The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. II
by
Edward Gibbon
Part 15 out of 16
harvest; unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder which
they could not easily transport; and either disregarded, or
demolished, the empty fortifications. The princess Constantia,
the daughter of the emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of
the great Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid,
who had innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the
destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed
the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her
person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by
the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon
as he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to
dine, was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed
her in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the
gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty
miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general
consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed
Probus, the Praetorian praefect, sufficient time to recover his
own spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He
skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and
strengthen the decayed fortifications; and procured the
seasonable and effectual assistance of a company of archers, to
protect the capital of the Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in
their attempts against the walls of Sirmium, the indignant
Barbarians turned their arms against the master general of the
frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their
king. Equitius could bring into the field no more than two
legions; but they contained the veteran strength of the Maesian
and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy with which they disputed the
vain honors of rank and precedency, was the cause of their
destruction; and while they acted with separate forces and
divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the
active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The success of this
invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering tribes; and the
province of Maesia would infallibly have been lost, if young
Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of the frontier, had
not signalized, in the defeat of the public enemy, an intrepid
genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and of his future
greatness. ^150
[Footnote 150: Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219,
220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and
Sarmatian war.]
Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.
Part VII.
The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was
deeply affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness
of the season suspended the execution of his designs till the
ensuing spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part
of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way,
he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the
scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he
arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the
Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity
under the auspicious government of Probus, his Praetorian
praefect. ^151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these
demonstrations of their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked
the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity,
^152 whether he was freely sent by the wishes of the province.
"With tears and groans am I sent," replied Iphicles, "by a
reluctant people." The emperor paused: but the impunity of his
ministers established the pernicious maxim, that they might
oppress his subjects, without injuring his service. A strict
inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public
discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius,
was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the
Germans, and vindicate the honor of the Roman name. But the
haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to
acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered only
the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an
insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation,
and promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were justified, in the
eyes of the emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the
cruel equity of retaliation: ^153 and such was the discipline of
the Romans, and the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian
repassed the Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had
resolved to complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second
campaign, he fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the
Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the
operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather,
the Quadi made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their
conqueror; and, at the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their
ambassadors were introduced into the Imperial council. They
approached the throne with bended bodies and dejected
countenances; and without daring to complain of the murder of
their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the late
invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers, which the
public council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer
of the emperor left them but little to hope from his clemency or
compassion. He reviled, in the most intemperate language, their
baseness, their ingratitude, their insolence. His eyes, his
voice, his color, his gestures, expressed the violence of his
ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with
convulsive passion, a large blood vessel suddenly burst in his
body; and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his
attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his situation
from the crowd; but, in a few minutes, the emperor of the West
expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last;
and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the
generals and ministers, who surrounded the royal couch.
Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age; and he wanted only
one hundred days to accomplish the twelve years of his reign.
^154
[Footnote 151: Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit,
has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at
least the public opinion of his country, in the following words:
"Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante
provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, erasit."
(Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the
widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius with less
propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
the text.]
[Footnote 152: Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend
Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself
ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
manners of the Cynics.]
[Footnote 153: Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates the
misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation
of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et inultam patriam
derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]
[Footnote 154: See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx.
6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l.
iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad
Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them; and
Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]
The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
ecclesiastical historian. ^155 "The empress Severa (I relate the
fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the
daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked
charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with
such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to
introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict
extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be
assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the
two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were
successively contracted; and that he used the ancient permission
of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws, though it was
condemned by the church Severa was the mother of Gratian, who
seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him to the
undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the eldest
son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and
honorable choice of his fellow- soldiers. Before he had attained
the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from the
hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem, with
the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by the
consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; ^156 and the name of
Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in all
the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his marriage
with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of Valentinian
acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family; which,
in a series of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by
time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At the death of
his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth year of his
age; and his virtues already justified the favorable opinion of
the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of
many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of
Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial
council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an
infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They
contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular
leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the
claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of
extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a
bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been
left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was
respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the
deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of
Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the
titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a
civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate
conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the
choice of the army; declared that he should always consider the
son of Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the
empress, with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at
Milan, in the fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he
assumed the more arduous command of the countries beyond the
Alps. Gratian dissembled his resentment till he could safely
punish, or disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he
uniformly behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant
colleague, he gradually confounded, in the administration of the
Western empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in
the united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble
emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder
brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils
of the West. ^157
[Footnote 155: Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original
witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and
manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and
elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mem. de l'Academie, tom.
xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance
of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]
[Footnote 156: Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this
military election, and august investiture. Valentinian does not
appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]
[Footnote 157: Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709)
that Gratian reignea in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have
endeavored to express his authority over his brother's dominions,
as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part I.
Manners Of The Pastoral Nations. - Progress Of The Huns,
From China To Europe. - Flight Of The Goths. - They Pass The
Danube. - Gothic War. - Defeat And Death Of Valens. - Gratian
Invests Theodosius With The Eastern Empire. - His Character And
Success. - Peace And Settlement Of The Goths.
