ficulty towards Langres; but, in the
general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the
wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But, on the
news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his
relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his honor and revenge
by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. From the monuments of those
times, the obscure traces of several other victories over the barbarians
of Sarmatia and Germany might possibly be collected; but the tedious
search would not be rewarded either with amusement or with instruction.
The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal of the
vanquished, was imitated by Diocletian and his associates. The captive
barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were distributed among the
provincials, and assigned to those districts (in Gaul, the territories
of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray, Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are
particularly specified ) which had been depopulated by the calamities of
war. They were usefully employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but were
denied the exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient to
enroll them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the
property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the barbarians
as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a settlement to
several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnae, and the Sarmatians; and, by
a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in some measure to retain their
national manners and independence. Among the provincials, it was a
subject of flattering exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an
object of terror, now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the
neighboring fair, and contributed by his labor to the public plenty.
They congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects
and soldiers; but they forgot to observe, that multitudes of secret
enemies, insolent from favor, or desperate from oppression, were
introduced into the heart of the empire.
While the Caesars exercised their valor on the banks of the Rhine and
Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the southern
confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount Atlas Africa was in
arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations issued from their deserts
to invade the peaceful provinces. Julian had assumed the purple at
Carthage. Achilleus at Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed, or
rather
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