[134: _Vita Marci_ 14: _gentibus quae pulsae a superioribus barbaris fugerant nisi reciperentur bellum inferentibus_. Dio, in Petrus Patricius, _fr._ 6, says: Λαγγιβάρδων καὶ Ὀβίων (otherwise unknown) ἑξακισχιλίων Ἴστρον περαιωθέντων τῶν περὶ Βίνδικα (perhaps already then _praef. praetorio_, in which case the guard would be marched out on account of this occurrence), ἱππέων ἐξελασάντων καὶ τῶν ἀμφὶ Κάνδιδον πεζῶν ἐπιφθασάντων εἰς παντελῆ φυγήν οἱ βάρβαροι ἐτράποντο· ἐφ' οἷς οὗτω πραχθεῖσιν ἐν δέει καταστάντες ἐκ πρώτης ἐπιχειρήσεως οἱ βάρβαροι πρέσβεις παρὰ Αἴλιον Βάσσον τὴν Παιονίαν διέποντα στέλλουσι Βαλλομάριόν τε τὸν βασιλέα Μαρκομάνων καὶ ἑτέρους δέκα, κατ' ἔθνος ἐπιλεξάμενοι ἕνα· καὶ ὅρκοις τὴν εἰρήνην οἱ πρέσβεις πιστωσάμενοι οἴκαδε χωροῦσιν. That this incident falls before the outbreak of the war, is shown by its position; _fr._ 7 of Patricius is an excerpt from Dio, lxxi. 11, 2.] [135: The Moesian army gave away soldiers to the Armenian war (Hirschfeld, _Arch. epig. Mitth._ vi. 41); but here the frontier was not endangered.] [136: The participation of the Germans on the right of the Rhine is attested by Dio, lxxi. 3, and only thereby are the measures explained which Marcus adopted for Raetia and Noricum. The position of Oderzo also speaks for the view that these assailants came over the Brenner.] [137: The alleged first mention of the Goths in the biography of Caracalla, c. 10, rests on a misunderstanding. If really a senator allowed himself the malicious jest of assigning to the murderer of Geta the name Geticus, because he on his march from the Danube to the east had conquered some Getic hordes (_tumultuariis proeliis_), he meant Dacians, not the Goths, scarcely at that time dwelling there and hardly known to the Roman public, whose identification with the Getae was certainly only a later invention.--We may add that the statement that the emperor Maximinus (235-238) was the son of a Goth settled in the neighbouring Thrace, carries us still further back; yet not much weight is to be attached to it.] [138: Petrus Patricius _fr._ 8. The administration of the legate of lower Moesia here mentioned, Tullius Menophilus, is fixed by coins certainly to the time of Gordian, and with probability to 238-240 (Borghesi, _Opp._ ii. 227). As the beginning of the Gothic war and the destruction of Istros are fixed by Dexippus (_vita Max. et Balb._ 16) at 238, it is natural to bring into connection with these events the undertaking of tribute; at any rate it was then renewed. The vain sieges of Marcianopolis and Philippopolis by the Goths (Dexippus, _fr._ 18, 19) may have followed on the capture of Istros. Jordanes, _Get._ 16, 92, puts the former under Philippus, but is in chronological questions not a valid witness.]