ermit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace, they should
ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and
gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic.
These assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, [64a]
who impatiently expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that must
finally determine the fate of their unhappy countrymen. The emperor of
the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder
brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year;
and as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and
peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite resources of feeble
and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures
as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As long as the
same passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of war
and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the councils of
antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the subject of modern
deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has never
been summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of admitting,
or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven
by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of
a civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially
connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers of
Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon acquiesced in the
flattering sentiment which seemed the most favorable to the pride, the
indolence, and the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, who were
decorated with the titles of praefects and generals, dissembled or
disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so extremely
different from the partial and accidental colonies, which had been
received on the extreme limits of the empire. But they applauded the
liberality of fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant
countries of the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to
defend the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures
the immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to compensate their
annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of the Goths were granted,
and their service was accepted by the Imperial court: and orders were
immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the
Thracian diocese, to make the n