the public peace; and if a hostile band
sometimes presumed to pass the Roman limit, their irregular conduct was
candidly ascribed to the ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth.
Their contempt for two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to
the throne by a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes;
and, while they agitated some design of marching their confederate force
under the national standard, they were easily tempted to embrace the
party of Procopius; and to foment, by their dangerous aid, the civil
discord of the Romans. The public treaty might stipulate no more than
ten thousand auxiliaries; but the design was so zealously adopted by the
chiefs of the Visigoths, that the army which passed the Danube amounted
to the number of thirty thousand men. They marched with the proud
confidence, that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the
Roman empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight
of the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters and the
licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which gratified their
appetites, retarded their progress; and before the Goths could receive
any certain intelligence of the defeat and death of Procopius, they
perceived, by the hostile state of the country, that the civil and
military powers were resumed by his successful rival. A chain of posts
and fortifications, skilfully disposed by Valens, or the generals of
Valens, resisted their march, prevented their retreat, and intercepted
their subsistence. The fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and
suspended by hunger; they indignantly threw down their arms at the
feet of the conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage appearance,
ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength with these
formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been the object of their
terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric alone could deserve so lofty
a title) was grieved and exasperated by this national calamity. His
ambassadors loudly complained, at the court of Valens, of the infraction
of the ancient and solemn alliance, which had so long subsisted between
the Romans and the Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty
of allies, by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
they required the immediate restitution of the noble cap