In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens,
on the morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part
of the Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive
earthquake. The impression was communicated to the waters; the
shores of the Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat
of the sea; great quantities of fish were caught with the hand;
large vessels were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator
^1 amused his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the
various appearance of valleys and mountains, which had never,
since the formation of the globe, been exposed to the sun. But
the tide soon returned, with the weight of an immense and
irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of
Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were
transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the
distance of two miles from the shore; the people, with their
habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of
Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty
thousand persons had lost their lives in the inundation. This
calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to
another, astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome; and their
affrighted imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary
evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes, which had
subverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they considered
these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful
calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the
symptoms of a declining empire and a sinking world. ^2 It was the
fashion of the times to attribute every remarkable event to the
particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were
connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical
opinions of the human mind; and the most sagacious divines could
distinguish, according to the color of their respective
prejudices, that the establishment of heresy tended to produce an
earthquake; or that a deluge was the inevitable consequence of
the progress of sin and error. Without presuming to discuss the
truth or propriety of these lofty speculations, the historian may
content himself with an observation, which seems to be justified
by experience, that man has much more to fear from the passions
of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the
elements. ^3 The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge,
a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very
inconsiderable portion to the ordinary calamities of war, as they
are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of
Europe, who amuse their own leisure, and exercise the courage of
their subjects, in the practice of the military art. But the
laws and manners of modern nations protect the safety and freedom
of the vanquished soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom
reason to complain, that his life, or even his fortune, is
exposed to the rage of war. In the disastrous period of the fall
of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of
Valens, the happiness and security of each individual were
personally attacked; and the arts and labors of ages were rudely
defaced by the Barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion
of the Huns precipitated on the provinces of the West the Gothic
nation, which advanced, in less than forty years, from the Danube
to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the success of their arms,
to the inroads of so many hostile tribes, more savage than
themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in
the remote countries of the North; and the curious observation of
the pastoral life of the Scythians, ^4 or Tartars, ^5 will
illustrate the latent cause of these destructive emigrations.
[Footnote 1: Such is the bad taste of Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that
it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet
he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship,
ad Modon, in Peloponnesus.]
[Footnote 2: The earthquakes and inundations are variously
described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x.,
in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note
of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,)
Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom.
i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an
Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the
mountain- wave stopped, bowed, and returned.]
[Footnote 3: Dicaearchus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal
treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most
honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)]
[Footnote 4: The original Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c. 47 -
57, 99 - 101) were confined, by the Danube and the Palus Maeotis,
within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman miles.) See D'Anville
(Mem. de l'Academie, tom. xxxv. p. 573 - 591.) Diodorus Siculus
(tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
progress of the name and nation.]
[Footnote 5: The Tatars, or Tartars, were a primitive tribe, the
rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars
formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears
of foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the
Hist. de l'Academie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or
any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently
use the appellations of Scythians or Tartars.
Note: The Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a
tribe of the Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de l'Asie, p. 154. -
M.]
The different characters that mark the civilized nations of
the globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason;
which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the
manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the
operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of
reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a
quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of
animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to
each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the
natural consequence of the imperfection of their faculties.
Reduced to a similar situation, their wants, their desires, their
enjoyments, still continue the same: and the influence of food or
climate, which, in a more improved state of society, is
suspended, or subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully
contributes to form, and to maintain, the national character of
Barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or
Tartary, have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and
shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and
whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary
life. In every age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been
renowned for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The
thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds
of the North; and their arms have spread terror and devastation
over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. ^6 On this
occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is
forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with
some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which
have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and
innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits
of a military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now
proceed to consider a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the
three important articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their
habitations; and, III. Their exercises. The narratives of
antiquity are justified by the experience of modern times; ^7 and
the banks of the Borysthenes, of the Volga, or of the Selinga,
will indifferently present the same uniform spectacle of similar
and native manners. ^8
[Footnote 6: Imperium Asiae ter quaesivere: ipsi perpetuo ab
alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti, mansere. Since the time
of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this account. Voltaire,
in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c. 156,) has
abridged the Tartar conquests.
Oft o'er the trembling nations from afar,
Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war. ^*
Note *: Gray. - M.]
[Footnote 7: The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious
though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns,
who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi
Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in
the Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the
fourteenth century. To these guides I have added Gerbillon, and
the other Jesuits, (Description de la China par du Halde, tom.
iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two
volumes in 4to. Glasgow, 1763.)
Note: Of the various works published since the time of
Gibbon, which throw fight on the nomadic population of Central
Asia, may be particularly remarked the Travels and Dissertations
of Pallas; and above all, the very curious work of Bergman,
Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805. - M.]
[Footnote 8: The Uzbecks are the most altered from their
primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the Mahometan
religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
the great Bucharia.]
I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the
ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can be
obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the
happy savages, who dwell between the tropics, are plentifully
nourished by the liberality of nature; but in the climates of the
North, a nation of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and
herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical art will
determine (if they are able to determine) how far the temper of
the human mind may be affected by the use of animal, or of
vegetable, food; and whether the common association of
carniverous and cruel deserves to be considered in any other
light than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, prejudice of
humanity. ^9 Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion
is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic
cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid objects which are
disguised by the arts of European refinement, are exhibited in
their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a
Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are slaughtered by the
same hand from which they were accustomed to receive their daily
food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little
preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer. In the
military profession, and especially in the conduct of a numerous
army, the exclusive use of animal food appears to be productive
of the most solid advantages. Corn is a bulky and perishable
commodity; and the large magazines, which are indispensably
necessary for the subsistence of our troops, must be slowly
transported by the labor of men or horses. But the flocks and
herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars, afford a sure
and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far greater part
of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the grass is quick
and luxuriant; and there are few places so extremely barren, that
the hardy cattle of the North cannot find some tolerable pasture.
The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing
appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They
indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been
killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which
in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized
nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military
operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in
their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of
spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are
the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a
camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or
dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they
provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of
cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve
in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many
days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior.
But this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve,
and the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity,
that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their
industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mare's
milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the
old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of
famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and
of intemperance.
[Footnote 9: Il est certain que les grands mangeurs de viande
sont en general cruels et feroces plus que les autres hommes.
Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps: la
barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p.
274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, we shall
not easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured
complaints of Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid,
seduce our reason, by exciting our sensibility.]
