OF THE ROMAN EMPIEE 113 youth, who dropt from the window, alone escaped, to attest the melancholy tale and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the field of Cannae. ^^ Two master-generals of the cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace and thirty-five tribunes were found among the slain ; and the death of Sebastian might satisfy the world that he was the victim, as well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two-thirds of the Roman army were destroyed ; and the darkness of the night was esteemed a very favourable circum- stance, as it served to conceal the flight of the multitude and to protect the more orderly retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and regular discipline.^** While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent Funeral ora- in the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age and his army composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army and of an unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a stranger, " There are not wanting," says the candid Libanius, "those who arraign the prudence of the emperor,^^ or who impute the public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former exploits : I reverence the glorious death which they bravely received, standing, and fighting in their ranks : I reverence the field of battle, stained with their blood and the blood of the Barbarians. Those honourable marks have been already washed away by the rains ; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a longer period of duration. The ^ Nee ulla, annalibus, praster Cannensem pugnam ita ad internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According to the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse and 3000 foot escaped from the field of Cannas : 10,000 were made firisoners ; and the number of the slain amounted to 5630 horse and 70,000 foot Polyb. 1. iii. p. 371, edit. Casaubon, in 8vo [c. 117]). Livy (xxii. 49) is somewhat less bloody : he slaughters only 2700 horse and 40,000 foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective men (xxii. 36). SG We have gained some faint light from Jerom (t. i. p. 26 [Ep. 60, 16] and in Chron. p. 188 [ad ann. 2393]), Victor (in Epitome [47]), Orosius (1. vii. c. 33, p. 554), Jornandes (c. 27), Zosimus (1. iv. p. 230 [24]), Socrates (1. iv. c. 38), Sozomen (1. vi. c. 40), Idatius (in Chron.). But their united evidence, if weighed against Ammianns alone, is light and unsubstantial. ^f. Legendum generals ; the original is ^iiv (TTpa-niySiv. VOL. III. 8
