influence in the councils of the
West. [157]

[Footnote 155: Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original witness of
this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and manners of the Romans,
that it scarcely deserved the formal and elaborate dissertation of M.
Bonamy, (Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve
the natural circumstance of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who
represents Justina as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]

[Footnote 156: Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this military
election, and august investiture. Valentinian does not appear to have
consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]

[Footnote 157: Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223. Tillemont
has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709) that Gratian
reignea in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have endeavored to express
his authority over his brother's dominions, as he used it, in an
ambiguous style.]

Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.--Part I.

Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.--Progress Of The Huns, From China
To Europe.--Flight Of The Goths.--They Pass The Danube.--Gothic
War.--Defeat And Death Of Valens.--Gratian Invests Theodosius With The
Eastern Empire.--His Character And Success.--Peace And Settlement Of The
Goths.

In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the
morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the Roman
world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake. The impression
was communicated to the waters; the shores of the Mediterranean were
left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea; great quantities of fish
were caught with the hand; large vessels were stranded on the mud; and
a curious spectator [1] amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by
contemplating the various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had
never, since the formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun. But
the tide soon returned, with the weight of an immense and irresistible
deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia,
of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on
the roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore; the
people, with their habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the
city of Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty
thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation. This calamity,
the report of which was magnified from one pr