[66] Troops named from the fashion of their arms; the Cornuti having projections like horns on their helmets, the Braccati wearing drawers. [67] The testudo was properly applied to the manner in which they locked their shields over their heads while advancing to storm a walled town. [68] The Mirmillo was a gladiator opposed to a Retiarius, protecting himself by his oblong shield against the net of the latter. [69] The text is mutilated here, as in many other passages similarly marked. BOOK XVII. ARGUMENT. I. Julian crosses the Rhine and plunders and burns the towns of the Allemanni, repairs the fortress of Trajan, and grants the barbarians a truce for ten months.--II. He hems in six hundred Franks who are devastating the second Germania, and starves them into surrender.--III. He endeavours to relieve the Gauls from some of the tribute which weighs them down.--IV. By order of the Emperor Constantius an obelisk is erected at Rome in the Circus Maximus;--some observations on obelisks and on hieroglyphics.--V. Constantius and Sapor, king of the Persians, by means of ambassadors and letters, enter into a vain negotiation for peace.--VI. The Nethargi, an Allemanni tribe, are defeated in the Tyrol, which they were laying waste.--VII. Nicomedia is destroyed by an earthquake; some observations on earthquakes--VIII. Julian receives the surrender of the Salii, a Frankish tribe. He defeats one body of the Chamavi, takes another body prisoners, and grants peace to the rest.--IX. He repairs three forts on the Meuse that had been destroyed by the barbarians. His soldiers suffer from want, and become discontented and reproachful.--X. Surmarius and Hortarius, kings of the Allemanni, surrender their prisoners and obtain peace from Julian.--XI. Julian, after his successes in Gaul, is disparaged at the court of Constantius by enviers of his fame, and is spoken of as inactive and cowardly.--XII. The Emperor Constantius compels the Sarmatians to give hostage, and to restore their prisoners; and imposes a king on the Sarmatian exiles, whom he restores to their country and to freedom.--XIII. He compels the Limigantes, after defeating them with great slaughter, to emigrate, and harangues his own soldiers.--XIV. The Roman ambassadors, who had been sent to treat for peace, return from Persia; and Sapor returns into Armenia and Mesopotamia. I. A.D. 357.