II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people
of soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an
extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse
before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled
under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or
to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress
of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large
multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no
longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state
of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The
pastoral manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different
advantages of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the
same tribe are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a
camp; and the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is
animated by mutual support and emulation. The houses of the
Tartars are no more than small tents, of an oval form, which
afford a cold and dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of
both sexes. The palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of
such a size that they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons,
and drawn by a team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks
and herds, after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures,
retire, on the approach of night, within the protection of the
camp. The necessity of preventing the most mischievous
confusion, in such a perpetual concourse of men and animals, must
gradually introduce, in the distribution, the order, and the
guard, of the encampment, the rudiments of the military art. As
soon as the forage of a certain district is consumed, the tribe,
or rather army, of shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh
pastures; and thus acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the
pastoral life, the practical knowledge of one of the most
important and difficult operations of war. The choice of
stations is regulated by the difference of the seasons: in the
summer, the Tartars advance towards the North, and pitch their
tents on the banks of a river, or, at least, in the neighborhood
of a running stream. But in the winter, they return to the
South, and shelter their camp, behind some convenient eminence,
against the winds, which are chilled in their passage over the
bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These manners are admirably
adapted to diffuse, among the wandering tribes, the spirit of
emigration and conquest. The connection between the people and
their territory is of so frail a texture, that it may be broken
by the slightest accident. The camp, and not the soil, is the
native country of the genuine Tartar. Within the precincts of
that camp, his family, his companions, his property, are always
included; and, in the most distant marches, he is still
surrounded by the objects which are dear, or valuable, or
familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the fear, or the
resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude, have, in every
age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of Scythia boldly
to advance into some unknown countries, where they might hope to
find a more plentiful subsistence or a less formidable enemy.
The revolutions of the North have frequently determined the fate
of the South; and in the conflict of hostile nations, the victor
and the vanquished have alternately drove, and been driven, from
the confines of China to those of Germany. ^10 These great
emigrations, which have been sometimes executed with almost
incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the peculiar
nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of Tartary
is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate zone might
reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is attributed to the
height of the plains, which rise, especially towards the East,
more than half a mile above the level of the sea; and to the
quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is deeply impregnated.
^11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid rivers, that
discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian, or the Icy
Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with a bed of
snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may securely
traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their cattle,
the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.
[Footnote 10: These Tartar emigrations have been discovered by M.
de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. ii.) a skilful and
laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus laid
open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]
[Footnote 11: A plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues
from the great wall, was found by the missionaries to be three
thousand geometrical paces above the level of the sea.
Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important
circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch
each other without any temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii.
c. 3.)]
III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of
agriculture and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness;
and as the most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on
their captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own
leisure is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares.
But this leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments
of love and harmony, is use fully spent in the violent and
sanguinary exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are
filled with a strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are
easily trained for the purposes of war and hunting. The
Scythians of every age have been celebrated as bold and skilful
riders; and constant practice had seated them so firmly on
horseback, that they were supposed by strangers to perform the
ordinary duties of civil life, to eat, to drink, and even to
sleep, without dismounting from their steeds. They excel in the
dexterous management of the lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn
with a nervous arm; and the weighty arrow is directed to its
object with unerring aim and irresistible force. These arrows
are often pointed against the harmless animals of the desert,
which increase and multiply in the absence of their most
formidable enemy; the hare, the goat, the roebuck, the
fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the antelope. The vigor and
patience, both of the men and horses, are continually exercised
by the fatigues of the chase; and the plentiful supply of game
contributes to the subsistence, and even luxury, of a Tartar
camp. But the exploits of the hunters of Scythia are not
confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious beasts; they
boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns against his
pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear, and provoke
the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket. Where
there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of hunting,
which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor, may
justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war. The
general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar
princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous
cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that
form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where
the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to
the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently
continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills,
to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress.
They acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps,
to a remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending
or accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the
troops on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the
signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt
and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the
same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is
required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a
prelude to the conquest of an empire. ^12
[Footnote 12: Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6)
represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The
Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Khamhi when
he hunted in Tartary, Duhalde, Description de la Chine, tom. iv.
p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China,
describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273 - 285) as a poet the
pleasures which he had often enjoyed as a sportsman.]
The political society of the ancient Germans has the
appearance of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The
tribes of Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of
Hords, assume the form of a numerous and increasing family;
which, in the course of successive generations, has been
propagated from the same original stock. The meanest, and most
ignorant, of the Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the
inestimable treasure of their genealogy; and whatever
distinctions of rank may have been introduced, by the unequal
distribution of pastoral wealth, they mutually respect
themselves, and each other, as the descendants of the first
founder of the tribe. The custom, which still prevails, of
adopting the bravest and most faithful of the captives, may
countenance the very probable suspicion, that this extensive
consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and fictitious. But
the useful prejudice, which has obtained the sanction of time and
opinion, produces the effects of truth; the haughty Barbarians
yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to the head of their
blood; and their chief, or mursa, as the representative of their
great father, exercises the authority of a judge in peace, and of
a leader in war. In the original state of the pastoral world,
each of the mursas (if we may continue to use a modern
appellation) acted as the independent chief of a large and
separate family; and the limits of their peculiar territories
were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual consent. But
the constant operation of various and permanent causes
contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national communities,
under the command of a supreme head. The weak were desirous of
support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion; the power,
which is the result of union, oppressed and collected the divided
force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished were freely
admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most valiant
chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers under the
formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most successful
of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to which he
was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of power. He
was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his equals; and
the title of Khan expresses, in the language of the North of
Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the
founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who
reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal
descendants of the renowned Zingis. ^13 But, as it is the
indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike
subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often
disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and
valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his
predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of
their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to
the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar
sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and
as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much
larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle
influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes
refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his
subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might
excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would
excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia.
The immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the
limits of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal
prerogative has been moderated by the ancient institution of a
national council. The Coroulai, ^14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was
regularly held in the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain;
where the princes of the reigning family, and the mursas of the
respective tribes, may conveniently assemble on horseback, with
their martial and numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who
reviewed the strength, must consult the inclination of an armed
people. The rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered
in the constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the
perpetual conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes
terminated in the establishment of a powerful and despotic
empire. The victor, enriched by the tribute, and fortified by
the arms of dependent kings, has spread his conquests over Europe
or Asia: the successful shepherds of the North have submitted to
the confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the
introduction of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the
people, has undermined the foundations of the throne. ^15
[Footnote 13: See the second volume of the Genealogical History
of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life
of Geng's, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane,
one of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself
with the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4.
