banks of the Danube; and immediately
despatched their ambassadors to the court of Antioch, to solicit, with
the same professions of allegiance and gratitude, the same favor which
had been granted to the suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of
Valens suspended their progress, and discovered the repentance, the
suspicions, and the fears, of the Imperial council.

[Footnote 65: The passage of the Danube is exposed by Ammianus, (xxxi.
3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt. Legat. (p.
19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares (c. 5) that he
means only, ispas rerum digerere summitates. But he often takes a
false measure of their importance; and his superfluous prolixity is
disagreeably balanced by his unseasonable brevity.]

[Footnote 66: Chishull, a curious traveller, has remarked the breadth of
the Danube, which he passed to the south of Bucharest near the conflux
of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the beauty and spontaneous plenty of
Maesia, or Bulgaria.]

[Footnote 67:

Quem sci scire velit, Libyci velit aequoris idem
Discere quam multae Zephyro turbentur harenae.

Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil, (Georgia l.
ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express the impossibility
of numbering the different sorts of vines. See Plin. Hist. Natur l.
xiv.]

[Footnote 67a: A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius,
appears to me to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we owe its
discovery. The substance is as follows: "The Goths transported over
the river their native deities, with their priests of both sexes; but
concerning their rites they maintained a deep and 'adamantine silence.'
To the Romans they pretended to be generally Christians, and placed
certain persons to represent bishops in a conspicuous manner on their
wagons. There was even among them a sort of what are called monks,
persons whom it was not difficult to mimic; it was enough to wear
black raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect." (Eunapius hated the
"black-robed monks," as appears in another passage, with the cordial
detestation of a heathen philosopher.) "Thus, while they faithfully but
secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans were weak enough to
suppose them perfect Christians." Mai, 277. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82.--M]

[Footnote 68: Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these articles of
Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed, that they wer