Decius, although he may have been a very praiseworthy prince, bears the stain of persecutions. His reign was the era of the great break up which began with the Germans, who for seventy years had kept tolerably quiet. The whole of the north of Germany was now in motion, and the Franks made their appearance on the Lower Rhine. With regard to the origin of the Franks, on which go much has been written, I think the opinion to be a very likely one, that the Sigambri on the right banks of the Rhine, and in Westphalia, called themselves Franks, and that they formed a state of their own distinct from that of the Saxons. The Swabians, who are partly called Sueves, and partly Alemanni, make their appearance on the Maine. Yet the grand break up caused by the Goths, dates from the reign of Decius. Over the whole subject of their migrations, hangs the greatest uncertainty. Did they come, as the Icelandic traditions would make us believe, from the South to the North; or the reverse, as the traditions in Jormandes would show? I believe that the question cannot in any way be decided. We can only say thus much, that a large Gothic empire existed in the beginning of the third century, in the south-east of Europe.

The invasion of the Goths was made partly by land through Dacia, partly in skiffs across the Black sea; like the attacks of the Russians on Constantinople in the tenth century. Of the detailed account of the Athenian Dexippus, we have unfortunately nothing but fragments in the Excerpta de Sententiis and de Legationibus, besides a few in Syncellus. It is impossible to analyse these invasions in detail: I should not venture to divide them, like Gibbon, into three great expeditions. They overpowered the kingdom of the Bosporus, and destroyed the towns on the northern coast of Asia Minor: they advanced also as far as Cappadocia. Another expedition subdued the Thracian Bosporus which since the destruction of Byzantium lay quite open. It is a proof of the utter lethargy of the Roman Empire, that no attempt was made to fit out any ships of war, to destroy the vessels of the barbarians. The most thriving Bithynian cities, Nicomedia, Prusa, Chalcedon, and others, were destroyed after the death of Decius, and with far more cruelty than the Goths displayed in later times.

We must, however, return to the history of Decius, and go on with it. Even some time already before this, when the Goths made their inroad across the Danube, they were met by Decius. Dexippus wrote this history down to the reign of Claudius Gothicus. The Goths besieged Nicopolis; and when Decius relieved this town, they crossed the ridges of the Hæmus, and took Philippopolis. After they had taken it, Decius again met them in mount Hæmus, and cut off their retreat, when they wanted to make a treaty for a free departure, and even to return the booty and prisoners; but Decius refused, and whilst they were thus driven to despair, he fared as king Frederick did at Kunersdorf. The Goths were drawn up in three lines, two of which were already broken; and if Decius had properly followed up his advantage, and taken such a position that he might have dispersed those who were already beaten, and surrounded the rest, he might have destroyed the whole army. But the unlucky star of Rome led him to attack the third line, which was drawn up behind a marsh or narrow paths and dykes, in a position where all the bravery of the legions was in vain. He met with a defeat in which he and his son lost their lives. This overthrow was decisive; but the Goths likewise had suffered considerable loss, and they were glad to conclude with Gallus Trebonianus, who had been proclaimed emperor, a treaty by which he paid to them a considerable sum to be allowed to march off free. Whether he also granted them abodes in Dacia, is more than I will take upon myself to decide.

Gallus went to Rome, where he took as his colleague Hostilianus, the nephew or son of Decius, who, however, died soon afterwards. As Gallus now reigned despised by every one for the disgraceful peace which he had made; Æmilianus, the governor of Illyricum, rose against him in the East, and leading his army into Italy, gained a victory on the borders of Umbria and the Sabine country, in the neighbourhood of Spoletum, and Gallus lost his life. The latter, in his turn, had an avenger in Valerian; who had been called out of Germany to his aid, and who came indeed too late to save, but soon enough to avenge him: Æmilianus was deserted, and probably murdered by his own soldiers.

Valerian now ascended the throne. Great things were expected from him; yet his reputation was wholly undeserved, and we behold nothing but disaster in his reign. Decius had had the strange idea of restoring the censorship to improve the public morals, and the senate with one voice had named Valerian censor; but Decius’ death happened so soon, that nothing followed from the appointment. Valerian took for his colleague his own son P. Licinius Gallienus, from which name we are not to suppose that there was any relationship to the old Licinii of the best times of the republic. Rome was in those days already quite accustomed to the system of having colleagues; for as the emperor was often at the farthest end of the empire, it was necessary that some one should carry on the government for him. From all sides, the Franks, Alemanni, and Goths now broke in, each nation by itself; and at the same time, the Persians also, under king Sapor, crossed the eastern frontier. The history of Valerian is very obscure and scanty: whether his catastrophe took place in the year 256 or 260, cannot be made out.

The Franks had established their kingdom on the Lower Rhine, and they held both banks of the stream as far up as Coblentz; the Swabians had broken through the entrenched barrier, and taken possession of what is now Suabia, or rather the country from the neighbourhood of the Lahn even to Switzerland. The Juthungi, who are mentioned in this time only, are perhaps so called from the reigning dynasty of the Lombards, and merely mean this people; for the names which end in -ing and -ung, are always names of dynasties. The Goths forced their way in swarms of boats, either by the Danube or the Dniester, into the Roman seas, without the Romans ever once opposing to them a fleet. These were devastations like those of the Normans in the ninth and tenth centuries. They plundered the whole of Achaia; they sacked and burned Corinth, Argos, and Athens, which, after many ages, now distinguishes itself again. A spirited band under the strategus Dexippus, the same who wrote this history, left the town for the mountains; and when it had been taken, they came down from thence, and surprised the Gothic fleet in the Piræeus, avenging their city in a manner which does one good to hear. Dexippus must have been an able man, although his history is a work of bad rhetoric.