D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orien tale, p. 878.]
[Footnote 14: See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis,
(Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are
frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur; though they
served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]
[Footnote 15: Montesquieu labors to explain a difference, which
has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
perpetual slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c.
5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]
The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The
modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors;
^16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived
from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of
the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The
Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies
along the sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of
Scythia; from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as
the frozen Maeotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount
Caucasus, which, in the language of poetry, was described as the
utmost boundary of the earth. They celebrated, with simple
credulity, the virtues of the pastoral life: ^17 they entertained
a more rational apprehension of the strength and numbers of the
warlike Barbarians, ^18 who contemptuously baffled the immense
armament of Darius, the son of Hystaspes. ^19 The Persian
monarchs had extended their western conquests to the banks of the
Danube, and the limits of European Scythia. The eastern
provinces of their empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia;
the wild inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the
Jaxartes, two mighty rivers, which direct their course towards
the Caspian Sea. The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and
Touran is still the theme of history or romance: the famous,
perhaps the fabulous, valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and
Asfendiar, was signalized, in the defence of their country,
against the Afrasiabs of the North; ^20 and the invincible spirit
of the same Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the
victorious arms of Cyrus and Alexander. ^21 In the eyes of the
Greeks and Persians, the real geography of Scythia was bounded,
on the East, by the mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant
prospect of the extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was
clouded by ignorance, or perplexed by fiction. But those
inaccessible regions are the ancient residence of a powerful and
civilized nation, ^22 which ascends, by a probable tradition,
above forty centuries; ^23 and which is able to verify a series
of near two thousand years, by the perpetual testimony of
accurate and contemporary historians. ^24 The annals of China ^25
illustrate the state and revolutions of the pastoral tribes,
which may still be distinguished by the vague appellation of
Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the enemies, and sometimes
the conquerors, of a great empire; whose policy has uniformly
opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the Barbarians of the
North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea of Japan, the
whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and ten degrees,
which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five thousand
miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be so
easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth
degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is
stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary
climate, instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the
smoke that issues from the earth, or rather from the snow,
betrays the subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the
Samoides: the want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by
the use of reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the
earth insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and
diminutive savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. ^26
[Footnote 16: Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his
Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales and traditions
of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded the
reign of Zingis.
Note: The differences between the various pastoral tribes
and nations comprehended by the ancients under the vague name of
Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars, have received
some, and still, perhaps, may receive more, light from the
comparisons of their dialects and languages by modern scholars. -
M]
[Footnote 17: In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, Jupiter turns
away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the plains of
Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect,
behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]
[Footnote 18: Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]
[Footnote 19: See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius
advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the
Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a
bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]
[Footnote 20: These wars and heroes may be found under their
respective titles, in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot.
They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the
history of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that
Mr. Jones has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning.
Note: Ferdusi is yet imperfectly known to European readers.
An abstract of the whole poem has been published by Goerres in
German, under the title "das Heldenbuch des Iran." In English, an
abstract with poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has
appeared, under the auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to
translate a poet a man must be a poet. The best account of the
poem is in an article by Von Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher,
1820: or perhaps in a masterly article in Cochrane's Foreign
Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A splendid and critical edition
of the whole work has been published by a very learned English
Orientalist, Captain Macan, at the expense of the king of Oude.
As to the number of 60,000 couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p.
39) states that he never saw a MS. containing more than 56,685,
including doubtful and spurious passages and episodes. - M.
Note: The later studies of Sir W. Jones were more in unison
with the wishes of the public, thus expressed by Gibbon. - M.]
[Footnote 21: The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent
tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des
Historiens d'Alexandre, which compares the true geography, and
the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]
[Footnote 22: The original seat of the nation appears to have
been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was
still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more
land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of
hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts;
Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the
Han (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and
extent.]
[Footnote 23: The aera of the Chinese monarchy has been variously
fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637
has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the
present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that
lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi,
or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the
year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty- one of
which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and
480 before Christ. The historical period of China does not
ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]
[Footnote 24: After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the
dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the aera of the
revival of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were
restored; the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of
ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before
Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His
labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one
hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is
still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited
in the king of France's library.]
[Footnote 25: China has been illustrated by the labors of the
French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De
Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is
extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de
Guignes, Paris, 1770. The Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, translated by P.
de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Generale de la Chine, tom. i.
p. xlix. - cc.; the Memoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom.
i. p. 1 - 323; tom. ii. p. 5 - 364; the Histoire des Huns, tom.
i. p. 4 - 131, tom. v. p. 345 - 362; and the Memoires de
l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377 - 402; tom. xv. p.
495 - 564; tom. xviii. p. 178 - 295; xxxvi. p. 164 - 238.]
[Footnote 26: See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii.,
and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620 - 664.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part II.
The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the
empire of Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to
the empire of China. ^27 Their ancient, perhaps their original,
seat was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country,
immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is
at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the
Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
thousand families. ^28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the
narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who
assumed the appellation of Tanjou, gradually became the
conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards
the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean;
and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the
standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish,
in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more
numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued,
in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, ^29
distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were
in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of
human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled
the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. ^30 On the
side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the
power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or
witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve
a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
The Northren Sea was fixed as the remote boundary of their
empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot
Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, ^31 may be
transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a
capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which
disdains the modest appellation of a lake ^32 and which actually
communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of
the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so
many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but
the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of
the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third
century ^! before the Christian aera, a wall of fifteen hundred
miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China
against the inroads of the Huns; ^33 but this stupendous work,
which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has
never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with
which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy
patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the
incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by
torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most
lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of
the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished,
and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
army. The emperor Kaoti, ^34 a soldier of fortune, whose
personal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the
Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the
civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the
Barbarians; and, after a siege of seven days, the monarch,
hopeless of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an
ignominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives
were dedicated to the arts of peace, or the luxury of the palace,
submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily
confessed the insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They
were too easily convinced, that while the blazing signals
announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese
troops, who slept with the helmet on their head, and the cuirass
on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labor of
ineffectual marches. ^35 A regular payment of money, and silk,
was stipulated as the condition of a temporary and precarious
peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a real tribute,
under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised by the
emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there still
remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which violated
the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The hardships of the
savage life, which destroy in their infancy the children who are
born with a less healthy and robust constitution, introduced a
remarkable disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes.
