e which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce of ten
months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of the truce,
Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine, to humble the
pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of the Alemanni, who had
been present at the battle of Strasburgh. They promised to restore
all the Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the Caesar had
procured an exact account from the cities and villages of Gaul, of the
inhabitants whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive
him, with a degree of readiness and accuracy, which almost established
the belief of his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was
still more splendid and important than the two former. The Germans had
collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite banks of
the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and of preventing
the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan of defence was
disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred light-armed and
active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to fall down the
stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the posts of the
enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness and celerity,
that they had almost surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in
the fearless confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal
festivals. Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of
slaughter and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian
dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest kings of
the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the severe discipline
and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by twenty thousand captives,
whom he had rescued from the chains of the Barbarians, the Caesar
repassed the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has
been compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.

[Footnote 84: Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
(Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have derived
his information only from the Orations and the Epistles of Julian. The
discourse which is addressed to the Athenians contains an accurate,
though general, account of the war against the Germans.]

[Footnote 85: See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l. iii. p.
144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]

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