298
Aukeolus—Claudius gothicus.
meet with in any other part of the Koman empire. Spain
was much more faithfully attached to Kome than Gaul. I
have no doubt that Treves was the capital of the gallant
princes, Postumus and Victorinus, though they often resided
at Cologne.16 The Porta Nigra at Treves was built about this
time. It is a Roman gate with two basilicae, one on each
side, and its whole style and structure shew that it cannot be
assigned to an earlier date. Treves was a large place; indeed
all the principal towns of Gaul, Spain, and Britain seem to
have been very extensive, and to have possessed great buildings,
which, however, were without real beauty, for taste had sunk
very low.
Aureolus, the commander of the Illyrian legions, was pro-
claimed emperor by his troops, and marched from the Raetian
frontier into Italy. Gallienus was besieged by him at Milan,
and fell a victim to a conspiracy. He was cut down, probably
by his own soldiers, A. D. 268 ; he had been a curse to the
empire, and his death was its safety. He was succeeded by a
great man, M. Aurelius Claudius Gothicus, whose name is
rather surprising, but his surname of Gothicus was well
deserved. In his reign the Goths again invaded the empire
through the Bosporus, Propontis, and Hellespont. After
having destroyed Cyzicus and ravaged the country of Moesia
and the banks of the Danube as far as Byzantium, they
appeared on the coast of Macedonia, and besieged Thessa-
Ionica, whence they proceeded to the interior of the country.
When they were met by Claudius, they endeavoured to force
their way back to the Danube; but their whole army was
nearly destroyed by Claudius in the neighbourhood of Nissa,
on the frontiers of Bulgaria and Servia. They were, how-
ever extremely numerous, being constantly joined by new
swarms—among which Vandals also are mentioned—so that
the war against them was not yet brought to a close.
The three Gothic nations, the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and
Gepidae, to which we must now add the Vandals, were still
formidable enemies; and while Claudius was making fresh
preparations, he died in the midst of his career, at Sirmium,
A. D. 270, either of the plague or of some other epidemic
which had been occasioned by the devastations of the war.
16 Neuwied is called in inscriptions Victoriensis, which is connected, I believe,
with Victorinus and his mother Victoria.—N.
aurelian’s restoration of the empire. 299
The plague seems at that time to have settled in Moesia, where
great havoc was made by it among both the Romans and the
Goths. Claudius was succeeded by L. Domitius Aurelianus.
LECTURE CXXVIΠ.
The victory of Claudius Gothicus, though it did not bring the
war to a close, had yet secured the safety of the empire. His
early death was a misfortune to the state. The empire of Pal-
myra was evidently at peace with Rome, and protected the
eastern frontier; but Tetricus, who was at the head of the
Gallic empire, did not stand in the same relation to Rome,
although circumstances were, at least on the whole, peaceful.
Before his death, Claudius had recommended Aurelian, the
most distinguished among his generals, as a fit successor, and
both the army and the senate recognised him. During the
five years of his reign (until A.I>. 275) Aurelian accomplished
great things, and became the real restorer of the Roman empire.
Its condition was then such, that one might be inclined to
refer to it a celebrated passage in the work of Q. Curtius1, if it
were possible that a person could at that time have written
such elegant Latin as that of Curtius. But this is impossible,
though Gibbon does not seem to have thought so, at least
as far as the time of Gordian is concerned ; for he supposes that
the passage contains an allusion to Gordian. But the reference
to Tyre2 has a meaning only when taken as an allusion to the
time of Septimius Severus and Caracalla.
A happy restoration of the empire was brought about by
Aurelian, and the history of his reign is delightful, like that
of every period in which something that was decaying is
restored; he was however by no means an ideal character. We
are very far from being able to form a clear picture of that
time, for the authorities we possess are much inferior even to
those for the middle ages3, and the history of the empire is far
1 x. 9. CompareNicbuhr, Kleine Histor. und Philol. Schriften, i. p.304 foil
2 iv. 4.
3 I am not of the opinion of those who attach a very high value to the writers
of the middle ages, though Eginhard, Wittekind of Corvey, and Lambertus of