The Tartars are an ugly and even deformed race; and while they
consider their own women as the instruments of domestic labor,
their desires, or rather their appetites, are directed to the
enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band of the fairest
maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude embraces of the
Huns; ^36 and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by
their marriage with the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the
Imperial family, which vainly attempted to escape the
sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these unhappy victims
is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who laments
that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile,
under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her
only drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and
who expresses, in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural
wish, that she were transformed into a bird, to fly back to her
dear country; the object of her tender and perpetual regret. ^37
[Footnote 27: M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1 - 124) has given the
original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese
geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv. - lxiii.) seems
to comprise a part of their conquests.
Note: The theory of De Guignes on the early history of the
Huns is, in general, rejected by modern writers. De Guignes
advanced no valid proof of the identity of the Hioung-nou of the
Chinese writers with the Huns, except the similarity of name.
Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, p. 252,)
Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 246,) St. Martin,
iv. 61, and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, D.
P. xlvi, and p. 328; though in the latter passage he considers
the theory of De Guignes not absolutely disproved,) concur in
considering the Huns as belonging to the Finnish stock, distinct
from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the Turks. The Hiong-nou,
according to Klaproth, were Turks. The names of the Hunnish
chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk; and, according to the
same author, the Hioung-nou, which is explained in Chinese as
detestable slaves, as early as the year 91 J. C., were dispersed
by the Chinese, and assumed the name of Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St.
Martin does not consider it impossible that the appellation of
Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns. But all agree in
considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern Hungary the
descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare Gibbon, c. lv.
n. 22) is nearly related to the Lapponian and Vogoul. The noble
forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly contrasted with the
hideous pictures which the fears and the hatred of the Romans
give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for by the intermingling
with other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The present state of the
question is thus stated in the last edition of Malte Brun, and a
new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to resolve all the
difficulties of the question.
Were the Huns Finns? This obscure question has not been
debated till very recently, and is yet very far from being
decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in the
same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We shall trace
in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or Mongols, or
Kalmucks, with all the hereditary ugliness of that race; but in
the mass of the Hunnish army and nation will be recognized the
Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek Geography. the Kuns of the
Hungarians, the European Huns, and a race in close relationship
with the Flemish stock. Malte Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is
more fully and ably developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the
emperor of Austria's Hungarian guard, will not readily admit
their descent from the Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris. -
M]
[Footnote 28: See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18 - 65) a
circumstantial description, with a correct map, of the country of
the Mongous.]
[Footnote 29: The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class
was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7.
Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M.
A. Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour
alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac,
and introduced by the Nestorian Christians. - Ch. ii. M.]
[Footnote 30: Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.
p. 17 - 33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared
these distant events.]
[Footnote 31: The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his
singular adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the
Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241 - 247; and Memoires
sur la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317 - 360.]
[Footnote 32: See Isbrand Ives in Harris's Collection, vol. ii.
p. 931; Bell's Travels, vol. i. p. 247 - 254; and Gmelin, in the
Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283 - 329. They all
remark the vulgar opinion that the holy sea grows angry and
tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a lake. This
grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd
superstition of the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of
travellers.]
[Footnote !: 224 years before Christ. It was built by
Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from twenty to
twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
qu'impuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques
Nomades; mais il n'a jamais empeche les invasions des Turcs, des
Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol.
i. p. 58 - M.]
[Footnote 33: The construction of the wall of China is mentioned
by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 59.)]
[Footnote 34: See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist,
de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442 - 522.
This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of
the Tong-Kien- Kang-Mou, the celebrated abridgment of the great
History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators.]
[Footnote 35: See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180 - 157,) in
Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412 - 426,) from a collection of State
papers marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354 -
612.) Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang- Mou, tom.
ii. p 555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of
the Huns.]
[Footnote 36: A supply of women is mentioned as a customary
article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note
of the editor.)]
[Footnote 37: De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]
The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the
pastoral tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not
inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their
ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But
their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the
arms and policy of Vouti, ^38 the fifth emperor of the powerful
dynasty of the Han. In his long reign of fifty-four years, the
Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and
manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were
enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton.
Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a
defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into
the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is
impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a
sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians,
thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their
master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and
decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority
which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots
of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of
the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance;
and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through
the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which
was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed
much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the
effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary
nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or
allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most
considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed
the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves
the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty
people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength,
might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of
the great and populous cities of China. ^39 The desertion of his
subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled
the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation.
He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the
honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese
vanity. ^40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception;
his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the
ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of
meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of
China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted
a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence.
After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed
from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and
rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it
was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate
kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear
and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained,
with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of
the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service
of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge.
From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North
continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed
on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
inscription ^41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain,
announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, ^42 a
tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had
formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign
of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
of the first century of the Christian aera. ^43
[Footnote 38: See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the
Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1 - 98. His various and inconsistent
character seems to be impartially drawn.]
[Footnote 39: This expression is used in the memorial to the
emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without adopting the
exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally
allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more
populous.]
[Footnote 40: See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the
subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable
festival is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in
a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]
[Footnote 41: This inscription was composed on the spot by
Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii.
p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of
Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]
[Footnote 42: M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short
account of the Sienpi.]
[Footnote 43: The aera of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese,
1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not
commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21,
123.)]
