ieftains of the
Goths, who was roaming about at random with a large predatory band, and
a body of the Taifali, with whom he had lately made an alliance, and who
(if it is worth mentioning), when our soldiers were all dispersed for
fear of the strange nations which were threatening them, had taken
advantage of their dispersion to cross the river, in order to plunder
the country thus left without defenders.

4. When their troops thus suddenly came in sight, our general with great
prudence prepared to bring on a battle at close quarters, and, in spite
of their ferocious threats, at once attacked the combined leaders of the
two nations; and would have slain them all, not leaving a single one of
them to convey news of their disaster, if, after Farnobius, hitherto the
much-dreaded cause of all these troubles, had been slain, with a great
number of his men, he had not voluntarily spared the rest on their own
earnest supplication; and then he distributed those to whom he had thus
granted their lives in the districts around the Italian towns of Modena,
Reggio, and Parma, which he allotted to them to cultivate.

5. It is said that this nation of the Taifali was so profligate, and so
immersed in the foulest obscenities of life, that they indulged in all
kinds of unnatural lusts, exhausting the vigour both of youth and
manhood in the most polluted defilements of debauchery. But if any adult
caught a boar or slew a bear single-handed, he was then exempted from
all compulsion of submitting to such ignominious pollution.

X.

Sec. 1. It was when autumn was passing into winter that terrible whirlwinds
swept over Thrace; and as if the Furies were throwing everything into
confusion, awful storms extended even into distant regions.

2. And now the people of the Allemanni, belonging to the district of
Lintz, who border on the Tyrol, having by treacherous incursions
violated the treaty which had been made with them some time before,
began to make attempts upon our frontier; and this calamity had the
following lamentable beginning.

3. One of this nation who was serving among the guards of the emperor,
returned home at the call of some private business of his own; and being
a very talkative person, when he was continually asked what was doing in
the palace, he told them that Valens, his uncle, had sent for Gratian to
conduct the campaign in the East, in order that by their combined forces
they might drive back the inhabitants of the