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AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS.
[BK. XXXI. CH. I
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I. Omens announcing the death of the Emperor Valens, and a disaster to be inflicted by the Gauls. - II. A description of the abodes and customs of the Huns, the Alani, and other tribes, natives of Asiatic Scythia. - III. The Huns, either by arms or by treaties, unite the Alani on the Don to themselves; invade the Goths, and drive them from their country. - IV. The chief division of the Goths, surnamed the Thuringians, having been expelled from their homes, by permission of Valens are conducted by the Romans into Thrace, on condition of promising obedience and a supply of auxiliary troops. The Gruthungi also, who form the other division of the Goths, secretly cross the Danube by a bridge of boats. - V. The Thuringians being in great distress from hunger and the want of supplies, under the command of their generals Alavivus and Fritigern, revolt from Valens, and defeat Lupicinus and his army. - VI. Why Sueridus and Colias, nobles of the Gothic nation, after having been received in a friendly manner, revolted; and after slaying the people of Hadrianopolis, united themselves to Fritigern, and then turned to ravage Thrace. - VII. Profuturus, Trajan, and Richomeres fought a drawn battle against the Goths. - VIII. The Goths being hemmed in among the defiles at the bottom of the Balkan, after the Romans by turning had let them escape, invaded Thrace, plundering, massacring, ravishing, and burning, and slay Barzimeres, the tribune of the Scutarii. - IX. Frigeridus, Gratian's general, routs Farnobius at the head of a large body of Goths and Taifalæ; sparing the rest, and giving them some lands around the Po. - X. The Lentiensian Alemanni are defeated in battle by the generals of the emperor Gratian, and their king Priamis is slain. Afterwards, having yielded and furnished Gratian with a body of recruits, they are allowed to return to their own country. - XI. Sebastian surprises the Goths at Beræa as they are returning home loaded with plunder, and defeats them with great slaughter; a few saved themselves by flight. Gratian hastens to his uncle Valens, to carry him aid against the Goths. - XII. Valens, before the arrival of Gratian resolves to fight the Goths. - XIII. All the Goths unite together, that is to say, the Thuringians, under their king Fritigern. The Gruthungi, under their dukes Alatheus and Salaces, encounter the Romans in a pitched battle, rout their cavalry, and then falling on the infantry when deprived of the support of their horse, and huddled together in a dense body, they defeat them with enormous loss, and put them to flight. Valens is slain, but his body cannot be found. - XIV. The virtues and vices of Valens. - XV. The victorious Goths besiege Hadrianopolis, where Valens had left his treasures and his insignia of imperial rank, with the prefect and the members of his council; but after trying every means to take the city, without success, they at last retire. - XVI. The Goths, having by bribes won over the forces of the Huns and of the Alani to join them, make an attack upon Constantinople without success. The device by which Julius, the commander of the forces beyond Mount Taurus, delivered the eastern provinces from the Goths.
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æ1. In the mean time the swift wheel of Fortune, which continually alternates adversity with prosperity, was giving Bellona the Furies for her allies, and arming her for war; and now transferred our disasters to the East, as many presages and portents foreshowed by undoubted signs.
2. For after many true prophecies uttered by diviners and augurs, dogs were seen to recoil from howling wolves, and the birds of night constantly uttered querulous and mournful cries; and lurid sunrises made the mornings dark. Also, at Antioch, among the tumults and squabbles of the populace, it had come to be a custom for any one who fancied himself ill treated to cry out in a licentious manner, "May Valens be burnt alive!" And the voices of the criers were constantly heard ordering wood to be carried to warm the baths of Valens, which had been built under the superintendence of the emperor himself.
3. All which circumstances all but pointed out in express words that the end of the emperor's life was at
