Chapter XXX: Revolt Of The Goths.—Part IV

The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and
precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the
knowledge of the court of Ravenna; till the dark cloud, which was
collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon
the banks of the Upper Danube. The emperor of the West, if his
ministers disturbed his amusements by the news of the impending
danger, was satisfied with being the occasion, and the spectator,
of the war. 70 The safety of Rome was intrusted to the counsels,
and the sword, of Stilicho; but such was the feeble and exhausted
state of the empire, that it was impossible to restore the
fortifications of the Danube, or to prevent, by a vigorous
effort, the invasion of the Germans. 71 The hopes of the vigilant
minister of Honorius were confined to the defence of Italy. He
once more abandoned the provinces, recalled the troops, pressed
the new levies, which were rigorously exacted, and
pusillanimously eluded; employed the most efficacious means to
arrest, or allure, the deserters; and offered the gift of
freedom, and of two pieces of gold, to all the slaves who would
enlist. 72 By these efforts he painfully collected, from the
subjects of a great empire, an army of thirty or forty thousand
men, which, in the days of Scipio or Camillus, would have been
instantly furnished by the free citizens of the territory of
Rome. 73 The thirty legions of Stilicho were reenforced by a
large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were
personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of
Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes,
Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to
oppose the ambition of Radagaisus. The king of the confederate
Germans passed, without resistance, the Alps, the Po, and the
Apennine; leaving on one hand the inaccessible palace of
Honorius, securely buried among the marshes of Ravenna; and, on
the other, the camp of Stilicho, who had fixed his head-quarters
at Ticinum, or Pavia, but who seems to have avoided a decisive
battle, till he had assembled his distant forces. Many cities of
Italy were pillaged, or destroyed; and the siege of Florence, 74
by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of
that celebrated republic; whose firmness checked and delayed the
unskillful fury of the Barbarians. The senate and people trembled
at their approach within a hundred and eighty miles of Rome; and
anxiously compared the danger which they had escaped, with the
new perils to which they were exposed. Alaric was a Christian and
a soldier, the leader of a disciplined army; who understood the
laws of war, who respected the sanctity of treaties, and who had
familiarly conversed with the subjects of the empire in the same
camps, and the same churches. The savage Radagaisus was a
stranger to the manners, the religion, and even the language, of
the civilized nations of the South. The fierceness of his temper
was exasperated by cruel superstition; and it was universally
believed, that he had bound himself, by a solemn vow, to reduce
the city into a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the
most illustrious of the Roman senators on the altars of those
gods who were appeased by human blood. The public danger, which
should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the
incurable madness of religious faction. The oppressed votaries of
Jupiter and Mercury respected, in the implacable enemy of Rome,
the character of a devout Pagan; loudly declared, that they were
more apprehensive of the sacrifices, than of the arms, of
Radagaisus; and secretly rejoiced in the calamities of their
country, which condemned the faith of their Christian
adversaries. 75 7511

70 (return) [

Cujus agendi Spectator vel causa fui, —-(Claudian, vi. Cons. Hon.
439,)

is the modest language of Honorius, in speaking of the Gothic
war, which he had seen somewhat nearer.]

71 (return) [ Zosimus (l. v. p. 331) transports the war, and the
victory of Stilisho, beyond the Danube. A strange error, which is
awkwardly and imperfectly cured (Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom.
v. p. 807.) In good policy, we must use the service of Zosimus,
without esteeming or trusting him.]

72 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 16. The date
of this law A.D. 406. May 18 satisfies me, as it had done
Godefroy, (tom. ii. p. 387,) of the true year of the invasion of
Radagaisus. Tillemont, Pagi, and Muratori, prefer the preceding
year; but they are bound, by certain obligations of civility and
respect, to St. Paulinus of Nola.]

73 (return) [ Soon after Rome had been taken by the Gauls, the
senate, on a sudden emergency, armed ten legions, 3000 horse, and
42,000 foot; a force which the city could not have sent forth
under Augustus, (Livy, xi. 25.) This declaration may puzzle an
antiquary, but it is clearly explained by Montesquieu.]

74 (return) [ Machiavel has explained, at least as a philosopher,
the origin of Florence, which insensibly descended, for the
benefit of trade, from the rock of Faesulae to the banks of the
Arno, (Istoria Fiorentina, tom. i. p. 36. Londra, 1747.) The
triumvirs sent a colony to Florence, which, under Tiberius,
(Tacit. Annal. i. 79,) deserved the reputation and name of a
flourishing city. See Cluver. Ital. Antiq. tom. i. p. 507, &c.]

