Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/401

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 383 marches into the east ; and after he had wept over the CHAP, smoking ruins of Amida, he formed, with a powerful ' army, the siege of Bezabde.' The walls were shaken by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last ex- tremity ; but it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valour of the garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege, and ingloriously to retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch ''. The pride of Constantius, and the inge- nuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose militai'y command he had intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in the simple and concise narrative of his exploits. In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had Invasion of abandoned to the barbarians of Germany the countries GerniaL. of Gaul, which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents and pro- mises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they should be able to sub- due ^ But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the barbarians, soon discovered and lamented the diffi- culty of dismissing these formidable allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire, who possessed any pro- perty which they were desirous of acquiring. Forty- ■■ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus Autiochiae redit in Syriam aarumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is thus that James Gronovius has restored an obscure passage ; and he thinks tiiat this correction alone would have deserved a new edition of his author; vhose sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional light from the recent labours ot the learned Ernestus: Lipsiae, 1773. lected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 277 ; Ammian. XV. 11 ; Libanius, Orat. x.; Zosimus, 1. iii. p. 140; Sozomen, 1. iii. c. 1.
 * ■ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of Gaul, may be col-