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 chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 127 engineers had secretly undermined the foundations of the rampart. 58 At Bordeaux, which had submitted without resist- ance, Clovis established his winter quarters ; and his prudent economy transported from Toulouse the royal treasures, which were deposited in the capital of the monarchy. The conqueror penetrated as far as the confines of Spain ; 59 restored the honours of the Catholic church ; fixed in Aquitain a colony of Franks ; 60 and delegated to his lieutenants the easy task of subduing, or extirpating, the nation of the Visigoths. But the Visigoths were protected by the wise and powerful monarch of Italy. While the balance was still equal, Theodoric had perhaps delayed the march of the Ostrogoths ; but their strenuous efforts successfully resisted the ambition of Clovis; and the army of u.d. sos] the Franks and their Burgundian allies was compelled to raise the siege of Aries, with the loss, as it is said, of thirty thousand men. These vicissitudes inclined the fierce spirit of Clovis to acquiesce in an advantageous treaty of peace. The Visigoths were suffered to retain the possession of Septimania, a narrow tract of sea-coast, from the Ehone to the Pyrenees ; but the ample province of Aquitain, from those mountains to the Loire, was indissolubly united to the kingdom of France. 61 58 Angoulerne is in the road from Poitiers to Bordeaux ; and, although Gregory delays the siege, I can more readily believe that he confounded the order of history than that Clovis neglected the rules of war. 59 Pyreneeos montes usque Perpinianum subjecit, is the expression of Rorico, whioh betrays his recent date ; since Perpignan did not exist before the tenth century (Marca Hispanica, p. 458). This florid and fabulous writer (perhaps a monk of Amiens : see the Abb6 le Bceuf, Mem. de l'Acad^mie, torn. xvii. p. 228- 245) relates, in the allegorical character of a shepherd, the general history of his countrymen the Franks, but his narrative ends with the death of Clovis. 60 The author of the Gesta Francorum positively affirms, that Clovis fixed a body of Franks in the Saintonge and Bourdelois ; and he is not injudiciously fol- lowed by Rorico, electos niilites atque fortissimos, cum parvulis atque mulieribus. Yet it should seem that they soon mingled with the Romans of Aquitain, till Charle- magne introduced a more numerous and powerful colony (Dubos, Hist. Critique, torn. ii. p. 215). 61 In the composition of the Gothic war, I have used the following materials, with due regard to their unequal value. Four epistles from Theodoric, king of Italy (Cassiodor. 1. iii. epist. 1-4 in torn. iv. p. 3-5 [cp. also the letter of Athalaric, Cassiodor. viii. 10]), Prooopius (de Bell. Goth. 1. i. c. 12, in torn. ii. p. 32, 33), Gregory of Tours (1. ii. c. 35, 36, 37, in torn. ii. p. 181-183), Jornandes (de Reb. Geticis, c. 58, in torn. ii. p. 28), Fortunatus (in Vit. St. Hilarii, in torn. iii. p. 380), Isidore (in Chron. Goth, in torn. ii. p. 702), the Epitome of Gregory of Tours (in torn. ii. p. 401), the author of the Gesta Francorum (in torn. ii. p. 553-555), the Fragments of Fredegarius (in torn. ii. p. 463), Aimoin (1. i. c. 20, in torn. iii. p. 41, 42), and Rorico (1. iv. in torn. iii. p. 14-19). [Also for siege of Aries : Vita Ceesarii in Bouquet, vol. iii. Further, the Gallic Chronicle of a.d. 511, ed. Mommsen, Chron. Min. i. p. 665 ; and the Chron. of Maximus of Casaraugusta, ib. ii. p. 223.]