75 (return) [ Yet the Jupiter of Radagaisus, who worshipped Thor
and Woden, was very different from the Olympic or Capitoline
Jove. The accommodating temper of Polytheism might unite those
various and remote deities; but the genuine Romans ahhorred the
human sacrifices of Gaul and Germany.]

7511 (return) [ Gibbon has rather softened the language of
Augustine as to this threatened insurrection of the Pagans, in
order to restore the prohibited rites and ceremonies of Paganism;
and their treasonable hopes that the success of Radagaisus would
be the triumph of idolatry. Compare ii. 25—M.]

Florence was reduced to the last extremity; and the fainting
courage of the citizens was supported only by the authority of
St. Ambrose; who had communicated, in a dream, the promise of a
speedy deliverance. 76 On a sudden, they beheld, from their
walls, the banners of Stilicho, who advanced, with his united
force, to the relief of the faithful city; and who soon marked
that fatal spot for the grave of the Barbarian host. The apparent
contradictions of those writers who variously relate the defeat
of Radagaisus, may be reconciled without offering much violence
to their respective testimonies. Orosius and Augustin, who were
intimately connected by friendship and religion, ascribed this
miraculous victory to the providence of God, rather than to the
valor of man. 77 They strictly exclude every idea of chance, or
even of bloodshed; and positively affirm, that the Romans, whose
camp was the scene of plenty and idleness, enjoyed the distress
of the Barbarians, slowly expiring on the sharp and barren ridge
of the hills of Faesulae, which rise above the city of Florence.
Their extravagant assertion that not a single soldier of the
Christian army was killed, or even wounded, may be dismissed with
silent contempt; but the rest of the narrative of Augustin and
Orosius is consistent with the state of the war, and the
character of Stilicho. Conscious that he commanded the last army
of the republic, his prudence would not expose it, in the open
field, to the headstrong fury of the Germans. The method of
surrounding the enemy with strong lines of circumvallation, which
he had twice employed against the Gothic king, was repeated on a
larger scale, and with more considerable effect. The examples of
Caesar must have been familiar to the most illiterate of the
Roman warriors; and the fortifications of Dyrrachium, which
connected twenty-four castles, by a perpetual ditch and rampart
of fifteen miles, afforded the model of an intrenchment which
might confine, and starve, the most numerous host of Barbarians.
78 The Roman troops had less degenerated from the industry, than
from the valor, of their ancestors; and if their servile and
laborious work offended the pride of the soldiers, Tuscany could
supply many thousand peasants, who would labor, though, perhaps,
they would not fight, for the salvation of their native country.
The imprisoned multitude of horses and men 79 was gradually
destroyed, by famine rather than by the sword; but the Romans
were exposed, during the progress of such an extensive work, to
the frequent attacks of an impatient enemy. The despair of the
hungry Barbarians would precipitate them against the
fortifications of Stilicho; the general might sometimes indulge
the ardor of his brave auxiliaries, who eagerly pressed to
assault the camp of the Germans; and these various incidents
might produce the sharp and bloody conflicts which dignify the
narrative of Zosimus, and the Chronicles of Prosper and
Marcellinus. 80 A seasonable supply of men and provisions had
been introduced into the walls of Florence, and the famished host
of Radagaisus was in its turn besieged. The proud monarch of so
many warlike nations, after the loss of his bravest warriors, was
reduced to confide either in the faith of a capitulation, or in
the clemency of Stilicho. 81 But the death of the royal captive,
who was ignominiously beheaded, disgraced the triumph of Rome and
of Christianity; and the short delay of his execution was
sufficient to brand the conqueror with the guilt of cool and
deliberate cruelty. 82 The famished Germans, who escaped the fury
of the auxiliaries, were sold as slaves, at the contemptible
price of as many single pieces of gold; but the difference of
food and climate swept away great numbers of those unhappy
strangers; and it was observed, that the inhuman purchasers,
instead of reaping the fruits of their labor were soon obliged to
provide the expense of their interment. Stilicho informed the
emperor and the senate of his success; and deserved, a second
time, the glorious title of Deliverer of Italy. 83

76 (return) [ Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros c. 50) relates this story,
which he received from the mouth of Pansophia herself, a
religious matron of Florence. Yet the archbishop soon ceased to
take an active part in the business of the world, and never
became a popular saint.]

