Since they, thinking their destruction
imminent, were coming with great anxiety to sue for peace.

16. And immediately after them King Vadomarius also came, whose abode
was opposite Augst: and having produced some letters of the Emperor
Constantius, in which he was strictly recommended to the protection of
the Romans, he was courteously received, as became one who had been
admitted by the emperor as a client of the Roman empire.

17. And Macrianus and his brother, being admitted among our eagles and
standards, marvelled at the imposing appearance of our arms, and various
resources which they had never seen before. And they offered up
petitions on behalf of their people. But Vadomarius, who had met us
before, since he was close to our frontier, admired indeed the
appointments of our daring expedition, but remembered that he had often
seen such before, ever since his childhood.

18. At last, after long deliberation, with the unanimous consent of all,
peace was granted to Macrianus and Hariobaudus; but an answer could not
be given to Vadomarius, who had come to secure his own safety, and also
as an ambassador to intercede for the kings Urius, Ursicinus, and
Vestralpus, imploring peace for them also; lest, as the barbarians are
men of wavering faith, they might recover their spirits when our army
was withdrawn, and refuse adherence to conditions procured by the agency
of others.

19. But when they also, after their crops and houses had been burnt, and
many of their soldiers had been slain or taken prisoners, sent
ambassadors of their own, and sued for mercy as if they had been guilty
of similar violence to our subjects, they obtained peace on similar
terms; of which that most rigorously insisted on was that they should
restore all the prisoners which they had taken in their frequent
incursions.

III.

Sec. 1. While the god-like wisdom of the Caesar was thus successful in Gaul,
great disturbances arose in the court of the emperor, which from slight
beginnings increased to grief and lamentations. Some bees swarmed on the
house of Barbatio, at that time the commander of the infantry. And when
he consulted the interpreters of prodigies on this event, he received
for an answer, that it was an omen of great danger; the answer being
founded on the idea that these animals, after they have fixed their
abode, and laid up their stores, are usually expelled by smoke and the
noisy din of cymbals.

2. Barbatio's wife was a wo