HKB

← back

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1

Edward Gibbon · 1782 (Written); 1845 (Revised)

passage 378 of 518 · Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The > book of the Anabasis]

in brief
Gibbon explains Diocletian’s anger and later allows Galerius to redeem himself with a renewed army of Illyrian veterans and Gothic auxiliaries; Galerius fights in Armenia and defeats Narses, capturing booty and Narses’s family.

66 (return) [ See Foster’s Dissertation in the second volume of the translation of the Anabasis by Spelman; which I will venture to recommend as one of the best versions extant.]

67 (return) [ Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 76. I have transferred this exploit of Tiridates from an imaginary defeat to the real one of Galerius.]

68 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. The mile, in the hands of Eutropoius, (ix. 24,) of Festus (c. 25,) and of Orosius, (vii 25), easily increased to several miles]

As soon as Diocletian had indulged his private resentment, and asserted the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the submissive entreaties of the Cæsar, and permitted him to retrieve his own honor, as well as that of the Roman arms. In the room of the unwarlike troops of Asia, which had most probably served in the first expedition, a second army was drawn from the veterans and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and a considerable body of Gothic auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial pay. 69 At the head of a chosen army of twenty-five thousand men, Galerius again passed the Euphrates; but, instead of exposing his legions in the open plains of Mesopotamia he advanced through the mountains of Armenia, where he found the inhabitants devoted to his cause, and the country as favorable to the operations of infantry as it was inconvenient for the motions of cavalry. 70 Adversity had confirmed the Roman discipline, while the barbarians, elated by success, were become so negligent and remiss, that in the moment when they least expected it, they were surprised by the active conduct of Galerius, who, attended only by two horsemen, had with his own eyes secretly examined the state and position of their camp. A surprise, especially in the night time, was for the most

← previous passage read in the full work → next passage →

topics: battle and tactics · civil war and rebellion · conquest, plunder, and captives

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1 · Edward Gibbon · 1782–1845