if it had not been for Balchobaudes, a tribune of the legions, who being
as sluggish as he was boastful, at the approach of evening retreated in
disorder to the camp. And if the rest of the cohorts had followed his
example and had also retired, the affair would have turned out so
ruinous that not one of our men would have been left alive to tell what
had happened.

7. But our soldiers, persisting with energy and courage, showed such a
superiority in personal strength that they wounded four thousand of the
enemy and slew six thousand, while they did not themselves lose more
than twelve hundred killed and two hundred wounded.

8. At the approach of night the battle terminated, and our weary men
having recruited their strength, a little before dawn our skilful
general led forth his army in a square, and found that the barbarians
had availed themselves of the darkness to escape. And having no fear
there of ambuscade, he pursued them over the open plain, trampling on
the dying and the dead, many of whom had perished from the effect of the
severity of the cold on their wounds.

9. After he had advanced some way further, without finding any of the
enemy he returned, and then he learnt that the king of the hostile army
had been taken prisoner, with a few followers, by the Ascarii,[161] whom
he himself had sent by another road to plunder the tents of the
Allemanni, and they had hanged him. But the general being angry at this,
ordered the punishment of the tribune who had ventured on such an act
without consulting his superior officer, and he would have condemned him
if he had not been able to establish by manifest proof that the
atrocious act had been committed by the violent impulse of the soldiers.

10. After this, when he returned to Paris with the glory of this
success, the emperor met him with joy, and appointed him to be consul
the next year, being additionally rejoiced because at the very same time
he received the head of Procopius, which had been sent to him by Valens.

11. Besides these events, many other battles of inferior interest and
importance took place in Gaul, which it would be superfluous to recount,
since they brought no results worth mentioning, and it is not fit to
spin out history with petty details.

III.

Sec. 1. At this time, or a little before, a new kind of prodigy appeared in
the corn district of Tuscany; those who were skilful in interpreting
such things being wholly ignorant of what it po