Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/348

 .%'0 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, banks of the river, the adiacent heijrhts, and the whole XVllI •. . '_ extent of a plain of above twelve miles, which sepa- rated the two armies. Both were alike impatient to engage ; but the barbarians, after a slight resistance, fled in disorder ; unable to resist, or desirous to weary, the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a line of cavalry, clothed in complete armour, which had been posted before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat. Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted, without effect, to re- strain the ardour of his troops, by representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and the cer- tainty of completing their success with the return of day. As they depended much more on their own valour than on the experience or the abilities of their chief, they silenced by their clamours his timid re- monstrances; and rushing with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and dis- persed themselves through the tents, to recruit their exhausted strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labours. But the prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army, of which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been specta- tors of the action, advanced in silence, and under the shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The sin- cerity of history P declares, that the Romans were van- quished with a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most in- tolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of pane- gyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal orators, so jealous of ■ ' P Acerrima nocturna concertatione pugnatum est, nostroiura copiis in- genti strage confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See likewise }2utropius, x. 10, and S. Uut'us, c. 27.