who had spared Gaul the fate of the Danubian lands and of Asia and had saved it from the Germans, comes here and everywhere (most obviously at _Tyr._ 5) to light; with which is connected the fact that this report knows nothing of the loss of the right bank of the Rhine and of the expeditions of the Franks to Gaul, Spain, and Africa. It is further significant that the alleged progenitor of the Constantinian house is here provided with an honourable secondary part. This narrative, not confused but thoroughly falsified, must be completely set aside; the reports on the one hand in Zosimus, on the other in the Latins drawing from a common source--Victor and Eutropius, short and confused as they are, can alone be taken into account.] [95: The rule of Postumus lasted ten years (p. 164, note 1). That the elder son of Gallienus was already dead in 259, we learn from the inscription of Modena, _C. I. L._ xi. 826; the revolt of Postumus thus falls certainly in or before this year. As the captivity of Tetricus cannot well be placed later than 272, immediately after the second expedition against Zenobia, and the three Gallic rulers reigned, Postumus for ten years, Victorinus for two (Eutropius, ix. 9), Tetricus for two (Victor, 35), this brings the revolt of Postumus to somewhere about 259; yet such numbers are frequently somewhat deranged. When the duration of the expeditions of the Germans into Spain under Gallienus is definitely stated at twelve years (Orosius, vii. 41, 2), this appears to be superficially reckoned according to the Chronicle of Jerome. The usual exact numbers are unattested and deceptive.] [96: According to the biographer, c. 14, 15, Probus brought the Germans of the right bank of the Rhine into dependence, so that they were tributary to the Romans and defended the frontier for them (_omnes jam barbari vobis arant, vobis jam serviunt et contra interiores gentes militant_); the right of bearing arms is left to them for the time, but the idea is, on further successes, to push forward the frontier and erect a province of Germania. Even as free fancies of a Roman of the fourth century--more they are not--these utterances have a certain interest.] CHAPTER V. BRITAIN. [Sidenote: Caesar and the Julian Emperors.]