e insulting foe; and many thousand prisoners,
released from the Gothic chains, dispersed through the provinces of
Italy the praises of their heroic deliverer. The triumph of Stilicho
[47] was compared by the poet, and perhaps by the public, to that of
Marius; who, in the same part of Italy, had encountered and destroyed
another army of Northern Barbarians. The huge bones, and the empty
helmets, of the Cimbri and of the Goths, would easily be confounded by
succeeding generations; and posterity might erect a common trophy to the
memory of the two most illustrious generals, who had vanquished, on the
same memorable ground, the two most formidable enemies of Rome. [48]

[Footnote 43: Orosius (l. vii. c. 37) is shocked at the impiety of the
Romans, who attacked, on Easter Sunday, such pious Christians. Yet, at
the same time, public prayers were offered at the shrine of St. Thomas
of Edessa, for the destruction of the Arian robber. See Tillemont (Hist
des Emp. tom. v. p. 529) who quotes a homily, which has been erroneously
ascribed to St. Chrysostom.]

[Footnote 44: The vestiges of Pollentia are twenty-five miles to the
south-east of Turin. Urbs, in the same neighborhood, was a royal
chase of the kings of Lombardy, and a small river, which excused the
prediction, "penetrabis ad urbem," (Cluver. Ital. Antiq tom. i. p.
83-85.)]

[Footnote 45: Orosius wishes, in doubtful words, to insinuate the defeat
of the Romans. "Pugnantes vicimus, victores victi sumus." Prosper (in
Chron.) makes it an equal and bloody battle, but the Gothic writers
Cassiodorus (in Chron.) and Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 29) claim a
decisive victory.]

[Footnote 46: Demens Ausonidum gemmata monilia matrum, Romanasque alta
famulas cervice petebat. De Bell. Get. 627.]

[Footnote 47: Claudian (de Bell. Get. 580-647) and Prudentius (in
Symmach. n. 694-719) celebrate, without ambiguity, the Roman victory of
Pollentia. They are poetical and party writers; yet some credit is
due to the most suspicious witnesses, who are checked by the recent
notoriety of facts.]

[Footnote 48: Claudian's peroration is strong and elegant; but the
identity of the Cimbric and Gothic fields must be understood (like
Virgil's Philippi, Georgic i. 490) according to the loose geography of
a poet. Verselle and Pollentia are sixty miles from each other; and the
latitude is still greater, if the Cimbri were defeated in the wide and
barren plain of Verona, (Maffei, Verona Illustrata, P.