But no skill or
experience could avail to retrieve the sinking power of Rome upon the
Illyrian, frontier. The Roman army was disorganized, panic-stricken,
reduced to skeleton battalions. Without an army, what could be done? And
thus it may really have been no blame to Gallus, that he made a treaty
with the Goths more degrading than any previous act in the long annals of
Rome. By the terms of this infamous bargain, they were allowed to carry
off an immense booty, amongst which was a long roll of distinguished
prisoners; and Caesar himself it was--not any lieutenant or agent that
might have been afterwards disavowed--who volunteered to purchase their
future absence by an annual tribute. The very army which had brought their
emperor into the necessity of submitting to such abject concessions, were
the first to be offended with this natural result of their own failures.
Gallus was already ruined in public opinion, when further accumulations
arose to his disgrace. It was now supposed to have been discovered, that
the late dreadful defeat of Forum Terebronii was due to his bad advice;
and, as the young Hostilianus happened to die about this time of a
contagious disorder, Gallus was charged with his murder.
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