Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/377

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 353 brother of Hannibal °. Thus far the successful Ger- CHAP. XT mans had advanced along the i^milian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this place the decisive moment of giving them a total and irretrievable defeat °. The flying remnant of their host was exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia ; and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni. Fear has been the original parent of superstition ; Supersti- and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to de- Jj^°"^. ^^^^' precate the wrath of their invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in the valour and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public consterna- tion, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate, the sibylline books were^ consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive either of rehgion or of poHcy, recommended this salutary measure, chided the tardi- ness of the senate P, and offered to supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal offer, it does not appear that any human vic- tims expiated with their blood the sins of the Roman people. The sibylline books enjoined ceremonies of a a.D.271. more harmless nature ; processions of priests in white January U, robes, attended by a chorus of youths and virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country ; and sacri- fices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated. However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive battle of Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres com- " The little river, or rather torrent of Metaurus, near Fano, has been im- mortalized, by finding such an historian as Livy, and such a poet as Horace. o It is recorded by an inscription found at Pezaro. See Gruter. cclxxvi. 3. P One should imagine, he said, that you were assembled in a christian church, not in the temple of all the gods. VOL. I. A a