The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the
various influence of character and situation. ^44 Above one
hundred thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most
pusillanimous of the people, were contented to remain in their
native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and
to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight
hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more
honorable servitude, retired towards the South; implored the
protection of the emperors of China; and were permitted to
inhabit, and to guard, the extreme frontiers of the province of
Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and
powerful tribes of the Huns maintained, in their adverse fortune,
the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western world was
open to their valor; and they resolved, under the conduct of
their hereditary chieftains, to conquer and subdue some remote
country, which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi,
and to the laws of China. ^45 The course of their emigration soon
carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the
Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great
divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their march
towards the Oxus, and towards the Volga. The first of these
colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive
plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian; where
they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites,
or Nepthalites. ^* Their manners were softened, and even their
features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the
climate, and their long residence in a flourishing province, ^46
which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of
Greece. ^47 The white Huns, a name which they derived from the
change of their complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of
Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, has
since enjoyed a temporary splendor, was the residence of the
king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people.
Their luxury was maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the
only vestige of their ancient barbarism, was the custom which
obliged all the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who
had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive
in the same grave. ^48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces
of Persia, involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the
power of that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith
of treaties; in war, she dictates of humanity; and their
memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the
moderation, as well as the valor, of the Barbarians. The second
division of their countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced
towards the North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a
colder climate, and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled
them to exchange the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the
imperfect rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the
native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their
intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some
propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent
spirit soon rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous;
and while each horde was governed by its peculiar mursa, their
tumultuary council directed the public measures of the whole
nation. As late as the thirteenth century, their transient
residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the
name of Great Hungary. ^49 In the winter, they descended with
their flocks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river;
and their summer excursions reached as high as the latitude of
Saratoff, or perhaps the conflux of the Kama. Such at least were
the recent limits of the black Calmucks, ^50 who remained about a
century under the protection of Russia; and who have since
returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese
empire. The march, and the return, of those wandering Tartars,
whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families,
illustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Huns. ^51
[Footnote 44: The various accidents, the downfall, and the flight
of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91,
95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may be due to their
losses and divisions.]
[Footnote 45: M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of
the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123,
277, &c., 325, &c.)]
[Footnote *: The Armenian authors often mention this people under
the name of Hepthal. St. Martin considers that the name of
Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin, iv. 254. - M.]
[Footnote 46: Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The
Oriental historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.,)
celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
country which he desolated. In the next century, the same
provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by
Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual
misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p.
423 - 469.]
[Footnote 47: Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the
Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the
new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises
of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the
Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea,
were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See
l'Esprit des Loix, l. xxi.)]
[Footnote 48: Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]
[Footnote 49: In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the
court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of Hungary,
with the traces of a common language and origin, Hist. des
Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]
[Footnote 50: Bell, (vol. i. p. 29 - 34,) and the editors of the
Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of
the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]
[Footnote 51: This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for
the inscription of a column, has been translated by the
missionaries of Pekin, (Memoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401 -
418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the
Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People.]
It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which
elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the
Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the
Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the
same force which had driven them from their native seats, still
continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended
above three thousand miles from East to West, ^52 must have
gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would
inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the
territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of
those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the
understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
natural suspicion, that the Huns of the North derived a
considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the
South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to
the dominion of China; that the bravest warriors marched away in
search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as
they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by
the common hardships of their adverse fortune. ^53 The Huns, with
their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their
dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga,
and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a
pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their
conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni
were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they
penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages
who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of
human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the
confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German
blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, ^* to
whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a
yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They
were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their
manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those
formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in
the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine
as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed
in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship;
the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their
horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the
pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of
age, and the tortures of lingering disease. ^54 On the banks of
the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani
encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of
the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation
were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or
submission. ^55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the
mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where
they still preserve their name and their independence. Another
colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores
of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of
Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and
Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced
the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns,
who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade
the limits of the Gothic empire.
[Footnote 52: The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present
standard, 200 lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds
three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe
that the ancient li scarcely equalled one half of the modern.
See the elaborate researches of M. D'Anville, a geographer who is
not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Memoires de
l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.]
[Footnote 53: See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125 - 144. The
subsequent history (p. 145 - 277) of three or four Hunnic
dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit was not
impaired by a long residence in China.]
[Footnote *: Compare M. Klaproth's curious speculations on the
Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by the
Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West,
under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanan of Persian
tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
Ammianus, with the Massagetae, and with the Albani. The remains
of the nation still exist in the Ossetae of Mount Caucasus.
Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174. - M. Compare
Shafarik Slawische alterthumer, i. p. 350. - M. 1845.]
[Footnote 54: Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est
voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi
beatus qui in proelio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et
fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must
think highly of the conquerors of such men.]
[Footnote 55: On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi.
2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist.
des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]
The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the
Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and
reputation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by
the formidable approach of a host of unknown enemies, ^56 on whom
his barbarous subjects might, without injustice, bestow the
epithet of Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid
motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and
dreaded, and magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their
fields and villages consumed with flames, and deluged with
indiscriminate slaughter. To these real terrors they added the
surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice,
the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. ^*
These savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some
resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs
and to the misshapen figures, the Termini, which were often
placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from
the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat
noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as
they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either
the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. ^57 A
fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners;
that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly
practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the
offspring of this execrable conjunction. ^58 The tale, so full of
horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous
hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it
increased their fear, since the posterity of daemons and witches
might be supposed to inherit some share of the praeternatural
powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents.
Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united
forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his
vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to
second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the
chiefs of the Roxolani ^59 had formerly deserted the standard of
Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife
of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers
of that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.
