trumpet. The weak and guilty Lupicinus,
who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at
the head of such a military force as could be collected on this sudden
emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach about nine miles from
Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the talents of the general were
found to be of more prevailing efficacy than the weapons and discipline
of the troops. The valor of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius
of Fritigern, that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the
ranks of the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his
tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and their
useless courage served only to protect the ignominious flight of
their leader. "That successful day put an end to the distress of the
Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from that day, the Goths,
renouncing the precarious condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the
character of citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the
possessors of land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces
of the empire, which are bounded by the Danube." Such are the words of
the Gothic historian, who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the glory of
his countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was exercised only
for the purposes of rapine and destruction. As they had been deprived,
by the ministers of the emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and
the fair intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on
the subjects of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated
by the ruin of the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration
of their villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent
families. The report of the Gothic victory was soon diffused over the
adjacent country; and while it filled the minds of the Romans with
terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence contributed to increase
the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the province. Some time
before the great emigration, a numerous body of Goths, under the command
of Suerid and Colias, had been received into the protection and service
of the empire. They were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople;
but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the
Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous temptation which might so
easily be communicated by the neighborh