OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 389 alliance of so warlike an emperor^. He attacked the CHAP. Isaiirians in their mountains, besieged and took several ^^^' of their strongest castles*', and flattered himself that he had for ever suppressed a domestic foe, whose inde- pendence so deeply wounded the majesty of the empire. The troubles excited by the usurper Firmus in the Upper Egypt, had never been perfectly appeased ; and the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by the alliance of the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The chastisement of those cities, and pf their auxiliaries the savages of the south, is said to have alarmed the court of Persia ', and the great king sued in vain for the friendship of Probus. Most of the exploits which distinguished his reign, were achieved by the personal valour and conduct of the emperor; insomuch that the writer of his life expresses some amazement how, in so short a time, a single man could be present in so many distant wars. The remain- ing actions he intrusted to the care of his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms no inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian, Con- stantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd of other chiefs, who afterwards ascended or sup- ported the throne, were trained to arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus . But the most important service which Probus ren-A.D.277. dered to the repubhc, was the deliverance of Gaul, and Jf® delivers the recovery of seventy flourishing cities oppressed by the invasion the barbarians of Germany, who, since the death of Au- °^*^® relian, had ravaged that great province with impunity Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders, we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, « Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 239. h Zosimus (1. i. p. 62 — 65.) tells a very long and trifling story of Lycius the Isaurian robber.
- Zosimus, 1. i. p. 65 ; Vopiscus in Hist. August, p. 239, 240. But it
seems incredible, that the defeat of the savages of Ethiopia could affect the Persian monarch. •' Besides these well known chiefs, several others are named by Vopiscus, (Hist. August, p. 241.) whose actions have not reached our knowledge. 1 See the Casars of Julian, and Hist. August, p. 238. 240, 241.
