Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/130

110 THE DECLINE AND FALL Goths was surprised in their camp : and the immense spoil which was recovered from their hands filled the city of Hadria- nople and the adjacent plain. The splendid narratives which the general transmitted of his own exploits alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit ; and, though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the Gothic war, his valour was praised, his advice was rejected ; and Valens, who hstened with pride and pleasure to the flattering suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize the glory of an easy and assured conquest. His army was strengthened by a numerous reinforcement of veterans ; and his march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted with so much military skill that he prevented the activity of the Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles and to intercept either the troops themselves or their convoys of provisions. The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls of Hadria- nople, was fortified, according to the practice of the Romans, with a ditch and rampart ; and a most important council was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character ; while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a courtier, re- presented every precaution and every measure that implied a doubt of immediate victorj^ as unworthy of the courage and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of ^'alens was precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigem and the prudent admonitions of the emperor of the West. The advantages of negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly miderstood by the general of the Barbarians ; and a Christian ecclesiastic was dispatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as the provocations, of the Gothic nation were forcibly and truly described by their ambassador ; who protested, in the name of Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down his arms, or to employ them only in the defence of the empire if he could secure, for his wandering countrjnnen, a tranquil settle- [TheproWnM mcnt On the waste lands of Thrace and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle. But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship, that the exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable conditions ; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial