XI. martial pomp that could display the greatness c H A P. and discipline of Rome. The legions stood to their arms in well-ordered, ranks and awful silence. The principal commanders, distinguished by the ensigns of their rank, appeared on horseback on either side of the Imperial throne. Behind the throne, the consecrated images of the emperor, and his predecessors *, the golden eagles, and the various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were exalted in the air, on lofty pikes covered with silver. When Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple of their conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground in silence. They were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak. By the assistance of interpreters, they extenuated their perfidy, magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of fortune and the advantages of peace, and, with an ill-timed confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer of the emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the barbarians, that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of the laws of peace, and finally dismissed them with the choice only of submitting to his uncondi C 4 * The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number; but we are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if to Cæsar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful spectacle; a long line of the masters of the world. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210. XI. CHA P. conditioned mercy, or awaiting the utmost seve-. rity of his resentment *. Aurelian had resigned a distant province to the Goths; but it was dangerous to trust or to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose formidable power kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms. The Ale Immediately after this conference, it should manni in- seem that some unexpected emergency required vade Italy, the emperor's presence in Pannonia. He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the destruction of the Alemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer operation of faminę. But an active despair has often triumphed over the indolent assurance of success. The barbarians, finding it impossible to traverse the Danube and the Roman camp, broke through the posts in their rear, which were more feebly or less carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy +. Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished, received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the Alemanni, and of the ravage which they already committed in the territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting, the rapid flight of an enemy, whose infantry and cavalry moved with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the emperor himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head * Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration, worthy of a Grecian sophist. 4 Hist. August, p. 215.. XI. head of a chosen body of auxiliaries, (among CHA P. whom were the hostages and cavalry of the Vandals), and of all the Prætorian guards who had served in the wars on the Danube *. last van lian. As the light troops of the Alemanni had spread and are at themselves from the Alps to the Appenine, the quished incessant vigilance of Aurelian and his officers by Aurewas exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the pursuit of the numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this desultory war, three considerable battles are mentioned, in which the principal force of both armies was obstinately engaged t. The success was various. In the first, fought near Placentia, the Romans received so severe a blow, that according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. The crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the legions in the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable, after the fatigue and disorder of a long march. The fury of their charge was irresistible; but at length, after a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied his troops, and restored, in some degree, the honour of his arms. The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the spot which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the brother of Hannibal §. Thus far the successful Germans had advanced along *Dexippus, p. 12. Victor Junior in Aurelian. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. The little river, or rather torrent, of Metaurus near Fano has been immortalized, by finding such an historian as Livy, and such a poet as Horace. XI. CHA P. along the Emilian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this place the decisive moment, of giving them a total and irretrievable defeat *. The flying remnant of their host was exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni. monies. SuperstiFear has been the original parent of supertious cere- stition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to depreciate the wrath of their invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in the valour and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public consternation, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate, the Sibylline books were consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive either of religion or of policy, recommended this salutary measure, chided the tardiness of the senate +, and offered to supply whatever expence, whatever animals, whatever captives of any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal offer, it does not appear, that any human victims expiated with their blood the sins of the Roman A. D. 271. people. The Sibylline books enjoined ceremonies January of a more harmless nature, processions of priests 11. in * It is recorded by an inscription found at Pezaro. See Gruter. cclxxvi. 3. One should imagine, he said, that you were assembled in a Christian church, not in the temple of all the gods. XI. in white robes, attended by a chorus of youths CHA P. and virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country; and sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated. However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive battle of Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres combating on the side of Aurelian, he received a real and effectual aid from this imaginary reinforcement *. Fortifica But whatever confidence might be placed in tions of ideal ramparts, the experience of the past, and Rome, the dread of the future, induced the Romans to construct fortifications of a grosser and more substantial kind. The seven hills of Rome had been surrounded, by the successors of Romulus, with an ancient wall of more than thirteen miles . The vast inclosure may seem disprof. portioned to the strength and numbers of the infant state. But it was necessary to secure an ample Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 215, 216. gives a lorg ace count of these ceremonies, from the Registers of the Senate. Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. To confirm our idea, we may observe, that for a long time Mount Cælius was a grove of oaks, and Mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that in the fourth century, the Aventine was a vacant and solitary retirement; that, till the time of Augustus, the Esqueline was an unwholesome burying-ground; and that the numerous inequalities, remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal, sufficiently prove that it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven hills, the Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent vallies, were the primitive habitation of the Roman people. But this subject would require a dissertation. |