Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/372

 348 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, market as far as the Danube, provided by the emperor's ^ • care, but at their own expense. The treaty was ob- served with such religious fidehty, that when a party of five hundred men straggled from the camp in quest of plunder, the king or general of the barbarians com- manded that the guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death with darts, as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements. It is, however, not un- likely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic chiefs, contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths he trained in the exercise of arms, and near his own person ; to the damsels he gave a liberal and Roman education, and by bestowing them in marriage on some of his principal officers, gradually introduced between the two nations the closest and most endearing connections'', and resigns But the most important condition of peace was un- movincJof d^^'stood rather than expressed in the treaty. Aure- Dacia. Han withdrew the Roman forces from Dacia, and ta- citly relinquished that great province to the Goths and Vandals y. His manly judgement convinced him of the solid advantages, and taught him to despise the seem- ing disgrace, of thus contracting the frontiers of the monarchy. The Dacian subjects, removed from those distant possessions which they were unable to cultivate or defend, added strength and populousness to the southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a desert, was yielded to their industry ; and a new pro- vince of Dacia still preserved the memory of Trajan's conquests. The old country of that name detained, however, a considerable number of its inhabitants, who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master ^ These under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one of the Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to drink with the Goths and discover their secrets. y Hist. August, p. 222; Eutrop. ix. 15; Sextus Rufus, c. 9; Lactantius de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9. '■ The Walachians still preserve many traces of the Latin language, and
 * Dexippus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12.) relates the whole transaction