Breaking into Gaul they passed through that country and Spain; captured
Tarragona in their route; crossed over to Africa, and conquered
Mauritania. At the same time, the Alemanni, who had been in motion since
the time of Caracalla, broke into Lombardy, across the Rhaetian Alps. The
senate, left without aid from either emperor, were obliged to make
preparations for the common defence against this host of barbarians.
Luckily, the very magnitude of the enemy's success, by overloading him
with booty, made it his interest to retire without fighting; and the
degraded senate, hanging upon the traces of their retiring footsteps,
without fighting, or daring to fight, claimed the honors of a victory.
Even then, however, they did more than was agreeable to the jealousies of
Gallienus, who, by an edict, publicly rebuked their presumption, and
forbade them in future to appear amongst the legions, or to exercise any
military functions. He himself, meanwhile, could devise no better way of
providing for the public security, than by marrying the daughter of his
chief enemy, the king of the Marcomanni. On this side of Europe, the
barbarians were thus quieted for the present; but the Goths of the
Ukraine, in three marauding expeditions of unprecedented violence, ravaged
the wealthy regions of Asia Minor, as well as the islands of the
Archipelago; and at length, under the guidance of deserters, landed in the
port of the Pyraeus.
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