Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/375

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 351 peror and his predecessors^, the golden eagles, alnd CHAP, the various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of ' gold, were exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered v^^ith silver. When Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure^ taught the barba- rians 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 inter- preters they extenuated their perfidy, magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of fortune and the advantages of peace, and, with an ill-timed confi- dence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the aUiance which they offered to the Romans. The an- swer 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 unconditioned mercy, or awaiting the utmost severity of his resentment*^. Aurelian had resigned a distant province to the Goths ; but it was dangerous to trust or to pardon these perfidious bar- barians, whose formidable power kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms. Immediately after this conference, it should seem The Ale- that some unexpected emergency required the em- ^^^^j^ |^'^|' peror'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 opera- tion of famine. But an active despair has often tri- umphed 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 ^ The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number ; but we are igno- rant how far this mark of respect was extended : if to Caesar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful spectacle ; a long line of the masters of the world. g Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 210. •• Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration, worthy of a Grecian sophist.