The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the
dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the
conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the
public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of
jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of
Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian
mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of
the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a
decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the
royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the
subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the
infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious
marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the
Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable
river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire
of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric,
more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed
the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing
the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to
provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the
weight of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their
military skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of
Athanaric. While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks
of the Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous
detachment of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed
the river in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost
efforts of courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his
retreat towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had
already formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the
strong lines, which he was preparing to construct between the
mountains, the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the
extensive and fertile territory that bears the modern name of
Walachia, from the destructive inroads of the Huns. ^60 But the
hopes and measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon
disappointed, by the trembling impatience of his dismayed
countrymen; who were persuaded by their fears, that the
interposition of the Danube was the only barrier that could save
them from the rapid pursuit, and invincible valor, of the
Barbarians of Scythia. Under the command of Fritigern and
Alavivus, ^61 the body of the nation hastily advanced to the
banks of the great river, and implored the protection of the
Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric himself, still anxious to
avoid the guilt of perjury, retired, with a band of faithful
followers, into the mountainous country of Caucaland; which
appears to have been guarded, and almost concealed, by the
impenetrable forests of Transylvania. ^62 ^*
[Footnote 56: As we are possessed of the authentic history of the
Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables
which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of
the mud or water of the Maeotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les
Indes qu'ils avoient decouvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5.
Jornandes, c. 24. Grandeur et Decadence, &c., des Romains, c.
17.)]
[Footnote *: Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it is
difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this
hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they
were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans.
Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more
fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and
Sidonius Apollinaris: -
Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares,
Ut galeis cedant.
Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height
of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.
Stant pectora vasta,
Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat
Si cernas equites, sic longi saepe putantur
Si sedeant.]
[Footnote 57: Prodigiosae formae, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes
bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati
stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24)
draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
nigredine ... quaedam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis
puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]
[Footnote 58: This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24)
describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally derived
from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
&c.)]
[Footnote 59: The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the
Russians, (D'Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1 - 10,) whose
residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v.
28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.)
Note: See, on the origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische
Geschichte, p. 78 - M.]
[Footnote 60: The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or
corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost
defines, the Gothic rampart. Memoires de l'Academie, &c., tom.
xxviii. p. 444 - 462.]
[Footnote 61: M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vi.
p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same
person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that Ulphilas, the
grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of
the Goths.]
[Footnote 62: Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis,
c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]
[Footnote *: The most probable opinion as to the position of this
land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is the
territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8)
towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the present
Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is
evident, is the Gothic form of these different names. St.
Martin, iv 103. - M.]
Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.
Part III.
After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some
appearance of glory and success, he made a progress through his
dominions of Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the
capital of Syria. The five years ^63 which he spent at Antioch
was employed to watch, from a secure distance, the hostile
designs of the Persian monarch; to check the depredations of the
Saracens and Isaurians; ^64 to enforce, by arguments more
prevalent than those of reason and eloquence, the belief of the
Arian theology; and to satisfy his anxious suspicions by the
promiscuous execution of the innocent and the guilty. But the
attention of the emperor was most seriously engaged, by the
important intelligence which he received from the civil and
military officers who were intrusted with the defence of the
Danube. He was informed, that the North was agitated by a
furious tempest; that the irruption of the Huns, an unknown and
monstrous race of savages, had subverted the power of the Goths;
and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation, whose
pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles
along the banks of the river. With outstretched arms, and
pathetic lamentations, they loudly deplored their past
misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their
only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman government;
and most solemnly protested, that if the gracious liberality of
the emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of
Thrace, they should ever hold themselves bound, by the strongest
obligations of duty and gratitude, to obey the laws, and to guard
the limits, of the republic. These assurances were confirmed by
the ambassadors of the Goths, ^* who impatiently expected from
the mouth of Valens an answer that must finally determine the
fate of their unhappy countrymen. The emperor of the East was no
longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother,
whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year; and
as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and
peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favorite resources of
feeble and timid minds, who consider the use of dilatory and
ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate
prudence. As long as the same passions and interests subsist
among mankind, the questions of war and peace, of justice and
policy, which were debated in the councils of antiquity, will
frequently present themselves as the subject of modern
deliberation. But the most experienced statesman of Europe has
never been summoned to consider the propriety, or the danger, of
admitting, or rejecting, an innumerable multitude of Barbarians,
who are driven by despair and hunger to solicit a settlement on
the territories of a civilized nation. When that important
proposition, so essentially connected with the public safety, was
referred to the ministers of Valens, they were perplexed and
divided; but they soon acquiesced in the flattering sentiment
which seemed the most favorable to the pride, the indolence, and
the avarice of their sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated
with the titles of praefects and generals, dissembled or
disregarded the terrors of this national emigration; so extremely
different from the partial and accidental colonies, which had
been received on the extreme limits of the empire. But they
applauded the liberality of fortune, which had conducted, from
the most distant countries of the globe, a numerous and
invincible army of strangers, to defend the throne of Valens; who
might now add to the royal treasures the immense sums of gold
supplied by the provincials to compensate their annual proportion
of recruits. The prayers of the Goths were granted, and their
service was accepted by the Imperial court: and orders were
immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the
Thracian diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the
passage and subsistence of a great people, till a proper and
sufficient territory could be allotted for their future
residence. The liberality of the emperor was accompanied,
however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions, which prudence
might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress alone
could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the
Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and it was
insisted, that their children should be taken from them, and
dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to
secure the fidelity of their parents.
[Footnote 63: The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure and
imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals
of Valens.]
[Footnote 64: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38.
The Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as
far as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel.
apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]
[Footnote *: Sozomen and Philostorgius say that the bishop
Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors. - M.]
During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation,
the impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube,
without the permission of the government, whose protection they
had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and
their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable
slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in
the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their
employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the
Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; ^65 but the execution
of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of
the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, ^66 had
been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage,
many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with
indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted
by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those
who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be
left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an
accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable
task: ^67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously
affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which
had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous
antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed
the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men:
and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of
children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed
this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million
of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the
Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated
from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the
distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as
the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the
cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial
figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. ^* But
the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the most
important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The Barbarians,
who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and the pledges
of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the lust or
avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to accept.
