ions removed or destroyed, the bridges
broken down, nor was any thing left which could afford either shelter or
subsistence to an invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals
of the senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his strength in
the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which they had plentifully
stored with men and provisions from the deserted country. Aquileia
received and withstood the first shock of the invasion. The streams that
issue from the head of the Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the
winter snows, opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At
length, on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank, rooted up
the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of Aquileia, demolished the
suburbs, and employed the timber of the buildings in the engines and
towers, with which on every side he attacked the city. The walls, fallen
to decay during the security of a long peace, had been hastily repaired
on this sudden emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted
in the constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their knowledge
of the tyrant's unrelenting temper. Their courage was supported and
directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the twenty lieutenants
of the senate, who, with a small body of regular troops, had thrown
themselves into the besieged place. The army of Maximin was repulsed in
repeated attacks, his machines destroyed by showers of artificial
fire; and the generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar deity,
combated in person in the defence of his distressed worshippers.

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 coul