ance of Aurelian and his officers
was exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the pursuit of the
numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this desultory war, three
considerable battles are mentioned, in which the principal force of both
armies was obstinately engaged. The success was various. In the first,
fought near Placentia, the Romans received so severe a blow, that,
according to the expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian,
the immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. The crafty
barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the legions in
the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable, after the fatigue
and disorder of a long march. The fury of their charge was irresistible;
but, at length, after a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the
emperor rallied his troops, and restored, in some degree, the honor of
his arms. The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the
spot which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the brother of
Hannibal. Thus far the successful Germans had advanced along the AEmilian
and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the defenceless mistress
of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful for the safety of Rome, still
hung on their rear, found in this place the decisive moment of giving
them a total and irretrievable defeat. The flying remnant of their host
was exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was
delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new
calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their
invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in the valor
and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public consternation, when the
barbarians were hourly expected at the gates of Rome, that, by a decree
of the senate the Sibylline books were consulted. Even the emperor
himself from a motive either of religion or of policy, recommended this
salutary measure, chided the tardiness of the senate, and offered to
supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of any
nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal offer, it
does not appear, that any human victims expiated with their blood the
sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books enjoined ceremonies of a
more harmless nature, processions of priests in white robes, attended
by a chorus of youths and virgins; lustrations of the city and
adjacent cou