ters at Vienne for the ensuing winter.

The barrier of Gaul was improved and strengthened with additional
fortifications; and Julian entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom
he had so often vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the
terror of his name. Vadomair was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
esteemed or feared; and while the subtle barbarian affected to observe
the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms threatened the State
with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The policy of Julian
condescended to surprise the prince of the Alemanni by his own arts: and
Vadomair, who, in the character of a friend, had incautiously accepted
an invitation from the Roman governors, was seized in the midst of the
entertainment, and sent away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before
the barbarians were recovered from their amazement the Emperor appeared
in arms on the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
already made by four preceding expeditions.

The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with the
utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their passage
through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the tedious and
affected delays of the provincial governors; they were conducted by slow
journeys from Constantinople to Caesarea in Cappadocia; and when at
length they were admitted to the presence of Constantius, they found
that he had already conceived, from the despatches of his own officers,
the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian and of the Gallic
army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers
were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, the
gestures, the furious language of the monarch expressed the disorder of
his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the
brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death
of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and
was at last fatal to herself. The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the
last moment of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she
had conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated
the resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his
own passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs.

But the terror of a foreign invasion obliged him to suspend the
punishment of a private ene