perpetual concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of
the troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans is
a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift his hand
against him, is guilty of his own blood." The Gothic king did not long
enjoy this splendid and honorable reception; and, as temperance was not
the virtue of his nation, it may justly be suspected, that his mortal
disease was contracted amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets.
But the policy of Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death,
than he could have expected from the most faithful services, of his
ally. The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the
capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his memory;
and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and decent grief,
of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the Roman empire. The
submission of so great a body of the Visigoths was productive of the
most salutary consequences; and the mixed influence of force, of reason,
and of corruption, became every day more powerful, and more extensive.
Each independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from
the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose him, alone and
unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the conqueror. The general,
or rather the final, capitulation of the Goths, may be dated four years,
one month, and twenty-five days, after the defeat and death of the
emperor Valens.

The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the
oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the voluntary
retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit had prompted them
to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their destructive course was
pointed towards the West; but we must be satisfied with a very obscure
and imperfect knowledge of their various adventures. The Ostrogoths
impelled several of the German tribes on the provinces of Gaul;
concluded, and soon violated, a treaty with the emperor Gratian;
advanced into the unknown countries of the North; and, after an interval
of more than four years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks
of the Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the fiercest
warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least
the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and
countenances of their former enemies. The general who commanded the
military and naval pow