lood of the guilty. Florentius was a
fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected to the
new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant offices were
distributed, according to the recommendation of merit, by a prince who
despised the intrigues of the palace, and the clamors of the soldiers.
[16]

[Footnote 14: The difficult situation of the prince of a rebellious army
is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.) But Otho had much more
guilt, and much less abilities, than Julian.]

[Footnote 15: To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,
private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian had not
seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never existed.]

[Footnote 16: See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian. ad S.
P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat. Parent. c.
49, 50, p. 273-275.]

The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the most
vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held in readiness
for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by the disorders
of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction of Magnentius had
filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and robbers. They cheerfully
accepted the offer of a general pardon from a prince whom they could
trust, submitted to the restraints of military discipline, and
retained only their implacable hatred to the person and government of
Constantius. [17] As soon as the season of the year permitted Julian to
take the field, he appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge
over the Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise
the perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that they
might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided empire. The
difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise, consisted in a
laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon as he could penetrate
into a country, which former princes had considered as inaccessible.
After he had given peace to the Barbarians, the emperor carefully
visited the fortifications along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil;
surveyed, with peculiar attention, the territories which he had
recovered from the hands of the Alemanni, passed through Besancon, [18]
which had severely suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters
at Vienna for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and
strengthened with additional fortifications; and