Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/421

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 397 nus might, perhaps, have embraced the generous offer, CHAP, had he not been restrained by the obstinate distrust of ^^^' his adherents. Their guilt was deeper, and their hopes more sanguine, than those of their experienced leader. The revolt of Saturninus was scarcely extinguished A.D.280. in the east, before new troubles were excited in the ^^j procu- west, by the rebellion of Bonosus and Proculus in lus in Gaul. Gaul. ' The most distinguished merit of those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus ^; yet neither of them were destitute of courage and capacity, and both sustained, with honour, the august character which the fear of punishment had engaged them to assume, till they sunk at length beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the victory with his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortunes as well as the lives of their innocent families'^. The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the A. D. 28 1, foreign and domestic enemies of the state. His mild t^^g^JJJjp^eror but steady administration confirmed the reestablish- Piobus. ment of the public tranquillity ; nor was there left in the provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or even a robber, to revive the memory of past disorders. It was time that the emperor should revisit Rome, and celebrate his own glory and the general happiness. The triumph due to the valour of Probus was con- ducted with a magnificence suitable to his fortune; and the people who had so lately admired the trophies of Aurelian, gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic successor'. We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate courage of about fourscore gladiators, reserved, with near six hundred others, for the inhu- « A very surprising instance is recorded of the prowess of Proculus. He had taken one hundred Sarmatian virgins. The rest of the story he must relate in his own language : Ex his una nocte decern inivi : omnes tamen, quod in me erat, mulieres intra dies quindecira reddidi. Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 246. two thousand of his own slaves. His riches were great, but they were ac- quired by robbery. It was afterwards a saying of his family. Nee latrones esse, nee principes sibi placere. Vopiscus, in Hist. August, p. 247. ' Hist. August, p. 240.
 * • Proculus, who was a native of Albens;ue on the Genoese coast, armed