77 (return) [ Augustin de Civitat. Dei, v. 23. Orosius, l. vii.
c. 37, p. 567-571. The two friends wrote in Africa, ten or twelve
years after the victory; and their authority is implicitly
followed by Isidore of Seville, (in Chron. p. 713, edit. Grot.)
How many interesting facts might Orosius have inserted in the
vacant space which is devoted to pious nonsense!]

78 (return) [

Franguntur montes, planumque per ardua Caesar Ducit opus: pandit
fossas, turritaque summis Disponit castella jugis, magnoque
necessu Amplexus fines, saltus, memorosaque tesqua Et silvas,
vastaque feras indagine claudit.!

Yet the simplicity of truth (Caesar, de Bell. Civ. iii. 44) is
far greater than the amplifications of Lucan, (Pharsal. l. vi.
29-63.)]

79 (return) [ The rhetorical expressions of Orosius, “in arido et
aspero montis jugo;” “in unum ac parvum verticem,” are not very
suitable to the encampment of a great army. But Faesulae, only
three miles from Florence, might afford space for the
head-quarters of Radagaisus, and would be comprehended within the
circuit of the Roman lines.]

80 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. v. p. 331, and the Chronicles of
Prosper and Marcellinus.]

81 (return) [ Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 180) uses an
expression which would denote a strict and friendly alliance, and
render Stilicho still more criminal. The paulisper detentus,
deinde interfectus, of Orosius, is sufficiently odious. * Note:
Gibbon, by translating this passage of Olympiodorus, as if it had
been good Greek, has probably fallen into an error. The natural
order of the words is as Gibbon translates it; but it is almost
clear, refers to the Gothic chiefs, “whom Stilicho, after he had
defeated Radagaisus, attached to his army.” So in the version
corrected by Classen for Niebuhr’s edition of the Byzantines, p.
450.—M.]

82 (return) [ Orosius, piously inhuman, sacrifices the king and
people, Agag and the Amalekites, without a symptom of compassion.
The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling
historian.——Note: Considering the vow, which he was universally
believed to have made, to destroy Rome, and to sacrifice the
senators on the altars, and that he is said to have immolated his
prisoners to his gods, the execution of Radagaisus, if, as it
appears, he was taken in arms, cannot deserve Gibbon’s severe
condemnation. Mr. Herbert (notes to his poem of Attila, p. 317)
justly observes, that “Stilicho had probably authority for
hanging him on the first tree.” Marcellinus, adds Mr. Herbert,
attributes the execution to the Gothic chiefs Sarus.—M.]

83 (return) [ And Claudian’s muse, was she asleep? had she been
ill paid! Methinks the seventh consulship of Honorius (A.D. 407)
would have furnished the subject of a noble poem. Before it was
discovered that the state could no longer be saved, Stilicho
(after Romulus, Camillus and Marius) might have been worthily
surnamed the fourth founder of Rome.]

The fame of the victory, and more especially of the miracle, has
encouraged a vain persuasion, that the whole army, or rather
nation, of Germans, who migrated from the shores of the Baltic,
miserably perished under the walls of Florence. Such indeed was
the fate of Radagaisus himself, of his brave and faithful
companions, and of more than one third of the various multitude
of Sueves and Vandals, of Alani and Burgundians, who adhered to
the standard of their general. 84 The union of such an army might
excite our surprise, but the causes of separation are obvious and
forcible; the pride of birth, the insolence of valor, the
jealousy of command, the impatience of subordination, and the
obstinate conflict of opinions, of interests, and of passions,
among so many kings and warriors, who were untaught to yield, or
to obey. After the defeat of Radagaisus, two parts of the German
host, which must have exceeded the number of one hundred thousand
men, still remained in arms, between the Apennine and the Alps,
or between the Alps and the Danube. It is uncertain whether they
attempted to revenge the death of their general; but their
irregular fury was soon diverted by the prudence and firmness of
Stilicho, who opposed their march, and facilitated their retreat;
who considered the safety of Rome and Italy as the great object
of his care, and who sacrificed, with too much indifference, the
wealth and tranquillity of the distant provinces. 85 The
Barbarians acquired, from the junction of some Pannonian
deserters, the knowledge of the country, and of the roads; and
the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by
the remains of the great army of Radagaisus. 86

84 (return) [ A luminous passage of Prosper’s Chronicle, “In tres
partes, pes diversos principes, diversus exercitus,” reduces the
miracle of Florence and connects the history of Italy, Gaul, and
Germany.]

