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126 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii ously demanded the battle, refused to survive the ignominy of flight. The two kings encountered each other in single combat. Alaric fell by the hand of his rival ; and the victorious Frank was saved by the goodness of his cuirass, and the vigour of his horse, from the spears of two desperate Goths, who furiously rode against him to revenge the death of their sovereign. The vague expression of a mountain of the slain serves to indicate a cruel, though indefinite, slaughter ; but Gregory has carefully observed that his valiant countryman Apollinaris, the son of Sidonius, lost his life at the head of the nobles of Auvergne. Perhaps these suspected Catholics had been maliciously exposed to the blind assault of the enemy ; and perhaps the influence of religion was superseded by personal attachment or military honour. 57 conquest Such is the empire of Fortune (if we may still disguise our by the ignorance under that popular name), that it is almost equally a.d. 508 difficult to foresee the events of war or to explain their various consequences. A bloody and complete victory has sometimes yielded no more than the possession of the field ; and the loss of ten thousand men has sometimes been sufficient to destroy, in a single day, the work of ages. The decisive battle of Poi- tiers was followed by the conquest of Aquitain. Alaric had left behind him an infant son, a bastard competitor, factious nobles, and a disloyal people ; and the remaining forces of the Goths were oppressed by the general consternation, or opposed to each other in civil discord. The victorious king of the Franks proceeded without delay to the siege of Angouleme. At the sound of his trumpets the walls of the city imitated the example of Jericho, and instantly fell to the ground : a splendid miracle which may be reduced to the supposition that some clerical 57 Aiter correcting the text, or excusing the mistake, of Procopius, who places the defeat of Alaric near Carcassonne, we may conclude, from the evidence of Gregory, Fortunatus, and the author of the Gesta Francorum, that the battle was fought in campo Vocladensi, on the banks of the Clain [Vouille, more than ten miles from the river ; see Longnon, Geographie de la Gaule au [me siecle, 576 sgq.] about ten miles to the south [north] of Poitiers. Clovis overtook and attacked the Visigoths near Vivonne, and the victory was decided near a village still named Champagne St. Hilaire. See the Dissertations of the Abbe le Bceuf, torn. i. p. 304-331. [It is curious that Procopius should make Carcassonne the strategic object of the Franks and the scene of the battle. He says that the treasures of the Visigoths were there and seems to confound it with Tolosa. From what source did he draw ? KapKacriavf) may have been besieged at a later stage of the war. For a criticism of Gregory's account of the war see Kurth, op. cit., 1. ii. c. iv.]