Res Gestae

Well then, let the old tales revive of bringing the Medic hordes to Greece; for while they describe the bridging of the Hellespont, the quest of a sea at the foot of Mount Athos by a kind of mechanical severing,[*](I.e., cutting a canal through the isthmus of the peninsula on which the mountain stands.) and the numbering of the armies by squadrons at Doriscus,[*](Because they were too numerous to be counted as individuals, an enclosure which would hold 10,000 closely packed men was built; see Hdt. vii. 60.) later times have unanimously regarded all this as fabulous reading.

For after the countless swarms of nations were poured through the provinces, spreading over a great extent of plain and filling all regions and every mountain height, by this new evidence the trustworthiness also of old stories was confirmed. First Fritigern and Alavivus were received, and the emperor gave orders that they should be given food for their present needs and fields to cultivate.

During this time, when the barriers of our[*](376 f. A.D.) frontier were unlocked and the realm of savagery

Their treacherous greed was the source of all our evils. I say nothing of other crimes which these two men, or at least others with their permission, with the worst of motives committed against the foreign new-comers, who were as yet blameless; but one melancholy and unheard-of act shall be mentioned, of which, even if they were their own judges[*](Cic., Deiot. 2, 4, nemo enimfere est, qui sui periculi iudex, non sibi se aequiorem quam reo praebeat.) of their own case, they could not be acquitted by any excuse.

When the barbarians after their crossing were harassed by lack of food, those most hateful generals devised a disgraceful traffic; they exchanged every dog that their insatiability could gather from far and wide for one slave each, and among these were carried off also sons of the chieftains.

During these days also Vithericus,[*](He was a young boy; cf. xxxi. 3, 3, where the name is given as Viderichus.) king of the Greuthungi, accompanied by Alatheus and Saphrax, by whose will he was ruled, and also by Farnobius, coming near to the banks of the Danube, hastily sent envoys and besought the emperor that

When these envoys were rejected, as the interests of the state seemed to demand, and were in doubt what course to take, Athanarichus, fearing a like fate, departed, remembering that he had some time before treated Valens with contempt when they were making a treaty of friendship, declaring that he was prevented by conscientious scruples from ever setting foot on Roman soil; and by this excuse he had forced the emperor to conclude peace in the middle of the river.[*](Cf. xxvii. 5, 6.) Fearing that the grudge caused by this still endured, Athanaricus withdrew with all his followers to Caucalanda, a place inaccessible because of high mountains and deep forests, from which he first drove out the Sarmatians.

But now the Theruingi, who had long since been permitted to cross, were still roaming about near the banks of the river, detained by a twofold obstacle, both because, through the ruinous negligence[*](For this meaning of dissimulatio, cf. xxviii. 4, 5.) of the generals, they were not supplied with the necessaries of life, and also because they were purposely held back by an abominable kind of traffic.[*](See 4, 11. The meaning is, in order that the Roman generals might carry the practice on longer.)