Duke (the titles were often interchangeable) of the
district. But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the
accepted historian of the period, and living only in the
next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more
signal--for he reduces the troopers to _ten_. The Arverni
(inhabitants of Auvergne and its neighbourhood) were the
strongest tribe in Southern Gaul when the Romans first came
into contact with them, retained much prominence in Caesar's
time, and had not lost individuality, if they had lost
independence, by this (5th) century. The mixture of "Arms"
and the "Gown" is noteworthy.

BOOK III. LETTER III

SIDONIUS TO HIS ECDICIUS--HEALTH

If ever, now you are longed for by my Arvernians, whose love for you
subdues them remarkably, and indeed for all sorts of reasons. First,
because a man's native land has the greatest part in creating affection
for him.[66] Then, because in your time you are about the only mortal
who was longed for before his birth as much as he was rejoiced in after
it.... I say nothing of such things--common to all, but no mean
incitement to affection--as that you crawled as a child on the same turf
with them. I pass over the grass which you first trod, the river you
first swam, the woods you broke through in hunting. I leave out the fact
that it was here you first played ball[67] and backgammon,[68] that you
hawked, coursed, rode, shot with the bow. I omit the fact that for the
sake of your boyish presence students of letters came hither from all
parts; and that it was due to you as an individual that our nobility,
anxious to shed the slough of Celtic speech, imbued itself now with the
style of oratory, now with the measures of the Muse. And this specially
kindled the love of the community[69] that you forbade those whom you
had already made Latins[70] to remain barbarians.[71] For it could never
slip the memory of our citizens what and how great you seemed, to every
age and rank and sex on the half-ruined mounds of our walls, when,
accompanied by scarcely eighteen horsemen, you cut your way through some
thousands of Goths in full daylight and (which posterity will hardly
believe) in the open field. A well trained army stood aghast at the
sound of your name and the sight of your person: so that the leaders of
the enemy, in their astonishment, hardly knew how many were their
followers, how few yours. Their line was then withdrawn to