85 (return) [ Orosius and Jerom positively charge him with
instigating the in vasion. “Excitatae a Stilichone gentes,” &c.
They must mean a directly. He saved Italy at the expense of Gaul]

86 (return) [ The Count de Buat is satisfied, that the Germans
who invaded Gaul were the two thirds that yet remained of the
army of Radagaisus. See the Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de
l’Europe, (tom. vii. p. 87, 121. Paris, 1772;) an elaborate work,
which I had not the advantage of perusing till the year 1777. As
early as 1771, I find the same idea expressed in a rough draught
of the present History. I have since observed a similar
intimation in Mascou, (viii. 15.) Such agreement, without mutual
communication, may add some weight to our common sentiment.]

Yet if they expected to derive any assistance from the tribes of
Germany, who inhabited the banks of the Rhine, their hopes were
disappointed. The Alemanni preserved a state of inactive
neutrality; and the Franks distinguished their zeal and courage
in the defence of the of the empire. In the rapid progress down
the Rhine, which was the first act of the administration of
Stilicho, he had applied himself, with peculiar attention, to
secure the alliance of the warlike Franks, and to remove the
irreconcilable enemies of peace and of the republic. Marcomir,
one of their kings, was publicly convicted, before the tribunal
of the Roman magistrate, of violating the faith of treaties. He
was sentenced to a mild, but distant exile, in the province of
Tuscany; and this degradation of the regal dignity was so far
from exciting the resentment of his subjects, that they punished
with death the turbulent Sunno, who attempted to revenge his
brother; and maintained a dutiful allegiance to the princes, who
were established on the throne by the choice of Stilicho. 87 When
the limits of Gaul and Germany were shaken by the northern
emigration, the Franks bravely encountered the single force of
the Vandals; who, regardless of the lessons of adversity, had
again separated their troops from the standard of their Barbarian
allies. They paid the penalty of their rashness; and twenty
thousand Vandals, with their king Godigisclus, were slain in the
field of battle. The whole people must have been extirpated, if
the squadrons of the Alani, advancing to their relief, had not
trampled down the infantry of the Franks; who, after an honorable
resistance, were compelled to relinquish the unequal contest. The
victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day
of the year, in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most
probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the
defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the
Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never
afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman
empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which
had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the
earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground. 88

87 (return) [

Provincia missos Expellet citius fasces, quam Francia reges Quos
dederis.

Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 235, &c.) is clear and
satisfactory. These kings of France are unknown to Gregory of
Tours; but the author of the Gesta Francorum mentions both Sunno
and Marcomir, and names the latter as the father of Pharamond,
(in tom. ii. p. 543.) He seems to write from good materials,
which he did not understand.]

88 (return) [ See Zosimus, (l. vi. p. 373,) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
40, p. 576,) and the Chronicles. Gregory of Tours (l. ii. c. 9,
p. 165, in the second volume of the Historians of France) has
preserved a valuable fragment of Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus,
whose three names denote a Christian, a Roman subject, and a
Semi-Barbarian.]

While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the
Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome,
unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of
quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of
Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the
pastures of the Barbarians; their huntsmen penetrated, without
fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood.
89 The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tyber,
with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms; and if a poet
descended the river, he might express his doubt, on which side
was situated the territory of the Romans. 90 This scene of peace
and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect
of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of
nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz
was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were
inhumanly massacred in the church. Worms perished after a long
and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras,
Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and
the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine
over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That
rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and
the Pyrenees, was delivered to the Barbarians, who drove before
them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the
virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars. 91 The
ecclesiastics, to whom we are indebted for this vague description
of the public calamities, embraced the opportunity of exhorting
the Christians to repent of the sins which had provoked the
Divine Justice, and to renounce the perishable goods of a
wretched and deceitful world. But as the Pelagian controversy, 92
which attempts to sound the abyss of grace and predestination,
soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy, the
Providence which had decreed, or foreseen, or permitted, such a
train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the
imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the
misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously
compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the
Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction
the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human
species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of
nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with
industry, and safety with valor. The timid and selfish policy of
the court of Ravenna might recall the Palatine legions for the
protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might
be unequal to the arduous task; and the Barbarian auxiliaries
might prefer the unbounded license of spoil to the benefits of a
moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were
filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in
the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if
they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The
knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to
oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an
invader; and the deficiency of the Barbarians, in arms, as well
as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the
submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a
veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles V., he inquired
of a prisoner, how many days Paris might be distant from the
frontier; “Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle:” 93
such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that
ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis
I., were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than
two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose
numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible,
advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenean
Mountains.

