hed that great province to the Goths and Vandals.
[22] His manly judgment convinced him of the solid advantages, and taught
him to despise the seeming disgrace, of thus contracting the frontiers
of the monarchy. The Dacian subjects, removed from those distant
possessions which they were unable to cultivate or defend, added
strength and populousness to the southern side of the Danube. A fertile
territory, which the repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a
desert, was yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still
preserved the memory of Trajan's conquests. The old country of that name
detained, however, a considerable number of its inhabitants, who dreaded
exile more than a Gothic master. [23] These degenerate Romans continued
to serve the empire, whose allegiance they had renounced, by introducing
among their conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful
arts, and the conveniences of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce
and language was gradually established between the opposite banks of the
Danube; and after Dacia became an independent state, it often proved the
firmest barrier of the empire against the invasions of the savages of
the North. A sense of interest attached these more settled barbarians
to the alliance of Rome, and a permanent interest very frequently ripens
into sincere and useful friendship. This various colony, which filled
the ancient province, and was insensibly blended into one great people,
still acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic
tribe, and claimed the fancied honor of a Scandinavian origin. At the
same time, the lucky though accidental resemblance of the name of Getae,
[231] infused among the credulous Goths a vain persuasion, that in a
remote age, their own ancestors, already seated in the Dacian provinces,
had received the instructions of Zamolxis, and checked the victorious
arms of Sesostris and Darius. [24]

[Footnote 22: Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix. 15. Sextus Rufus, c. 9.
de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9.]

[Footnote 23: The Walachians still preserve many traces of the Latin
language and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman descent. They
are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the barbarians. See a Memoir
of M. d'Anville on ancient Dacia, in the Academy of Inscriptions, tom.
xxx.]

[Footnote 231: The connection between the Getae and the Goths is still in
my opinion incorrectly maintained by some learned writers--M.]