THE DECLINE AND FALL

224

CHAP.

XIX.

Julian subdues theFranks,

A. D. 358

grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul , he re-spectfully laid at the feet of the emperor thissplendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomarexperienced an honourable treatment, but theimpatient barbarian could not long survive hisdefeat, his confinement, and his exile . 8

After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni fromthe provinces of the Upper Rhine , he turned hisarms against the Franks, who were seated nearerto the ocean on the confines of Gaul and Ger-many ; and who, from their numbers, and stillmore from their intrepid valour, had ever beenesteemed the most formidable of the barbarians . 11Although they were strongly actuated by theallurements of rapine, they professed a disinte-rested love of war, which they considered asthe supreme honour and felicity of human na-ture; and their minds and bodies were so com-pletely hardened by perpetual action, that, ac-cording to the lively expression of an orator,the snows of winter were as pleasant to themas the flowers of spring. In the month of De-cember, which followed the battle of Strasburg,Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks,who had thrown themselves into two castles onthe Meuse . 1 In the midst of that severe seasonthey sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siegeof fifty-four days; till at length exhausted by

* Ammian. xvi, 12. Libanius , Orat. x, p. 270.

* Libanius (Orat. iii, p. 137) draws a very lively picture.of the man-ners of the Franks.

1 Ammianus, xvii, 2. Libanius , Orat. x, p 278. The Greek orator,by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been induced to representthe Franks as consisting of a thousand men; and as his head was al-ways full of the Peloponnesian war, he compares them to the Lacede-monians, who were besieged and taken in the island of SoUacter'ra.