Just as unhappily, and far more disgracefully besides, did things go on in Mesopotamia and Syria. Valerian, who was opposed to Sapor himself, was brought into a most disadvantageous position, where he met with the fate of General Mack near Ulm: he capitulated and became a prisoner, and he is said to have been very shockingly treated. Whether Asiatic ruthlessness went to the length of having him flayed alive, cannot be decided by us: it was also a disputed point, even among the ancients. The Persians now burst like a flood over Syria and Cappadocia, and near Cæsarea they all but fell in with the Goths: Antioch was taken and sacked. Those who escaped from the sword, were led away into bondage, with a barbarity like that of Soliman at the siege of Vienna, when two hundred thousand men lost their life or their freedom: the city was then get fire to. The same fate befel Cæsarea, after a noble defence. The towns on the Persian frontier alone had preserved their walls; but in the interior, in Greece, and in Asia Minor, no one had ever thought of the possibility of an enemy, and therefore the walls had been allowed to go to ruins, or had been pulled down.

The whole of Syria was overrun and conquered,—a few strong towns only may have held out; but in the midst of the desert, Palmyra, unobserved by the rest of the world, had risen by degrees into an important commercial mart, and from this city, half Syrian and half Arab, there had grown up a power which made head against Sapor. Under the lead of Odenathus, who is justly reckoned among the great men of the East, it was able to fight for its existence, and to hold its own. Odenathus defeated the rear of Sapor, and was not afraid of facing him in the open field. All the Arabs from the interior having joined him, as it seems, he is called Princeps Saracenorum (from شرق to rise, مشرق the East; as Yemen, the right hand, reckoning from Mecca): the name of Saracens is to be met with long before Mohammed. Odenathus must have got together a great force. On the other side also of the Persian empire, diversions must have been made of which, however, we know nothing: for the relations of the Persians with their eastern neighbours are altogether hidden from us.

Valerian died in captivity. Gallienus is reproached for having made no attempt to ransom his father; but, ought he to have done so by giving up provinces? This is the time of the so-called thirty tyrants, a term which has been exploded long ago. Gallienus was a worthless prince, living only for his lusts, and seeking to take his ease in the midst of the most dreadful calamities. He always remained in possession of Italy and of the Noric and Illyrian frontier, and, with hardly an exception, of Greece and Africa: (for a short time only, his authority in Ægypt was disputed). In the East, Syria and the eastern provinces of Asia Minor remained under the rule of Odenathus, and after his death, under that of his great widow Zenobia: these were in some measure acknowledged by the senate and by Gallienus, so that the latter even had a triumph for the victories of Odenathus. From 256, or 260, to 268, Gallienus reigned alone; but in the meanwhile Gaul, Britain, and Spain, even the whole of what was afterwards the Præfectura Gallica, were torn away by Postumus, and became a compact territory having its own princes: these may be called emperors with as much right as Gallienus himself, although this would be contrary to Roman orthodoxy. Postumus was a very eminent man: he ruled over this great empire nearly ten years, and, if we may rely on his coins, gained a succession of brilliant victories over the Barbarians, particularly the Alemanni, and the Franks. The Alemanni must at that time have undertaken a wide wasting expedition as far as Spain, perhaps in the service of one of the then Emperors. The real name of Postumus is M. Cassianus^[60] Latinius Postumus. He has left behind him a noble reputation; but the misfortunes of Gaul already now begin, as is proved by the destruction of Autun, which from that time lay in ruins until the reign of Diocletian: Spain also was devastated by the Barbarians. At Mentz, Ælianus^[61] had usurped the imperial title; but he was conquered by Postumus, who in his turn lost his life when he would not let his soldiers pillage that city. He was succeeded by Victorinus, (his full name is M. Piavvonius Victorinus,) a brave but profligate general, whose outrages brought upon himself death from the hands of a deeply injured man. Then followed Marius, a common armourer, and after him a great Gallic lord, C. Pesuvius Tetricus, who was acknowledged throughout the whole of what was afterwards called the Gallic Prefecture, and maintained himself there until the reign of Aurelian. Here it is plainly to be seen how the division into prefectures was altogether founded upon circumstances, and by no means an arbitrary one. The nation now consists of Latinized Celts and Latinized Iberians, who were distinguished from the Italians by very decided peculiarities of their own.

The empire of Palmyra, as Eckhel justly remarks in opposition to Gibbon, did not reach beyond Egypt and the countries of the Levant: Egypt perhaps it only comprised in the last years, under Claudius Gothicus. From coins especially, one may learn much, although they are often enigmatical, that is to say, they give us enigmas to solve which but for them would have never come to us at all. In Illyricum, Africa, Egypt, even in peaceful Achaia, pretenders now arose, whose rule indeed lasted but a short time, yet they most sadly distracted the empire. The whole of the state, in fact, now consisted of three distinct masses. In the first place, there was the empire of Rome; secondly, there was the West or Gallic empire; and thirdly, that of the East. In Gaul, even very far back indeed, as early as the days of Augustus and Tiberius, a marked spirit of independence might have been observed, whereas Spain was much more sincerely united to Rome: in the East, it was quite the reverse, just as in Gaul. Treves was even at that time the seat of government, as perhaps it was also under Postumus and Victorinus, although they often lived at Cologne: Neuwied is called on the inscriptions Victoriensis, which may have some connexion with Victorinus and his mother Victoria. The Porta Nigra at Treves belongs to this time. It is a Roman gate, on each side of which there are basilicas: the whole building is of no older date. The capital of such an empire might well have had large structures. Taste had already fallen to a very low ebb.