Chap. V. A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. 155 



it had not been for the recruits that they got for their armies among 

 the Barbarians, they muft have been conquered by them much 

 fooner f. Now, the prefent inliabitanls of Europe are, for the 

 greater part, the defcendants of thofe nations, yet they are certainly 



U 2 not 



t Of this the hifloriatis of thofe times furnifli many proofs, particularly Am- 

 mianus Marcelliiius, (Lib. xvli. dp. 13. et Lib. xxxi. Cap. 10. p. 401.) and Zof;- 

 mus, in the Fourth Book of his Hiftory, (p. 472.) tells us that the Emperor Va- 

 lentinian fecured Gaul, by inlifting and incorporating in his legions the Barba- 

 rians then inhabiting upon the Rhine. Ihe fame author tells us that Theodofius 

 the Emperor, in order to recruit his army, invited all the refugees and deferters of 

 the Barbarians beyond the Danube, to come and enlifl in his armies, which they 

 did in fuch numbers, that they outnumbered the Romans of his army. In 

 fhort, it appears to me, that, without the recruits from the Barbarous nations, 

 the Romans, in thofe times, would have had no army of any value, either for 

 number or ftrength of men : for it is evident, that not only the men were much de- 

 generated in Italy, and the provinces, but their number fo much decreafed, that it 

 was neceflary to bring Barbarians into the empire, in order to re-people it. This 

 pradice appears to have been firfl begun by Conftantine the Emperor, who fettled 

 in Thracia, Macedonia, and Italy, 300,000 Sarmatians, who had been driven out cf 

 their own country, (See Ammianus, Lib. 17. Chap. 12. p. 139.) And I have no 

 doubt but it was with the view of re-peopling the country, and furnifliing recruits 

 for his army, that Valens the Emperor let fuch a multitude of Goths pafs the Da- 

 nube, who afterwards rofe againfl him, and killed him in battle. And not only 

 were the Romans, at that time, obliged to take their foldiers from the barbarous 

 nations, but alfo their Generals ; for the three greateft Generals, they had in later 

 times, were Barbarians, that is, neither Greeks nor Romans .^tius, the General 

 of Valentinian III. who gained the famous battle above mentioned againfl Attila 

 was from Maefia, (Jornandes, cap. 34. p. 616.) and as Maefia was then pofTeiled 

 by the Goths, it is probable he was a Goth. z\nd Beiifarius, and Narfes, Jufli- 

 nian's two great Generals, who recovered for him Italy and Africa, were both fo- 

 reigners, the one a German, the other a Perfian eunuch. And the two greateft 

 men about his court, the one in the military department, the other in the civil 

 Johannes, the praefeElus praetorioy and Tribonian, his Chancellor, who compiled 

 that mofl valuable colledlion we have of the Roman Law, were, the one a Thracian, 

 the other a Cappadocian. The Roman nobility appear, therefore, at that time to 

 have been fo much degenerated, as to be unfit, either to condudt the armies, 

 or to dire£l the councils, of the ftate. 



