Among the emperors who signalized themselves against the Barbarians, Probus contributed the most to support the Majesty of the Roman name. Valiant, but still more humane, he abhorred war and continually waged it. Dost thou observe, in the picture before thee, that bald old man, his air of candor, his respectable countenance, the plainness of every thing about him? It is Probus represented in the moment when, beholding Rome’s enemies humbled, full of the idea of that general peace he always desired, he said: “yet a few days and the empire will have no farther occasion for soldiers.” Words which rendered him worthy of the veneration of the whole earth, but which caused him to be murdered. Time passed, the efforts of the Barbarians redoubled, and blood continued to be shed. Mean while, the enemies of Rome grew warlike, and her defenders degenerated. Of this the chief causes were pride, which increasing wants, forces the citizen to refer every thing to his private interest; the folly of most of the emperors, which bred in the people a numbness which a few years confirm, and which whole ages cannot remove; perhaps too a weariness of the spirits; for that ambition, that haughtiness, or, if you please, that Roman grandeur, was in the course of things an excessive effort, which, like an epidemical distemper come to its height, must necessarily abate by degrees. However this may be, a century and half after their first invasions, the Barbarians began to make real progresses, and dismember the Western part of the empire. Amidst the troubles that then existed, some kingdoms were established which still remain to this day. Just as Earthquakes, which raising the sea drown whole regions, produce also new Islands amidst the waves. See the Goths, who after traversing sword in hand, part of Asia and all Europe, are settling in Spain: see the Angles, a people of Germany, who are passing into Great Britain, and, under pretence of aiding, are seizing it: see the Franks, other Germans, who are coming to free the Gauls from the Roman yoke and making them to submit to theirs. In these unhappy times, Rome herself shares the same fate which she had made so many cities undergo; she is plundered and sacked at several times[10]. But the next pictures present to thee, in a point of view still more dreadful, regions laid waste, fields bathed in blood, and cities in ashes. These are the exploits of Attila and his rapid incursions in Macedonia, Mysia, Thrace, Italy, and almost through the whole world which he ravaged. So many desolations, proceeding from several conquerors, would have made so many heroes: coming from a single hand, they form a terrible monster. It is thus that military virtues show themselves in their true colours, and become horrible when they meet in a center[11].