CHAP. tinguished his reign, were achieved by the personal vaXII. lour and conduct of the emperor, insomuch that the writer of his life expresses some amazement how, in so short a time, a single man could be present in so many distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted to the care of his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms no inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd of other chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne, were trained to arms in the severe school of Aurelian aud Probus33. A. D. 277. vers Gaul But the most important service which Probus renHe deli- dered to the republic, was the deliverance of Gaul, and from the the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by invasion the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Germans, Aurelian had ravaged that great province with impu of the nity34. Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valour of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the confederacy known by the manly appellation of Free, already occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded to their alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians, a considerable people of the Vandalic race. They had wandered in quest of booty from the banks of the Oder to those of the Seine. They esteemed themselves sufficiently fortunate to purchase, by the restitution of all their booty, the permission of an undisturbed retreat. They attempted to elude that article of the treaty. Their punishment was immediate and terrible35. But of all the invaders 33 Besides these well known chiefs, several others are named by Vopiscus (Hist. August. p. 241.), whose actions have not reached our knowledge. 34 See the Cæsars of Julian, and Hist. August. p. 238. 240, 241. 35 Zosimus, 1. i. p. 62. Hist. August. p. 240. But the latter supposes the punishment inflicted with the consent of their kings; if so, it was partial, like the offence. XII. of Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a dis- CHAP. tant people who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia. In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by their numbers and fierceness. “The Arii (it is thus that they are des"cribed by the energy of Tacitus) study to improve 66 by art and circumstances the innate terrors of their barbarism. Their shields are black, their bodies are "painted black. They chuse for the combat the dark"est hour of the night. Their host advances, covered "as it were with a funeral shade37; nor do they often "find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and "infernal an aspect. Of all our senses, the eyes are "the first vanquished in battle."" Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a general engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs, fell alive into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor, unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair, granted them an honourable capitulation, and permitted them to return in safety to their native country. But the losses which they suffered in the march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the nation nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history either of Germany or of the empire. The deliverance of Gaul is reported to have cost the lives of four hundred thousand of the invaders; a work of labour to the Romans, and of expense to the emperor, who gave a piece of gold for the head of every barbarian39. But as the fame of warriors is built on the destruction of human kind, we may naturally suspect, that the sanguinary account was multiplied by the avarice of the soldiers, and accepted without any very severe examination by the liberal vanity of Probus. Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman ge- and carnerals had confined their ambition to a defensive war 36 See Cluver, Germania Antiqua, 1. iii. Ptolemy places in their country the city of Calisia, probably Calish in Silesia. 37 Feralis umbra, is the expression of Tacitus; it is surely a very bold one. 38 Tacit. Germ. (c. 43.) 39 Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 238. ries his arms into Germany. CHAP. agaist the nations of Germany, who perpetually pressXII. ed on the frontiers of the empire. The more daring Pro & wall from the Rhine to bus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and displayed his invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the Neckar. He was fully convinced, that nothing could reconcile the minds of the barbarians to peace, unless they experienced in their own country the calamities of war. Germany, exhausted by the ill success of the last emigration, was astonished by his presence. Nine of the most considerable princes repaired to his camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate. He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which they had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own magistrates to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to detain any part of the spoil. A considerable tribute of corn, cattle, and horses, the only wealth of barbarians, was reserved for the use of the garrisons which Probus established on the limits of their territory. He even entertained some thoughts of compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of arms, and to trust their differences to the justice, their safety to the power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army, was indispensibly requisite. Probus therefore judged it more expedient to defer the execution of so great a design; which was indeed rather of specious than solid utility. Had Germany been reduced into the state of a province, the Romans, with immense labour and expense, would have acquired only a more extensive boundary to defend against the fiercer and more active barbarians of Scythia. He builds Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads. The country, which now forms the circle of Swabia, had been left desert in the age of Augustus the Danube. 40 Hist. August. p. 238, 239. Vopiscus quotes a letter from the emperor to the senate, in which he mentions his design of reducing Germany into a province. XII. by the emigration of its ancient inhabitants". The fer- CHAP. tility of the soil soon attracted a new colony from the adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers, of a roving temper and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tythes, the majesty of the empire42. To protect these new subjects, a line of frontier garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to the Danube. About the reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defence began to be practised, these garrisons were connected and covered by a strong intrenchment of trees and palisades. In the place of so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at convenient distances. From the neighbourhood of Newstadt and Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, vallies, rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Necker, and at length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding course of near two hundred miles43. This important barrier, uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which 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 country44. 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 at 41 Strabo, 1. vii. According to Velleius Paterculus, (ii. 108) Maroboduus led his Marcromanni into Bohemia: Cluverius (German. Antiq. iii. 8.) proves that it was from Swabia. 42 These settlers from the payment of tythes were denominated Decumates. Tacit. Germania. c. 29. 43 See Notes de l'Abbé De La Bleterie à la Germanie de Tacite, p. 183. His account of the wall is chiefly borrowed (as he says himself) from the Alsatia Illustrata of Schopflin. 44 See Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens, tom. ii. p. 81-102. 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 neighbourhood of Frankfort against the Catti. XII. CHAP. tention, 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. Introduc settlement Among the useful conditions of peace imposed by tion and Probus on the vanquished nations of Germany, was the of the bar- obligation of supplying the Roman army with sixteen barians. 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 the national troops; judiciously observing that 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 fature generations. The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and beneficial plan of replenishing the exhausted frontiers, 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 45 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. 46 Camden's Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he speaks from a very doubtful conjecture. |