ry, that the civil and
military powers were resumed by his successful rival. A chain of posts
and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of
Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted
their subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and
suspended by hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at the
feet of the conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage appearance,
ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength with these
formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been the object of their
terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric alone could deserve so lofty
a title) was grieved and exasperated by this national calamity. His
ambassadors loudly complained, at the court of Valens, of the infraction
of the ancient and solemn alliance, which had so long subsisted between
the Romans and the Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty
of allies, by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives; and they
urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals marching in
arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the sacred character and
privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but peremptory, refusal of
these extravagant demands, was signified to the Barbarians by Victor,
master-general of the cavalry; who expressed, with force and dignity,
the just complaints of the emperor of the East. [146] The negotiation
was interrupted; and the manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged
his timid brother to vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. [147]

[Footnote 144: Valens. ... docetur relationibus Ducum, gentem Gothorum,
ea tempestate intactam ideoque saevissimam, conspirantem in unum, ad
pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi. 6.]

[Footnote 145: M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi. p.
332) has curiously ascertained the real number of these auxiliaries.
The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of Zosimus, were only the first
divisions of the Gothic army. * Note: M. St. Martin (iii. 246) denies
that there is any authority for these numbers.--M.]

[Footnote 146: The march, and subsequent negotiation, are described in
the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, edit. Louvre.) The
provincials who afterwa