To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented, with some
reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their daughters; the
charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy, secured the
connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an eye of
covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of their
new allies, ^68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their
houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were
permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was
collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which
was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Maesia,
assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of
the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their
infant king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern 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 *: 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 were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
merchandise, of peace.]
An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required
the firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily
subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might
continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The
insolence, or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived
themselves to be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might
urge them to the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of
the state seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the
integrity, of the generals of Valens. At this important crisis,
the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and
Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private
emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and
whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning
the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying,
with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an
ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry
Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price;
and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the
markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean
animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable
acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a
small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of
a precious, but useless metal, ^69 when their property was
exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of
their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of
freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to
the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state
of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively
resentment is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors,
who sternly exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled
by subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose
in the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the
merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly
complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received
from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered
the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of
relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the
possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude,
untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first
symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of
Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted
the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from
their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to
disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the
interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had
deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that
might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not
yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But
the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed
to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and
the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube.
The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping
from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and
vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the
Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their
army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
territories of the empire. ^70
[Footnote 69: Decem libras; the word silver must be understood.
Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a Goth. The
servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians.
Ammianus, a patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches
on the odious subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is
fair, though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem
fame coacti sunt, (in Chron.)
Note: A new passage from the history of Eunapius is nearer
to the truth. 'It appeared to our commanders a legitimate source
of gain to be bribed by the Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82. -
M.]
[Footnote 70: Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]
Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the
leaders of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority
which they derived from their birth was ratified by the free
consent of the nation. In a season of tranquility, their power
might have been equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as
their countrymen were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the
superior abilities of Fritigern assumed the military command,
which he was qualified to exercise for the public welfare. He
restrained the impatient spirit of the Visigoths till the
injuries and the insults of their tyrants should justify their
resistance in the opinion of mankind: but he was not disposed to
sacrifice any solid advantages for the empty praise of justice
and moderation. Sensible of the benefits which would result from
the union of the Gothic powers under the same standard, he
secretly cultivated the friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while
he professed an implicit obedience to the orders of the Roman
generals, he proceeded by slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the
capital of the Lower Maesia, about seventy miles from the banks
of the Danube. On that fatal spot, the flames of discord and
mutual hatred burst forth into a dreadful conflagration.
Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid
entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the
entrance of the palace. But the gates of the city were strictly
guarded, and the Barbarians were sternly excluded from the use of
a plentiful market, to which they asserted their equal claim of
subjects and allies. Their humble prayers were rejected with
insolence and derision; and as their patience was now exhausted,
the townsmen, the soldiers, and the Goths, were soon involved in
a conflict of passionate altercation and angry reproaches. A
blow was imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn; and the
first blood that was spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the
signal of a long and destructive war. In the midst of noise and
brutal intemperance, Lupicinus was informed, by a secret
messenger, that many of his soldiers were slain, and despoiled of
their arms; and as he was already inflamed by wine, and oppressed
by sleep he issued a rash command, that their death should be
revenged by the massacre of the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.
The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his
extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit
of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. "A
trifling dispute," said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle
tone of voice, "appears to have arisen between the two nations;
but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences,
unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our
safety, and the authority of our presence." At these words,
Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their
passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace,
the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans.
The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the
resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation
were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and
the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the
Barbarian trumpet. ^71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had
dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the
Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected
on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach
about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the
talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The
valor of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of
Fritigern, that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the
ranks of the Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and
standards, his tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of
battle; and their useless courage served only to protect the
ignominious flight of their leader. "That successful day put an
end to the distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the
Romans: from that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious
condition of strangers and exiles, assumed the character of
citizens and masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the
possessors of land, and held, in their own right, the northern
provinces of the empire, which are bounded by the Danube." Such
are the words of the Gothic historian, ^72 who celebrates, with
rude eloquence, the glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of
the Barbarians was exercised only for the purposes of rapine and
destruction. As they had been deprived, by the ministers of the
emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair
intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the
subjects of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated
by the ruin of the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the
conflagration of their villages, and the massacre, or captivity,
of their innocent families. The report of the Gothic victory was
soon diffused over the adjacent country; and while it filled the
minds of the Romans with terror and dismay, their own hasty
imprudence contributed to increase the forces of Fritigern, and
the calamities of the province. Some time before the great
emigration, a numerous body of Goths, under the command of Suerid
and Colias, had been received into the protection and service of
the empire. ^73 They were encamped under the walls of
Hadrianople; but the ministers of Valens were anxious to remove
them beyond the Hellespont, at a distance from the dangerous
temptation which might so easily be communicated by the
neighborhood, and the success, of their countrymen. The
respectful submission with which they yielded to the order of
their march, might be considered as a proof of their fidelity;
and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the
most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople,
incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his
country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them
the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged,
with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians
stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when
patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined
multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, ^74
which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their
sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious
detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the
siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison
informed the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular
fortifications, the efforts of unskillful courage are seldom
effectual. Their general acknowledged his error, raised the
siege, declared that "he was at peace with stone walls," ^75 and
revenged his disappointment on the adjacent country. He
accepted, with pleasure, the useful reenforcement of hardy
workmen, who labored in the gold mines of Thrace, ^76 for the
emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling master: ^77 and
these new associates conducted the Barbarians, through the secret
paths, to the most sequestered places, which had been chosen to
secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the magazines of corn.
With the assistance of such guides, nothing could remain
impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal; flight was
impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless innocence
seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the course
of these depredations, a great number of the children of the
Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the
embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews,
which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native
fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager
attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry
passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same
indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters
of the Romans. ^78
[Footnote 71: Vexillis de more sublatis, auditisque trisie
sonantibus classicis. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the rauca
cornua of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the
Uri, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the
Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republica Helvet,
l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn
is finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original
narrative of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) "Attendant le
combat le dit cor fut corne par trois fois, tant que le vent du
souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de
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