Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/450

 troops would have reaped the fruit of their gallantry without any loss if it had not been for Balchobaudes, a tribune of the legions, who being as sluggish as he was boastful, at the approach of evening retreated in disorder to the camp. And if the rest of the cohorts had followed his example and had also retired, the affair would have turned out so ruinous that not one of our men would have been left alive to tell what had happened.

7.  But our soldiers, persisting with energy and courage, showed such a superiority in personal strength that they wounded four thousand of the enemy and slew six thousand, while they did not themselves lose more than twelve hundred killed and two hundred wounded.

8. At the approach of night the battle terminated, and our weary men having recruited their strength, a little before dawn our skilful general led forth his army in a square, and found that the barbarians had availed themselves of the darkness to escape. And having no fear there of ambuscade, he pursued them over the open plain, trampling on the dying and the dead, many of whom had perished from the effect of the severity of the cold on their wounds.

9.  After he had advanced some way further, without finding any of the enemy he returned, and then he learnt that the king of the hostile army had been taken prisoner, with a few followers, by the Ascarii, whom he himself had sent by another road to plunder the tents of the Allemanni, and they had hanged him. But the general being angry at this, ordered the punishment of the tribune who had ventured on such an act without consulting his superior officer, and he would have condemned him if he had not been able to establish by manifest proof that the atrocious act had been committed by the violent impulse of the soldiers.

10.  After this, when he returned to Paris with the glory of this success, the emperor met him with joy, and appointed him to be consul the next year, being additionally rejoiced because at the very same time he received the head of Procopius, which had been sent to him by Valens.

11. Besides these events, many other battles of inferior interest