CHAP. XVIII.
This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike and independent nations.
The Gothic war,
A.D. 331.
The Vandal
princes were stimulated by fear and revenge, the Gothic
kings aspired to extend their dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the waters of the
Maros, a small river which foils into the Teyss, were
stained with the blood of the contending barbarians.
After some experience of the superior strength and
numbers of their adversaries, the Sarmatians implored
the protection of the Roman monarch, who beheld
with pleasure the discord of the nations, but who was
justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
soon as Constantine had declared himself in favour of
the weaker party, the haughty Araric, king of the
Goths, instead of expecting the attack of the legions,
boldly passed the Danube, and spread terror and devastation through the province of Maesia. To oppose
the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor
took the field in person; but on this occasion, either
his conduct or his fortune betrayed the glory which he
had acquired in so many foreign and domestic wars.
He had the mortification of seeing his troops fly before
an inconsiderable detachment of the barbarians, who
pursued them to the edge of their fortified camp, and
obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate and
ignominious retreat. The event of a second and more
successful action retrieved the honour of the Roman
name; and the powers of art and discipline prevailed,
after an obstinate contest, over the efforts of irregular
valour. The broken army of the Goths abandoned
the field of battle, the wasted province, and the passage of the Danube : and although the eldest of the
sons of Constantine was permitted to supply the place
of his father, the merit of the victory, which diffused
A.D. 332, April 20.
universal joy, was ascribed to the auspicious counsels
of the emperor himself.
Spain under the dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals, but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709.
