hich Claudius had undertaken, of restoring the
empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to revive among
his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the authority of
a veteran commander, he represented to them that the relaxation of
discipline had introduced a long train of disorders, the effects of
which were at length experienced by the soldiers themselves; that a
people ruined by oppression, and indolent from despair, could no longer
supply a numerous army with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence;
that the danger of each individual had increased with the despotism of
the military order, since princes who tremble on the throne will guard
their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious subject.
The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless caprice, which the
soldiers could only gratify at the expense of their own blood; as their
seditious elections had so frequently been followed by civil wars, which
consumed the flower of the legions either in the field of battle, or
in the cruel abuse of victory. He painted in the most lively colors the
exhausted state of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces,
the disgrace of the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of rapacious
barbarians. It was against those barbarians, he declared, that he
intended to point the first effort of their arms. Tetricus might reign
for a while over the West, and even Zenobia might preserve the dominion
of the East. These usurpers were his personal adversaries; nor could he
think of indulging any private resentment till he had saved an empire,
whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely prevented, crush both
the army and the people.

The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, who fought under the Gothic
standard, had already collected an armament more formidable than any
which had yet issued from the Euxine. On the banks of the Niester,
one of the great rivers that discharge themselves into that sea, they
constructed a fleet of two thousand, or even of six thousand vessels;
numbers which, however incredible they may seem, would have been
insufficient to transport their pretended army of three hundred and
twenty thousand barbarians. Whatever might be the real strength of the
Goths, the vigor and success of the expedition were not adequate to the
greatness of the preparations. In their passage through the Bosphorus,
the unskilful pilots were overpowered by the violence of the current;
and while the mul