XII. CHAP. the barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the vain attempt of fortifying an extensive tract of country. An active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must, in the end, discover some feeble spot, or some unguarded moment. The strength as well as the attention of the defenders is divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly deserted. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins universally ascribed to the power of the dæmon, now serve only to excite the wonder of the Swabian peasant. Introduction and of the bar Among the useful conditions of peace imposettlement sed by Probus on the vanquished nations of Gerbarians. many, was the obligation of supplying the Roman army with sixteen thousand recruits, the bravest and most robust of their youth. The emperor dispersed them through all the provinces, and distributed this dangerous reinforcement in small bands of fifty or sixty each, among * See Recherches sur les Chinoise et les Egyptiens, tom. ii, p. 81102. The anonymous author is well acquainted with the globe in general, and with Germany in particular: with regard to the latter, he quotes a work of M. Hanselman; but he seems to confound the wall of Probus, designed against the Alemanni, with the fortification of the Mattiaci, constructed in the nighbourhood of Frankfort, against the Catti. XII. the national troops; judiciously observing, that CHAP. the aid which the republic derived from the barbarians should be felt but not seen." Their aid was now become necessary. The feeble elegance of Italy and the internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms. The hardy frontier of the Rhine and Danube still produced minds and bodies equal to the labours of the camp; but a perpetual series of wars had gradually diminished their numbers. The infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of agriculture, affected the principles of population, and not only destroyed the strength of the present, but intercepted the hope of future, generations. The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and beneficial plan of replenishing the exhausted fron tiers, by new colonies of captive or fugitive barbarians, on whom he bestowed lands, cattle, instruments of husbandry, and every encouragement that might engage them to educate a race of soldiers for the service of the republic. Into Britain, and most probably into Cambridgeshire," he transported a considerable body of Vandals. The impossibility of an escape reconciled them to their situation; and in the subsequent troubles of that island, they approved themselves the most faithful servants of the state. Great He distributed about fifty or sixty barbarians to a Numerus, as it was then called; a corps, with whose established number we are not exactly acquainted. 7 Camden's Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he speaks from a very donbtful conjecture. * Zosimus, l. i, p. 62. According to Vopiscus, another body of Vandals was less fathful. XII. CHAP. numbers of Franks and Gepida were settled on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine. An hundred thousand Bastarnæ, expelled from their own country, cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and soon imbibed the manners and sentiments of Roman subjects.' But the expectation of Probus was too often disappointed. The impatience and idleness of the barbarians could ill brook the slow labours of agriculture. Their unconquerable love of freedom, rising against despotism, provoked them into hasty rebellions, alike fatal to themselves and to the provinces ; nor could these artificial supplies, however repeated by succeeding emperors, restore the important limit of Gaul and Illyricum to its ancient and native vigour. Daring en'erprise of Of all the barbarians who abandoned their BicFranks. new settlements, and disturbed the public tran quillity, a very small number returned to thei! own country. For a short season they might wander in arms through the empire; but in the end they were surely destroyed by the power o a warlike emperor. The successful rashness o a party of Franks was attended, however, with such memorable consequences, that it ought no to be passed unnoticed. They had been esta blished by Probus on the sea coast of Pontur with a view of strengthening the frontier agains the inroads of the Alani. A fleet, stationed i one of the harbours of the Euxine, fell into the Hist. Angust. p. 240. They were probably expelled by the Goth Zosim. l. i, 66. Hist. August. p 210. XII. hands of the Franks; and they resolved, through CHAP. unknown seas, to explore their way from the mouth of the Phasis to that of the Rhine. They easily escaped through the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, and cruising along the Mediterranean, indulged their appetite for revenge, and plunder, by frequent descents on the unsuspecting shores of Asia, Greece, and Africa. The opulent city of Syracuse, in whose port the navies of Athens and Carthage had formerly been sunk, was sacked by a handful of barbarians, who massacred the greatest part of the trembling inhabitants. From the island of Sicily, the Franks proceeded to the columns of Hercules, trusted themselves to the ocean, coasted round Spain and Gaul, and steering their triumphant course through the British channel, at length finished their surprising voyage, by landing in safety on the Batavian or Frisian shores. The example of their success, instructing their countrymen to conceive the advantages, and to despise the dangers, of the sea, pointed out to their enterprising spirit a new road to wealth and glory. d Saturninus Notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of Revolt of Probus, it was almost impossible that he could in the East at once contain in obedience every part of his wide extended dominions. The barbarians, who broke their chains, had seized the favourable opportunity of a domestic war. When the emperor marched to the relief of Gaul, he devolved Panegyr. Vet. v, 18. Zosimus, 1. 1, p. 66. XII. CHAP. the command of the East on Saturninus. That general, a man of merit and experience, was driven into rebellion by the absence of his sovereign, the levity of the Alexandrian people, the pressing instances of his friends, and his own fears; but from the moment of his elevation, he never entertained a hope of empire, or even of life. "Alas!" he said, "the republic has lost a "useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has "destroyed the services of many years. You "know not," continued he, "the misery of sove reign power; a sword is perpetually suspend"ed over our head. We dread our very guards, "we distrust our companions. The choice of ac"tion or of repose is no longer in our disposition, "nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, "that can protect us from the censure of envy. "In thus exalting me to the throne, you have "doomed me to a life of cares, and to an un 66 timely fate. The only consolation which re"mains is the assurance that I shall not fall "alone." But as the former part of his prediction was verified by the victory, so the latter was disappointed by the clemency, of Probus. That amiable prince attempted even to save the unhappy Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers. He had more than once solicited the usurper himself, to place some confidence in the mercy A. D. 279. of a sovereign who so highly esteemed his cha Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 245, 246. The unfortunate orator had studied rhetoric at Carthage, and was therefore more probably a Moor (Zosim. I. i. p. 60) than a Gaul, as Vopiscus calls him. |