"
Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the
pouring out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the
senate:
"I marvel, conscript fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about
opening the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly
of Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods. Let inquiry be
made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the
ceremonies that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, with
zeal, to satisfy all expenditure required with _captives of every
nationality_, victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the
aid of the gods; it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a
war."
Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to pagan festivals, and
probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion
flowed in the temple of all the gods.
It is the first time the name of _Franks_ appears in history; and it
indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic
peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the
Main to the ocean.
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