195
convey this enormous weight of granite, at least chap.
an hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the.
banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber. Theobelisk of Constantius was landed about threemiles from the city, and elevated, by the effortsof art and labour, in the great circus of Rome / dial) andThe departure of Constantius from Rome ^ a " na,Ia “was hastened by the alarming intelligence of*;”-® 5 /*
° r i • 3 (t9.
the distress and danger of the Illyrian pro-vinces. The distractions of civil war, and theirreparable loss which the Roman legions hadsustained in the battle of Mursa, exposed thosecountries, almost without defence, to the lightcavalry of the barbarians; and particularly tothe inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerfulnation, who seem to have exchanged the insti-tutions of Germany for the arms and militaryarts of their Sarmatian allies/ The garrisonsof the frontier were insufficient to check then-progress ; and the indolent monarch was atlength compelled to assemble, from the extre-mities of his dominions, the flower of the Pala-tine troops, to take the field in person, and toemploy a whole campaign, with the precedingautumn and the ensuing spring, in the seriousprosecution of the war. The emperor passedthe Danube on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces
r See Donat. Roma Antiqua, 1. iii, c. 1-1, 1. iv, c. 12, and the learn-ed, though confused, Dissertation of Bargaeus on Obelisks , inserted inthe fourth volume of Grasvius’s Roman Antiquities, p. 1897-1936.
This dissertation is dedicated to Pope Sixtus V , who erected the obe-lisk of Constantius in the square before the patriarchal church of St.
John Lateran.
1 The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are related by Am-miauus, xvi, 10; xvii, 12,13; xix, 11.