contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind. The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of Franks and Saxons ; of those provincials who supplied the strength of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains[1] of the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube, pre- sented a spacious theatre ; and the operations of the civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity of the combatants[2]. Con- stantius had declared his intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory which, on the same auspicious ground, had been ob- tained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet, by the impregnable fortifications with which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline, rather than to invite, a general engagement. It was the ob- ject of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he em- ployed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important town of Siscia; made an at- tack on the city of Sirmium, which lay in the rear of the imperial camp ; attempted to force a passage over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum ; and
- ↑ Busbequius (p. 112.) traversed the Lower Hungary and Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced almost to a desert, by the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and christians. Yet he mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of the soil; and observes, that the height of the grass was sufficient to conceal a loaded waggon from his sight. See likewise Browne's travels, in Harris's Collection, vol. ii. p. 762, etc.
- ↑ Zosimus gives a very large account of the war and the negociation, I. ii. p. 123–130. But as he neither shows himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed with attention, and received with caution.
otium lemovit. Quaj gloria post natum imperium soli processit eloquio clementiaque, etc. Aurelius Victor. Julian, and Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this exploit with all the artificial and gaudy colouring of their rhetoric.
