers, who is commanded to enforce them, as he wishes to become a tribune, or as he is desirous to live. Gaming, drinking, and the arts of diviniation, were severely prohibited. Aurelian expected that his soldiers should be modest, frugal, and laborious; that their armour should be constantly kept bright, their weapons sharp, their clothing and horses ready for immediate service; that they should live in their quarters with chastity and sobriety; without damaging the corn fields; without stealing even a sheep, a fowl, or a bunch of grapes; without exacting from their landlords either salt, or oil, or wood. "The pub "lic allowance," continues the emperor, "is suf"ficient for their support; their wealth should "be collected from the spoil of the enemy, not "from the tears of the provincials." A single `instance will serve to display the rigour, and even cruelty, of Aurelian. One of the soldiers had seduced the wife of his host. The guilty Hist. August. p. 211. This laconic epistle is trury the work of a soldier; it abounds with military phrases and words, some of which cannot be understood without difficulty. Ferramenta samiata is well explained by Salmacius. The former of the words means all weapons of offence, and is contrasted with arma, defensive armour. The latter signifies keen and well sharpened. XI. CHAP. wretch was fastened to two trees forcibly drawn toward each other, and his limbs were torn asunder by their sudden separation. A few such examples impressed a salutary consternation. The punishments of Aurelian were terrible; but he had seldom occasion 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. He concludes a The death of Claudius had revived the fainttreaty with ing spirit of the Goths. The troops which the Goths, guarded the passes of Mount Hamus and the banks of the Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehension 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 with 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 of night." Exhausted by so many calamities, which they had mutually endured and inflicted during a twenty years war, the Goths and the Romans consented to a lasting and beneficial treaty. It was earnestly solicited by the barbarians, and cheerfully ratified by the legions, to whose suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the decision of that important question. The "Zosim. 1, i. p. 45. XI. Gothic nation engaged to supply the armies of CHAP. Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries, 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 closet and most endearing connections.* tothem the provinceof But the most important condition of peace andresigns was understood rather than expressed in the treaty. Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces Dacia from Dacia, and tacitly relinquished that great province to the Goths and Vandals. His manly * Dexippus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12) relates the whole transac tion under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one of the Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to drink with the Goths, and discover their secrets. Hist. August. p. 247. Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix, 15. Sextus Rufus, c. 9. Lactanius de mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9. XI. CHAP. judgment convinced him of the solid advantages, and taught him to despise the seeming disgrace, of thus contracting the frontiers of the monarchy. The Dacian subjects, removed from those distant possessions which they were unable to cultivate or defend, added strength and populousness to the southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the repetition of barbarous in roads had changed into 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." These degenerate Romans continued to serve the empire, whose allegiance they had renounced by introducing among their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts, and the conveniencies of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce and language was gradually established between the opposite banks of the Danube; and after Dacia 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 sincere and useful friendship. This The Wallachians still preserve many traces of the Latin language, and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman descent. They are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the barbarians. See a memoir of M. d'Anville on ancient Dacia, in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx. XI. various colony, which filled the ancient province, CHAP. and was insensibly blended into one great people, still acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic tribe, and claimed the fancied honour of a Scandanavian origin. At the same time the lucky though accidental resemblance of the name of Gæta infused among the credulous Goths a vain persuasion, that, in a remote age, their own ancestors, already seated in the Dacian provinces, had received the instructions of Zamolxis, and checked the victorious arms of Sesostris and Darius." mannic war. While the vigorous and moderate conduct of The Ale Aurelian restored the Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni violated the conditions of peace, which either Gallienus had purchased, or Claudius had imposed, and, inflamed by their impatient youth, suddenly flew to arms. Forty thousand horse appeared in the field, and the numbers of the infantry doubled those of the cavalry. The first objects of their avarice were a few cities of the Rhætian frontier; but * See the first chapter of Jornandes. The Vandals however (c. 22), maintained a short independence between the rivers Marisia and Crissia (Maros and Keres) which fell into the Teiss. Dexippus, p. 7-12. Zosimus, 1. i, p. 43. Vopiscus in Aurelian in Hist. August. However these historians differ in names (Alemanni, Juthungi, and Marcomanni), it is evident that they mean the same people, and the same war; but it requires some care to conciliate and explain them. Contoclarus, with his usual accuracy, chooses to translate three hundred thousand: his version is equally repugnant to sense and to grammar. d We may remark as an instance of bad taste, that Dexippus applies to the light infantry of the Alemanni the technical terms proper only to the Grecian phalanx. |