ard.

[Footnote 31: Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 3. We must reckon the march
from the nearest verge of Pannonia, and extend the sight of the city as
far as two hundred miles.]

The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared, to
dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the invincible and
rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw his inevitable ruin. The
hasty arrival of every messenger increased his just apprehensions. He
was successively informed, that Severus had passed the Alps; that the
Italian cities, unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received
him with the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important
place of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the
Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was now
within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment diminished
the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.

He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his ruin.
He implored the venal faith of the Praetorians, filled the city with
unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the suburbs, and
even strengthened the fortifications of the palace; as if those last
intrenchments could be defended, without hope of relief, against a
victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented the guards from deserting
his standard; but they trembled at the name of the Pannonian legions,
commanded by an experienced general, and accustomed to vanquish the
barbarians on the frozen Danube. [32] They quitted, with a sigh, the
pleasures of the baths and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had
almost forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.
The unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was hoped, would
strike terror into the army of the north, threw their unskilful riders;
and the awkward evolutions of the marines, drawn from the fleet of
Misenum, were an object of ridicule to the populace; whilst the senate
enjoyed, with secret pleasure, the distress and weakness of the usurper.
[33]

[Footnote 32: This is not a puerile figure of rhetoric, but an allusion
to a real fact recorded by Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1181. It probably happened
more than once.]

[Footnote 33: Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1233. Herodian, l. ii. p. 81. There
is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than their first
surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards disdaining the dangerous
use, of elephants in w