stances the innate terrors of their
barbarism. Their shields are black, their bodies are painted black.
They choose for the combat the darkest hour of the night. Their host
advances, covered as it were with a funeral shade; nor do they often
find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and infernal an aspect.
Of all our senses, the eyes are the first vanquished in battle." Yet
the arms and discipline of the Romans easily discomfited these horrid
phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a general engagement, and Semno,
the most renowned of their chiefs, fell alive into the hands of Probus.
That prudent emperor, unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair,
granted them an honorable capitulation, and permitted them to return in
safety to their native country. But the losses which they suffered in
the march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the nation:
nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history either of Germany
or of the empire. The deliverance of Gaul is reported to have cost the
lives of four hundred thousand of the invaders; a work of labor to the
Romans, and of expense to the emperor, who gave a piece of gold for the
head of every barbarian. But as the fame of warriors is built on the
destruction of human kind, we may naturally suspect, that the sanguinary
account was multiplied by the avarice of the soldiers, and accepted
without any very severe examination by the liberal vanity of Probus.

Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman generals had confined
their ambition to a defensive war against the nations of Germany, who
perpetually pressed on the frontiers of the empire. The more daring
Probus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and displayed his
invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the Necker. He was fully
convinced that nothing could reconcile the minds of the barbarians to
peace, unless they experienced, in their own country, the calamities of
war. Germany, exhausted by the ill success of the last emigration,
was astonished by his presence. Nine of the most considerable princes
repaired to his camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was
humbly received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate.
He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which they
had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own magistrates
to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to detain any part of
the spoil. A considerable tribute of co