Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1859 Excerpt: ...more of cutting off their retreat than of impeding their advance; consequently, they entered Italy, laid waste the neighbourhood of Milan, marched as far as Fanum Fortunte (Fano), in Umbria, and spread consternation in Rome itself. As however their forces were scattered, Aurelian cut them off to a man in three decisive battles at Placentia, Pavia, and Fanum Fortuna?, almost on the very spot where, in the battle or Metaurus, the Romans had defeated Hasdrubal. An inscription at Pesaro still celebrates these victories. To Rome, with her distant frontier, walls intended as a defence against her neighbours had long been useless; the city had expanded far beyond them, and they had fallen into ruin. But now that barbarians were seen in Italy itself, fortifications were again necessary. The Emperor therefore commenced a long line of fortifications, enclosing a space nearly twelve miles in circumference. The work was continued by Probus, and completed by Diocletian. Having crushed the barbarian enemies of the empire, the Emperor's next task was to depose those usurpers who still maintained their authority in opposite quarters of the Roman world. In Gaul, Victoria, the mother of Victorinus, had rarsed first Marius and then Tetricus to the nominal dignity of the purple, whilst she herself, with the title of Augusta, exercised the virtual authority. At her death Tetricus, the contemptible creature of a licentious army, as he had been the tool of an ambitious woman, called himself Emperor of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Weary at length of being the slave of those whom he was said to govern, he secretly offered submission to Aurelian, and pretending to meet him in battle, deserted with his partisans, and left the Emperor master of the field. Gruter Inscr. p. 276. Having thu...
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