Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/371

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 347 the spoil of the enemy, not from the tears of the pro- c H A P. vincials*." 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 wretch was fastened to two trees forcibly drawn towards 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. The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit Hecon- of the Goths. The troops which guarded the passes trg^tTwith of mount Haemus, and the banks of the Danube, had the Goths, 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 favour- able opportunity, abandoned their settlements of the Ukraine, traversed the rivers, and swelled with new mul- titudes the destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at length encountered by Aure- lian, and the bloody and doubtful conflict ended only with the approach of night". Exhausted by so many calamities, which they had mutually endured and in- flicted 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 cheer- fully ratified by the legions, to whose suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the decision of that im- portant question. The Gothic nation engaged to sup- ply the armies of Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries, consisting entirely of cavalry; and stipu- lated in return an undisturbed retreat, with a regular dier ; it abounds with military phrases and words, some of which cannot be understood without difficulty. Ferramenta samiata is well explained by Salmasius. The former of the words means all weapons of offence, and is contrasted with arma, defensive armour. The latter signifies keen and well sharpened. " Zosim. 1. i. p. 45.
 * Hist. August, p. 211. This laconic epistle is truly the work of a sol-