The victory of Claudius over the Goths had ensured the safety of the Roman empire, although he still left much undone. The empire of Palmyra evidently was friendly, and it protected the eastern frontier: with Tetricus, the relations were at least perfectly peaceful. Claudius himself had recommended Aurelian as the ablest of his generals, and the senate and the army swore allegiance to him. Aurelian did great things during the five years of his reign (until 273): he restored the empire. One might be tempted to apply to him the remarkable passage in Curtius;[62] but it is not to be believed that such pure Latin should have still been written in his reign. Gibbon must have thought this less unlikely, as far at least as regards the time of Gordian, for which he decides; but the passage on Tyre,[63] to have any meaning at all, must be referred to the times of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. Although Aurelian is no ideal of a character, yet there is much in his reign which gives one pleasure, like every age in which anything that has fallen into ruin has been restored. But unhappily there are also here no sufficient sources; all is obscure: the imperial history, on the whole, is much more so than that of the republic; we are much better able to reconstruct the history of the twelfth and thirteenth century from the chronicles. The accounts we have of Aurelian, although they may be strung together, form no history: the coins are far safer authorities for this time, and with these the statements of our wretched historians cannot be made to agree. Gibbon has done everything that was possible, nor will his work ever be surpassed.