attle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Caesar, [76]
and so salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of
the Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who were
drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they attempted to
swim across the river. [77] Chnodomar himself was surrounded and taken
prisoner, with three of his brave companions, who had devoted themselves
to follow in life or death the fate of their chieftain. Julian received
him with military pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a
generous pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt
for the abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities
of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid
trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an honorable treatment:
but the impatient Barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his
confinement, and his exile. [78]

[Footnote 74: Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated eloquence
the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens ingenti robore
lacertorum, ubi ardor proelii sperabatur immanis, equo spumante
sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandae vastitatis, armorumque
nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et miles, et utilis praeter caeteros
ductor... Decentium Caesarem superavit aequo marte congressus.]

[Footnote 75: After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the rigor of
ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in female apparel to
the derision of the whole camp. In the next campaign, these troops nobly
retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 142.]

[Footnote 76: Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks of the
battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit; Zosimus
compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius; and yet we are at
a loss to discover any of those strokes of military genius which fix the
attention of ages on the conduct and success of a single day.]

[Footnote 77: Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling differences
disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus has sacrificed
to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We might attribute this
extravagant number to the carelessness of transcribers, if this
credulous or partial historian had not swelled the army of 35,000
Alemanni to an innumerable multitude of Bar