Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/41

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 21 vigilance might announce the character of the new reign ; but the strictest vigilance and the most numerous forces were in- sufficient to protect the long-extended coast of Italy from the depredations of a naval war. The public opinion had imposed a nobler and more arduous task on the genius of Majorian. Rome expected from him alone the restitution of Africa ; and the design which he formed, of attacking the Vandals in their new settlements, was the result of bold and judicious policy. If the intrepid emperor could have infused his own spirit into the youth of Italy ; if he could have revived, in the field of Mars, the manly exercises in which he had always surpassed his equals ; he might have marched against Genseric at the head of a Rovian army. Such a reformation of national manners might be embraced by the rising generation ; but it is the misfortune of those princes who laboriously sustain a declining monarchy that, to obtain some immediate advantage, or to avert some impending danger, they are forced to countenance, and even to multiply, the most pernicious abuses. Majorian, like the weakest of his predecessors, was reduced to the dis- graceful expedient of substituting Barbarian auxiliaries in the place of his un warlike subjects ; and his superior abilities could only be displayed in the vigour and dexterity with which he wielded a dangerous instrument, so apt to recoil on the hand that used it. Besides the confederates, who were already engaged in the service of the empire, the fame of his liberality and valour attracted the nations of the Danube, the Borysthenes, and perhaps of the Tanais. Many thousands of the bravest subjects of Attila, the Gepidae, the Ostrogoths, the Rugians, the Bur- gundians, the Suevi, the Alani, assembled in the plains of Liguria ; and their formidable strength was balanced by their mutual animosities. ^ They passed the Alps in a severe winter. The emperor led the way on foot, and in complete armour ; sounding, with his long staff, the depth of the ice, or snow, and encouraging the Scythians, who complained of the extreme cold, by the cheerful assurance that they should be satisfied with the heat of Africa. The citizens of Lyons had presumed to shut [a d their gates : they soon implored, and experienced, the clemency of Majorian. He vanquished Theodoric in the field ; and ■■■'^The review of the army, and passage of the Alps, contain the most tolerable passages of the Panegyric (470-552). M. de Buat (Hist des Peiiples, etc., torn, viii. p. 49-55) is a more satisfactory commentator than either Savaron or Sirmond. [The Gepids are not mentioned in the list. Hut in this passage Sidonius is re- ferring to a campaign in Pannonia, not to the e.xpedition to Africa, which was not organisetj till A,D. 460, after Majorian's successful war with the Visigoths.]