o be found only in the Latin version, and not in the Greek text
of Herodian. 2. That the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the
soldiers of Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote
the spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that these
several streams, as they melted into one, composed the Timavus, so
poetically (in every sense of the word) described by Virgil. They are
about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See Cluver. Italia Antiqua,
tom. i. p. 189, &c.]

[Footnote 35: Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was supposed
to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of the senate. A
temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in honor of the women of
Aquileia, who had given up their hair to make ropes for the military
engines.]

The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to secure that
important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the
event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy. He
was too sensible, that a single town could not resist the persevering
efforts of a great army; and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the
obstinate resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the empire
and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the chance of a
battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran legions of the
Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among the generous but
enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German auxiliaries, on whose
firmness, in the hour of trial, it was dangerous to depend. In the midst
of these just alarms, the stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the
crimes of Maximin, and delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities
that would surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied, and
several fountains within the walls assured them of an inexhaustible
resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin were, on the contrary,
exposed to the inclemency of the season, the contagion of disease, and
the horrors of famine. The open country was ruined, the rivers filled
with the slain, and polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and
disaffection began to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they
were cut off from all intelligence, they easily believed that the