OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 97 eluded. The Barbarians, who considered their arms as the ensigns of honour and the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a price which the lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their daughters ; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured the connivance of the inspectors ; who sometimes cast an eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of their new allies,'^*' or who sacri- ficed their duty to the mean consideration of filling their farms with cattle and their houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were permitted to enter the boats ; and, when their strength was collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Maesia assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the Danube ; and im- mediately dispatched their ambassadors to the court of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of allegiance and gratitude, the same favour which had been granted to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions, and the fears of the Imperial council. An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required Tteir distress the firmest temper and the most dexterous management. The tent daily subsistence of near a million of exti'aordinary subjects could be supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence or the indignation of the Goths, if they conceived themselves to be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might urge them to the most desperate extremities ; and the fortune of the state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage ; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and 70 Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed that they were the manufactures of the provinces ; which the Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war, or as the gifts or merchandise of peace. [Another frag, of Eunapius {55) describes a later crossing of Goths, in reign of Theodosius, c. 382 A.D.] VOL. III. 7
