mayed
barbarians, on whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld, with
despair, a wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and
implacable enemy.

Reduced to this distressed condition, the Alemanni no longer disdained
to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors at the head of his
camp, and with every circumstance of martial pomp that could display
the greatness and discipline of Rome. The legions stood to their arms
in well-ordered ranks and awful silence. The principal commanders,
distinguished by the ensigns of their rank, appeared on horseback on
either side of the Imperial throne. Behind the throne the consecrated
images of the emperor, and his predecessors, [29] the golden eagles, and
the various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were
exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When Aurelian
assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure [30] taught
the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple of their
conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground in silence. They
were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak. By the assistance of
interpreters they extenuated their perfidy, magnified their exploits,
expatiated on the vicissitudes of fortune and the advantages of peace,
and, with an ill-timed confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the
price of the alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer
of the emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with
contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the barbarians,
that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of the laws of peace,
and finally dismissed them with the choice only of submitting to this
unconditional mercy, or awaiting the utmost severity of his resentment.
[31] Aurelian had resigned a distant province to the Goths; but it was
dangerous to trust or to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose
formidable power kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms.

[Footnote 29: The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number; but we
are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if to Caesar and
Augustus, it must have produced a very awful spectacle; a long line of
the masters of the world.]

[Footnote 30: Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210.]

[Footnote 31: Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration, worthy of
a Grecian sophist.]

Immediately after this conference, it should seem that some unexpected
emergency required the emperor's presenc