prisoners of the highest merit and
quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every conveniency that
could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate their so much wished-for
departure; and he even promised to pay them annually a large sum
of gold, on condition they should never afterwards infest the Roman
territories by their incursions. [51]

[Footnote 50: Haec ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in
Caesaribus.]

[Footnote 51: Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth, who
courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were gratified
with such trifling presents as could only derive a value from the hand
that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse garment of purple, an
inconsiderable piece of plate, or a quantity of copper coin. [52] After
the wealth of nations had centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their
greatness, and even their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady
and moderate liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved
the poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed
their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood to flow,
not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or the gratitude of
the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies were liberally distributed
among friends and suppliants, they were sternly refused to such as
claimed them as a debt. [53] But this stipulation, of an annual payment
to a victorious enemy, appeared without disguise in the light of an
ignominious tribute; the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to
accept such unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince,
who by a necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the
object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of Hostiliamus,
though it happened in the midst of a raging pestilence, was interpreted
as the personal crime of Gallus; [54] and even the defeat of the later
emperor was ascribed by the voice of suspicion to the perfidious
counsels of his hated successor. [55] The tranquillity which the empire
enjoyed during the first year of his administration, [56] served rather
to inflame than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the
apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was more
deeply and more sensibly felt.

[Footnote 52: A Sella, a Toga, and a golden Patera of five pounds
weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the wealthy k