ity
of retaliation: [153] and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the
consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without
the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to complete the destruction
of the Quadi by a second campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at
Bregetio, on the Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the
operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather, the
Quadi made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror;
and, at the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were
introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne with
bended bodies and dejected countenances; and without daring to complain
of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the
late invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers, which the public
council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor
left them but little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He
reviled, in the most intemperate language, their baseness, their
ingratitude, their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his
gestures, expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his
whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood vessel
suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the
arms of his attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his
situation from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West
expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last; and
struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the generals
and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about
fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to
accomplish the twelve years of his reign. [154]

[Footnote 151: Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit, has
censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive administration of
Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and continued the Chronicle of
Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,)
he expressed the truth, or at least the public opinion of his country,
in the following words: "Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum
exactionibus, ante provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur,
erasit." (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the widow of
Probus; and the name of Count Equ