he Roman general surprised a peaceful district
of the Gepidae, who slept under the protection of the Avars; and his
last trophies were erected on the banks of the Danube and the Teyss.
Since the death of Trajan the arms of the empire had not penetrated so
deeply into the old Dacia: yet the success of Priscus was transient and
barren; and he was soon recalled by the apprehension that Baian, with
dauntless spirit and recruited forces, was preparing to avenge his
defeat under the walls of Constantinople. [39]

[Footnote 34: See the march and return of Maurice, in Theophylact, l.
v. c. 16 l. vi. c. 1, 2, 3. If he were a writer of taste or genius,
we might suspect him of an elegant irony: but Theophylact is surely
harmless.]

[Footnote 35: Iliad, xii. 243. This noble verse, which unites the spirit
of a hero with the reason of a sage, may prove that Homer was in every
light superior to his age and country.]

[Footnote 36: Theophylact, l. vii. c. 3. On the evidence of this fact,
which had not occurred to my memory, the candid reader will correct and
excuse a note in Chapter XXXIV., note 86 of this History, which hastens
the decay of Asimus, or Azimuntium; another century of patriotism and
valor is cheaply purchased by such a confession.]

[Footnote 37: See the shameful conduct of Commentiolus, in Theophylact,
l. ii. c. 10--15, l. vii. c. 13, 14, l. viii. c. 2, 4.]

[Footnote 38: See the exploits of Priscus, l. viii. c. 23.]

[Footnote 39: The general detail of the war against the Avars may be
traced in the first, second, sixth, seventh, and eighth books of the
history of the emperor Maurice, by Theophylact Simocatta. As he wrote in
the reign of Heraclius, he had no temptation to flatter; but his want
of judgment renders him diffuse in trifles, and concise in the most
interesting facts.]

The theory of war was not more familiar to the camps of Caesar and
Trajan, than to those of Justinian and Maurice. [40] The iron of Tuscany
or Pontus still received the keenest temper from the skill of the
Byzantine workmen. The magazines were plentifully stored with every
species of offensive and defensive arms. In the construction and use of
ships, engines, and fortifications, the Barbarians admired the superior
ingenuity of a people whom they had so often vanquished in the field.
The science of tactics, the order, evolutions, and stratagems of
antiquity, was transcribed and studied in the books of the Greeks and
Romans. But the soli