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memorable war, with a very short suspension of chap.hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor —could exert, without controul, the whole forceof the state, it was terminated by an absolutesubmission of the barbarians/ The new pro-vince of Dacia, which formed a second excep-tion to the precept of Augustus , was about thir-teen hundred miles in circumference. Its natu-ral boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss, orTibiscus, the Lower Danube, and the Euxine sea. The vestiges of a military road may stillbe traced from the banks of the Danube to theneighbourhood of Bender, a place famous inmodern history, and the actual frontier of theTurkish and Russian empires/
Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long Conquest8as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberalapplause on their destroyers than on their bene-factors, the thirst of military glory will ever bethe vice of the most exalted characters. Thepraises of Alexander, transmitted by a succes-sion of poets and historians, had kindled a dan-gerous emulation in the mind of Trajan . Likehim, the Roman emperor undertook an expedi-tion against the nations of the East; but helamented, with a sigh, that his advanced agescarcely left him any hopes of equalling the re-nown of the son of Philip/ Yet the success of
' Dion Cassius , 1. lxviii. p. 1123-1131. Julian in Csesaribus. Eu-tropius, viii, 2-6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome.
' See a Memoir of M. d’Anville, on the province of Dacia, in theAcademie des Inscriptions , tom. xxviii, p. 444-468.
* Trajan ’s sentiments are represented in a very just and lively man-ner in the Csesars of Julian.