Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/453

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 429 of his victory. In wars of a more difficult nature, and CHAP, more doubtful event, he employed the rough valour of ^^^^' Maximian; and that faithful soldier was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and aus- picious influence of his benefactor. But after the Valour of adoption of the two Caesars, the emperors themselves, *''^ ^^^sars. retiring to a less laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of barbarians on the Roman territory "". The brave and active Con- stantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the Alemanni ; and his victories of Langres and Vin- donissa appear to have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy. He retreated / with difficulty towards Langres ; but, in the general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his relief; and before the evening he had satisfied his honour and re- venge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni ^ From the monuments of those times, the obscure traces of several other victories over the barbarians of Sar- matia and Germany might possibly be collected ; but the tedious search would not be rewarded either with amusement or with instruction. The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted Treatment in the disposal of the vanquished, was imitated by baJiTns*^^" Diocletian and his associates. The captive barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those districts (in Gaul, ™ He complained, though not with the strictest truth, "Jam fluxisse annos quindecim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam Danubii relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret." Lactaat. de M. P. c. 18. " In the Greek text of Kusebius, we read six thousand, a number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand of Jerome, Orosius, Eutropius, and his Greek translator Pieanius.