their former
habitations beyond the Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess
their new establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries
of the Roman empire. [82] The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks, with
the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the conditions.
An incident is related, interesting enough in itself, and by no means
repugnant to the character of Julian, who ingeniously contrived both the
plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for
peace, he required the son of their king, as the only hostage on whom
he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans,
declared the sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief
lamented in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered
by a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at the
foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to have been
slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as soon as the
tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Caesar addressed the
assembly in the following terms: "Behold the son, the prince, whom you
wept. You had lost him by your fault. God and the Romans have restored
him to you. I shall still preserve and educate the youth, rather as a
monument of my own virtue, than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should
you presume to violate the faith which you have sworn, the arms of
the republic will avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the
guilty." The Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the
warmest sentiments of gratitude and admiration. [83]

[Footnote 79: Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively picture
of the manners of the Franks.]

[Footnote 80: Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The Greek
orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been induced to
represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men; and as his head
was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he compares them to the
Lacedaemonians, who were besieged and taken in the Island of Sphatoria.]

[Footnote 81: Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat. x.
p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor, which La
Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an honest confession,
and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean evasion, of the truth. Dom
Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom. i. p. 733,) by su