Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/202

 182 THE DECLINE AND FALL His victory over Eo^e- nlns. A.D. 394, September 6 [Wipbach] Iberian, the Arab, and the Goth, who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted in the service of the same prince ; and the renowned Alaric acquired, in the school of Theodosius, the knowledge of the art of war which he after- wards so fatally exerted for the destruction of Rome.i^^ The emperor of the West, or, to speak more properly, his general Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of Maximus, how dangerous it miglit prove to ex- tend the line of defence against a skilful antagonist, who was free to press or to suspend, to contract or to multiply, his various methods of attack. ^^^ Arbogastes fixed his station on the confines of Italy : the troops of Theodosius were permitted to occupy without resistance the proviiices of Pannonia as far as the foot of the Julian Alps ; and even the passages of the mountains were negligently, or perhaps artfully, abandoned to the bold invader. He descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment, the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans that covered with arms and tents the open country which extends to the walls of Aquileia and the banks of the Frigidus,i20 or Cold River.^-^ This narrow theatre of the war, circumscribed by the Alps and the Hadriatic, did not allow much room for tlie operations of military skill ; the spirit of Arbogastes would have disdained a pardon ; his guilt extinguished the hope of a negotiation ; and Theodosius was impatient to satisfy his glory and revenge by the chastise- ment of the assassins of Valentinian. Without weighing the "8 Zosimus, 1. iv. p. 280 [c. 57]. Socrates, L vii. 10. Alaric himself (de Bell. Getico, 524) dwells with more complacency on his early exploits against the Romans. . . . Tot Augustos Hebro qui teste fugavi. Yet his vanity could scarcely have proved hs plurality of tlying emperors. "* Claudian (in iv. Cons. Honor, -j-^, &c. ) contrasts the military plans of the two usurpers : . . . Novitas audere priorem Suadebat ; cautunique dabant exempla sequentem. Hie nova nioliri piaceps : hie quosrere tutus Providus. Hie fusis ; coltectis viribus ille. Hie vagus excurrens ; hie intra claustra reductus ; Dissimiles, sed morte pares. ,, . 1-0 The Frigidus, a sninll though memorable stream in the country of Goretz, now called the Vipao [W'iisbach], falls into the Sontius, or Lisonzo, above Aquileia, some miles from the Hadriatic. See D'Anville's Ancient and Modern Maps, and the Italia Antiqua of Cluverius (tom. i. p. 188). [Mr. Hodgkin thinks the battle was fought near Heidenschafft, i. p. 578.] I'^i Claudian 's wit is intolerable : the snow vras dyed red ; the cold river smoked ; and the channel must have been choked with cj^rcases, if the current Jiad not been swelled with blood.