ry was obstinate and bloody.
The Germans possessed the superiority of strength and stature, the
Romans that of discipline and temper; and as the Barbarians, who served
under the standard of the empire, united the respective advantages of
both parties, their strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at
length determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable battle of
Strasburgh, so glorious to the Caesar, and so salutary to the afflicted
provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain in the field,
without including those who were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed
with darts while they attempted to swim across the river. Chnodomar
himself was surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death the
fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military pomp in the
council of his officers; and expressing a generous pity for the fallen
state, dissembled his inward contempt for the abject humiliation, of his
captive. Instead of exhibiting the vanquished king of the Alemanni, as
a grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at
the feet of the emperor this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar
experienced an honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could
not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile.

After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the Upper
Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were seated nearer
to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and who, from
their numbers, and still more from their intrepid valor, had ever been
esteemed the most formidable of the Barbarians. Although they were
strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed a
disinterested love of war; which they considered as the supreme honor
and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so
completely hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them
as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which followed the
battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who
had thrown themselves into two castles on the Meuse. In the midst of
that severe season they sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siege of
fifty-four days; till at length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied th