Being
greater, for example, the danger would have been repelled to a distance so
great that mere remoteness would have disarmed its terrors, or otherwise
it would have been violently overawed. Being less, on the other hand, and
less in an eminent degree, it would have disposed all parties, as it did
at an after period, to regular and formal compromises in the shape of
fixed annual tributes. At present the policy of the barbarians along the
vast line of the northern frontier, was, to tease and irritate the
provinces which they were not entirely able, or prudentially unwilling, to
dismember. Yet, as the almost annual irruptions were at every instant
ready to be converted into _coup-de-mains_ upon Aquileia--upon
Verona--or even upon Rome itself, unless vigorously curbed at the outset,
--each emperor at this period found himself under the necessity of
standing in the attitude of a champion or propugnator on the frontier line
of his territory--ready for all comers--and with a pretty certain prospect
of having one pitched battle at the least to fight in every successive
summer. There were nations abroad at this epoch in Europe who did not
migrate occasionally, or occasionally project themselves upon the
civilized portion of the globe, but who made it their steady regular
occupation to do so, and lived for no other purpose.
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