ail, or of conducting a vessel, and the
Saxons rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their
design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. After they had acquired
an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, they
extended the scene of their depredations, and the most sequestered
places had no reason to presume on their security. The Saxon boats drew
so little water that they could easily proceed fourscore or a hundred
miles up the great rivers; their weight was so inconsiderable, that they
were transported on wagons from one river to another; and the pirates
who had entered the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend,
with the rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the
reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted
by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the defence of the
sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer, who found his strength,
or his abilities, unequal to the task, implored the assistance of
Severus, master-general of the infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and
outnumbered, were forced to relinquish their spoil, and to yield a
select band of their tall and robust youth to serve in the Imperial
armies. They stipulated only a safe and honorable retreat; and the
condition was readily granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act
of perfidy, imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive,
and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The premature
eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in a deep valley,
betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps have fallen the victims
of their own treachery, if a large body of cuirassiers, alarmed by
the noise of the combat, had not hastily advanced to extricate their
companions, and to overwhelm the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of
the prisoners were saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their
blood in the amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves with
their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the public. Yet the
polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were impressed with the deepest
horror, when they were informed, that the Saxons consecrated to the gods
the tithe of their human spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the
objects of the barbarous sacrifice.

II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of Scandinavians and
Spaniards, whic