these nefarious traitors?" And then, in compliance with the acclamations
of the whole army, who demanded that their treason should be expiated by
their blood, he, according to the ancient fashion, handed over those of
them who had served in the Constantian legion to the soldiers to be put
to death by them. The officers of the archers he sentenced to lose their
hands, and the rest he condemned to death, in imitation of Curio, that
most vigorous and severe general, who by this kind of punishment crushed
the ferocity of the Dardanians, when it was reviving like the Lernaean
hydra.

23. But malignant detractors, though they praise the ancient deed,
vituperate this one as terrible and inhuman, affirming that the
Dardanians[182] were implacable enemies, and therefore justly suffered
the punishment inflicted on them; but that those soldiers, who belonged
to our own standards, ought to have been corrected with more lenity, for
falling into one single error. But we will remind these cavillers, of
what perhaps they know already, namely, that this cohort was not only an
enemy by its own conduct, but also by the example which it set to
others.

24. He also commanded Bellenes and Fericius, who have been mentioned
above, and whom Gildo brought with him, to be put to death; and likewise
Curandius, a tribune of the archers, because he had always been
backward in engaging the enemy himself, and had never been willing to
encourage his men to fight. And he did this in recollection of the
principle laid down by Cicero, that "salutary vigour is better than an
empty appearance of clemency."

25. Leaving Sugabarri, he came to a town called Gallonatis, surrounded
by a strong wall, and a secure place of refuge for the Moors, which, as
such, he destroyed with his battering-rams. And having slain all the
inhabitants, and levelled the walls, he advanced along the foot of Mount
Ancorarius to the fortress of Tingetanum, where the Mazices were all
collected in one solid body. He at once attacked them, and they
encountered him with arrows and missiles of all kinds as thick as hail.

26. The battle proceeded for some time vigorously on both sides, till at
last the Mazices, though a hardy and warlike race, being unable to
withstand the fury of our men and the shock of their arms, after
sustaining heavy loss, fled in every direction in disgraceful panic; and
as they fled they were put to the sword in great numbers, with the
exception only of those wh