Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/523

 APPENDIX 601 Bell. Goth, 363 ^gg. iam foedera gentes exuerant Latiique audita clade feroces Vindelicos saltus et Norica rura tenebant, &c. J, ,, 414,5. adcixrrit vicina manus, quam Eaetia nuper Vandalicis auctam spoliis defensa probavit. Leaving aside the question whether (as Birt thinks) the barbarians whom Eada- gaisus headed in Eaetia were the Vandals and Alans who invaded Gaul in 406, we may without hesitation accept the conclusion that in 401 Radagaisus was at the head of Vandals and other barbarians in Raetia. Birt points out the state- ment that Radagaisus had intended to cross into Italy (eU ttj^ 'iraKi-av (up/iijTo Siafirjvai.), with which Zosimus introduces his account of the overthrow of Rada- gaisus by Stilicho ; and proposes to refer that statement not to the campaign of 405 but to that of 401. It was satisfactory to find that Birt had already taken a step in a direction in which I had been led before I studied his Preface to Claudian. The fact is that Zosimus really recounts the cavipaign of 401, as if it were the campaign of 405. His story is that Radagaisus prepared to invade Italy. The news created great terror, and Stilicho broke up with the army from Ticinum, and with as many Alans and Huns as he could muster, without waiting for the attack, crossed the Ister, and assailing the barbarians unexpectedly utterly destroyed their host. This is the campaign of the winter of 401-2, of which we know from Claudian's Gothic War ; only that(l) Zosimus, placing it in 405, has added one feature of the actual campaign in 405, namely the all but total annihilation of the army of Radagaisus, and that (2) Zosimus, in placing the final action beyond the Danube, differs from Claudian, who places it inNoricum or Vindelicia (1. 365, cited above) and does not mention that Stilicho crossed the river. But the winter campaign was in Danubian regions ; and the main difficulty, the appearance of the Danube in the narrative of Zosimus, seems to be satisfactorily accounted for by the assump- tion of this confusion between the two Radagaisus episodes, a confusion which must be ascribed to Zosimus himself rather than to his source Olympiodorus. 19. THE SECOND CARAUSIUS-(P. 272) A new tyrant in Britain at the beginning of the fifth century was discovered by Mr. Arthiu- Evans through a coin found at Richborough (Rutupiae). See Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd ser. vol. vii. p. 191 sqq., 1887. The obverse of this bronze coin ' ' presents a head modelled in a somewhat barbarous fashion on that of a fourth century Emperor, diademed and with the bust draped in the paludamentum ". The legend is : DOMINO CARAVS 10 CES. " The reverse presents a familiar bronze type of Constans or Constantius ii. The Emperor holding phoenix and labarum standard stands at the prow of a vessel, the rudder of which is held by Victory. In the present case, however, in place of the usual legend that accompanies this reverse — FEL. TEMP. REPARATIO — appears the strange and unparalleled inscription : DOMIN. . . CONTA ... NO " This coin cannot be ascribed to the well-known Carausius of Diocletian's reign ; for the type of the reverse is never found before the middle of the fourth century. The DOMINO (without a pronoun — nostro) on the obverse is quite unexampled on a Roman coin. Mr. Evans conjectures that CONSTANTINO is to be read on the reverse and makes it probable that this obscure Carausius was colleague of Constantine iii., left behind by him, with the title of Caesar, to hold the island while he was himself absent in Gaul ; and would refer the issue of the coin to A.D. 409. "The memory of the brave Carausius, who iirst raised Britain to a position of maritime supremacy, may have influenced the choice of this obscure Caesar, at a moment when the Romano-British population was about to assert as it had never done before its independence of Continental Empire.''