292
DEFEAT AND DEATH OF DECItTS.
conducted the war with great skill, for they succeeded in
taking Philippopolis. But after this conquest, Decius again
met them on Mount Haemus, and cut off their retreat. Ihey
then proposed to conclude a peace, on condition of obtaining a
fιee departure, and of restoring the prisoners and booty. But
Decius, who refused to enter into negotiations, drove them to
despair; and he had to bear the same consequences as Frederik
the Great experienced at Kunersdorf. The Goths were com-
pelled to fight a decisive battle. Their army was drawn up in
three divisions : the last of them had in its front a deep morass,
like that which King Frederik crossed in the battle of Prague;
the two other divisions had already been broken through ; and
if Decius after this partial victory had taken a position which
might have enabled him to disperse the defeated army, and by
skilful manoeuvres to surround the division which still held
out, he might have destroyed the whole Gothic army ; and the
fortune of the empire would have assumed a totally different
aspect. But unfortunately, Decius, like Frederik the Great
at Kunersdorf, wanted to rout the enemy by a vehement
assault. He attacked the third line which was drawn up behind
the morass on narrow paths and causeways ; but the valour and
bravery of the legions was of no avail in that situation : the
Bomans were defeated, and Decius and his son did not survive
the calamity, which occurred A.D. 251. The Goths, too, had
suffered great loss, and they therefore agreed to conclude a
peace with Gallus Trebonianus2, who was now proclaimed
emperor by the legions. He paid considerable sums of money
to the Goths; but whether settlements in Daeia were conceded
to them as early as that time is a question which I cannot
decide.
After the restoration of peace Gallus returned to Rome.
Hostilianus, a son or nephew of Decius3, who had received the
purple from the senate, was recognised by Gallus as his col-
league in the empire; but Hostilianus died soon after. Gallus
was despised on account of the humiliating peace which he
had concluded with the Goths, and which had excited general
indignation. Aemilius Aemilianus, the governor of Illyricum,
2 Jornandes, JDe Reb. Get. 18; Ammian. Marcellinus, xxxi. 5; Zosimus, i.
23; Zonaras, xii.20.
3 The history of these times is so confused that it is impossible to say whether
he was a son or a nephew of the late emperor. — N.
ACCESSION OF VALERIAN.
293
was set up against him in the East, and led an army into
Italy. A decisive battle was fought near Spoleto, on the
frontiers of Umbria and the country of the Sabines; and Gal-
lus lost his life either in the battle or by the command of his
conqueror.
In the meantime, P. Licinius Valerianus, whom Gallus had
called to his assistance, had advanced with some German legions
from Gaul to support him. He arrived too late to save, but
early enough to avenge him. Aemilius was not more fortu-
nate than Gallus had been, for he too was abandoned and
probably murdered by his own soldiers.
Valerian now succeeded to the throne; and great were the
expectations entertained of him. There have at all times been
people unfortunate enough to have a reputation among their
contemporaries which they were unable to sustain; and such
was the case with Valerian, for his reign not only had a most
deplorable end, but it was marked throughout with nothing
but calamities. Decius had had the strange idea of restoring the
censorship4, for the purpose of correcting the morals of the
Roman nobles. The choice of the censor was left to the senate,
and Valerian had been appointed to the office; but as Decius
fell so soon after, the new institution produced no effect. After
his elevation to the imperial throne, Valerian chose his son,
C. Publius Licinius Gallienus, as his colleague .s It was at that
time highly necessary for an emperor to have an assistant able
to exercise the powers of the empire at Rome, while he Iiimsclf
was engaged abroad, for the German nations now broke through
the frontiers on all sides. In the North we meet with the
Franks, Alemannians, and Goths, in separate hosts; while in
the East, the Persians, under their king, Sapor, invaded Syiia.
We possess so incomplete a history of Valerian, that we cannot
even say whether the catastrophe which put an end to his
reign took place in the year A.D. 256 or 260.
On the lower Rhine, the Franks had formed a kingdom,
which extended up the river as far as Coblenz ; the Alemanni-
ans, or Suevi, had broken through the limes, and spread from
4 Trcb. Pollio, Valet tan. i. foil.
s These men had no connexion with the ancient Licinian family, which
stands forth so nobly in the history of the Roman republic as the defender of
the rights of the plebeian order; for at this time names were assumed arbitrarily
and without any regard to relationship. — N.