Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/112

 92 THE DECLINE AND FALL copulated in the desert with infernal spirits ; and that the Huns were the offsprinfr of tliis execrable conjunction.^'^ The tale, so full of horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous hatred of the Goths ; but, while it gratified their hatred, it increased their fear ; since the posterity of demons and witches might be supposed to inherit some share of the preternatural powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents. Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united forces of the Gothic state ; but he soon discovered tliat his vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the chiefs of the Roxolani ^^ had formerly deserted the standard of Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brother of that unfortunate woman seized the favourable moment of revenge. The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the dangerous wound which he received from their daggers ; but the conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities, and the public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of Withimer, who, with the doubt- ful aid of some Scythian mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of the Huns and the Alani, till he was iA.D S74-5 7] defeated and slain in a decisive battle. The Ostrogoths sub- mitted to their fate ; and the royal race of the Amali will here- after be found among the subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax : two warriors of approved valour and fidelity ; who, by cautious marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the Ostrogoths towards [Danartris] the Danastus, or Dniester, a considerable river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire of Russia. On the banks of the Dniester the prudent Athanaric, more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed the camp of the Visigoths ; with the firm x*esolution of opposing the victorious 60 This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24) describes with the rancour of a Goth, might be originally derived from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. 1. iv. c. 9, &c.) de Russia, p. i-io), whose residence (a.d. 862) about Novgorod Veliki cannot be very remote from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46. v. 28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani (A.D. 886). [Rosomoni is the name in Jordanes, Get. 24. A connexion w ith 'Poi? is utterly wild, j
 * iThe Roxolani may be the fathers of the 'Pw?, the Russians (dWnville, Empire