IX. mon denomination to the mixed multitude. The CHA P. distinctions of the ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the astonished subjects of the Roman empire *. Wars, and the administration of public affairs, Numbers. are the principal subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in these busy scenes is very different, according to the different con-dition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity. The attention of the Writer, as well as of the Reader, is solely confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations. But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil commotions, or the situation of petty republics †, raises almost every member of the community into action, and consequently into notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, . and seem to multiply their number. The profuse enumeration of kings and warriors, of armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished on the most inconsiderable objects. CHAP, * See an excellent dissertation on the origin and migrations of nations; in the Memoirs de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48-71. It is seldom that the antiquarian and the philosopher are so happily blended. + Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000 citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on the number of mankind in ancient and modern times. CHAP. ject. -268. СНАР. Х. The emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, and Gallienus.-The general irruption of the Barbarians.-The thirty Tyrants. FRO ROM the great secular games celebrated by Philip to the death of the emperor GallieThe nature nus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and of the sub- misfortune. During that calamitous period, every A. D. 248, instance of time was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by barbarous invaders and military tyrants, and the ruined empire seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution. The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration. Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect, to compare, and to conjecture; and though he ought never to place his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical materials. The empe ror Philip. There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the 1 nate. H A P. X. 3 the generals of Philip were disposed to imitate c the example of their master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer * named Marinus, was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He dreaded lest the treason of the Masian army should prove the first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the intelligence to the seA gloomy silence prevailed, the effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length Services, Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit revolt, vicworthy of his noble extraction, ventured to dis- reign of the cover more intrepidity than the emperor seemed mor to possess. He treated the whole business with A.D. 249. contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip's rival as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Phi lip with a just esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the only person caus pable of restoring peace and discipline to ant army, whose tumultuous spirit did not immedi VOL. I... Adonately Cc * The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.2783 tory, and emperor Decius. X. CHA P. ately subside after the murder of Marinus. Decius, who long resisted his own nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a leader of merit, to the angry and apprehensive minds of the soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event. The legions of Mæsia forced their judge to become their accomplice, They left him only the alternative of death or the purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was unavoidable. He conducted or followed his army to the confines of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet him. The Imperial troops were superior in number *; but the rebels formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the empire was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the victorious Decius, with more favourable circumstances than the ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that, immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of Au gustus, * His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia, (Entrop. ix. Victor in Cæsarib. epitom.) seems to contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the Decii; but at the commencement of that period, they were only Plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship with the haughty Patricians. Plebeia Deciorum animæ, &c. Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in Livy, x. 9, 10. X. gustus, he had assured Philip, by a private mes- CHA P. sage, of his innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival in Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be sincere. But, in the situation where fortune had placed him, it was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be forgiven *. He marches against A. D. 250. The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of peace, and the admini- the Goths. stration of justice, when he was summoned to the banks of the Danube, by the invasion of the GOTHS. This is the first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol, and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that the name of GOTHS is frequently, but improperly used, as a general appellation of rude and warlike barbarism. Origin of the Goths Şcandina In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of Italy, the Goths, in possession from of present greatness, very naturally indulged them- via. selves in the prospect of past and of future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own atchievements. The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a Gothic history, 'which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to the Cc 2 * Zosimus, 1. i. p. 20. Zonaras, 1. xii. p. 624. Edit. Louvre, |