89 (return) [ Claudian (i. Cons. Stil. l. i. 221, &c., l. ii.
186) describes the peace and prosperity of the Gallic frontier.
The Abbe Dubos (Hist. Critique, &c., tom. i. p. 174) would read
Alba (a nameless rivulet of the Ardennes) instead of Albis; and
expatiates on the danger of the Gallic cattle grazing beyond the
Elbe. Foolish enough! In poetical geography, the Elbe, and the
Hercynian, signify any river, or any wood, in Germany. Claudian
is not prepared for the strict examination of our antiquaries.]

90 (return) [—Germinasque viator Cum videat ripas, quae sit
Romana requirat.]

91 (return) [ Jerom, tom. i. p. 93. See in the 1st vol. of the
Historians of France, p. 777, 782, the proper extracts from the
Carmen de Providentil Divina, and Salvian. The anonymous poet was
himself a captive, with his bishop and fellow-citizens.]

92 (return) [ The Pelagian doctrine, which was first agitated
A.D. 405, was condemned, in the space of ten years, at Rome and
Carthage. St Augustin fought and conquered; but the Greek church
was favorable to his adversaries; and (what is singular enough)
the people did not take any part in a dispute which they could
not understand.]

93 (return) [ See the Mémoires de Guillaume du Bellay, l. vi. In
French, the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed,
from the double sense of the word journee, which alike signifies,
a day’s travel, or a battle.]

In the early part of the reign of Honorius, the vigilance of
Stilicho had successfully guarded the remote island of Britain
from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the
Irish coast. 94 But those restless Barbarians could not neglect
the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and
stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If
any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian
expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of
Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance,
and to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The
spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of
Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the
soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates,
who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and
at length the victims, of their passion. 95 Marcus was the first
whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain
and of the West. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus,
the oath of fidelity which they had imposed on themselves; and
their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an
honorable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they
adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four
months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The
memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had
given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular
motive of their third choice. They discovered in the ranks a
private soldier of the name of Constantine, and their impetuous
levity had already seated him on the throne, before they
perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious
appellation. 96 Yet the authority of Constantine was less
precarious, and his government was more successful, than the
transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving
his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted
with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of
the Western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an
inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days,
he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the
Barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed
the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of
Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of
allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any
circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, with
some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the
troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who
fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country
from the rage of the Barbarians. The first successes of
Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were
magnified by the voice of adulation into splendid and decisive
victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon
reduced to their just value. His negotiations procured a short
and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the Barbarians were
engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to
undertake the defence of the Rhine, these expensive and uncertain
treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigor of the Gallic
frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the prince, and
to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic.
Elated, however, with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer
of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the South, to encounter a
more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to
lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius;
and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in
this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest
generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain
in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous
interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of
Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the
Imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy
of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws
of the Alps. 97 Those mountains now separated the dominions of
two rival monarchs; and the fortifications of the double frontier
were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have
been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against
the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia.

94 (return) [ Claudian, (i. Cons. Stil. l. ii. 250.) It is
supposed that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole
western coast of Britain: and some slight credit may be given
even to Nennius and the Irish traditions, (Carte’s Hist. of
England, vol. i. p. 169.) Whitaker’s Genuine History of the
Britons, p. 199. The sixty-six lives of St. Patrick, which were
extant in the ninth century, must have contained as many thousand
lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish inroads the
future apostle was led away captive, (Usher, Antiquit. Eccles
Britann. p. 431, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 45 782,
&c.)]

95 (return) [ The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (l.
vi. p. 371-375,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 40, p. 576, 577,)
Olympiodorus, (apud Photium, p. 180, 181,) the ecclesiastical
historians, and the Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of
Marcus.]

96 (return) [ Cum in Constantino inconstantiam... execrarentur,
(Sidonius Apollinaris, l. v. epist. 9, p. 139, edit. secund.
Sirmond.) Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to
stigmatize a prince who had disgraced his grandfather.]

97 (return) [ Bagaudoe is the name which Zosimus applies to them;
perhaps they deserved a less odious character, (see Dubos, Hist.
Critique, tom. i. p. 203, and this History, vol. i. p. 407.) We
shall hear of them again.]