 CHAPTER XXVIII. DESTRUCTION OF PAGANISM PART I. The Ruin of Paganism in the Age of Theodosius is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition, and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind. The Christians, more especially the clergy, had impatiently supported the prudent delays of Constantine and the equal toleration of the elder Valentinian, nor could they deem their conquest perfect or secure as long as their adversaries were permitted to exist. The influence which Ambrose and his brethren had acquired over the youth of Gratian and the piety of Theodosius was employed to infuse the maxims of persecution into the breasts of their imperial proselytes. Two specious principles of religious jurisprudence were established, from whence they deduced a direct and rigorous conclusion against the subjects of the empire who still adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, that the magistrate is, in some measure, guilty of the crimes which he neglects to prohibit, or to punish, and that the idolatrous worship of fabulous deities and real demons is the most abominable crime against the supreme majesty of the Creator. The laws of Moses and the examples of Jewish history were hastily, perhaps erroneously applied by the clergy, to the mild and universal reign of Christianity. The zeal of the emperors was excited to vindicate their own honor, and that of the deity, and the temples of the Roman world were subverted about sixty years after the conversion of Constantine. From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, the Romans preserved the regular succession of the several colleges of the sacerdotal order. Fifteen panaphs exercised their supreme jurisdiction over all things, and persons, that were consecrated to the service of the gods, and the various questions which perpetually arose in a loose and traditionary system were submitted to the judgment of their holy tribunal. Fifteen grave and learned augurs observed the face of the heavens, and prescribed the actions of heroes according to the flight of birds. Fifteen keepers of the Sibylene books. Their name of Quindesembers was derived from their number, occasionally consulted the history of future, and, as it should seem, of contingent events. Six vestals devoted their virginity to the guard of the sacred fire, and of the unknown pledges of the duration of Rome, which no mortal had been suffered to behold with impunity. Seven epilos prepared the table of the gods, conducted the solemn procession, and regulated the ceremonies of the annual festival. The three flamens of Jupiter, of Mars, and of Curnus were considered as the peculiar ministers of the three most powerful deities, who watched over the fate of Rome and of the universe. The king of the sacrifices represented the person of Numa, and of his successors, in the religious functions, which could be performed only by royal hands. The confraternities of the salians, the looper-coals, etc., practiced such rights as might extort a smile of contempt from every reasonable man, with a lively confidence of recommending themselves to the favor of the immortal gods. The authority which the Roman priests had formerly obtained in the councils of the Republic was gradually abolished by the establishment of monarchy, and the removal of the seat of empire. But the dignity of their sacred chamber was still protected by the laws, and manners of their country, and they still continued, more especially the College of Pontiffs, to exercise in the capital, and sometimes in the provinces, the rights of their ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction. Their robes of purple, chariots of state, and sumptuous entertainments attracted the admiration of the people, and they received, from the consecrated lands, and the public revenue, an ample stipend which liberally supported the splendor of the priesthood, and all the expenses of the religious worship of the state. As the service of the altar was not incompatible with the command of armies, the Romans, after their consulships and triumphs, aspired to the place of Pontiff, or of Augur, the seats of Cicero and Pompey were filled in the fourth century by the most illustrious members of the Senate, and the dignity of their birth reflected additional splendor on their sacerdotal character. The fifteen priests who composed the College of Pontiffs enjoyed a more distinguished rank as the companions of their sovereign, and the Christian emperors condescended to accept the robe and ensigns which were appropriated to the office of Supreme Pontiff. But when Gracian ascended the throne, more scrupulous or more enlightened, he sternly rejected those profane symbols, applied to the service of the state, or of the church, the revenues of the priests and vestals, abolished their honors and immunities, and dissolved the ancient fabric of Roman superstition, which was supported by the opinions and habits of eleven hundred years. Paganism was still the constitutional religion of the Senate. The hall or temple in which they assembled was adorned by the statue an altar of victory, a majestic female standing on a globe, with flowing garments, expanded wings, and a crown of laurel in her outstretched hand. The senators were sworn on the altar of the goddess to observe the laws of the emperor and of the empire, and a solemn offering of wine and incense was the ordinary prelude of their public deliberations. The removal of this ancient monument was the only injury which Constantius had offered to the superstition of the Romans. The altar of victory was again restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished from the Senate by the zeal of Gracian. But the emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to the public veneration, four hundred and twenty-four temples, or chapels, still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice. But the Christians formed the least numerous party in the Senate of Rome, and it was only by their absence that they could express their dissent from the legal, though profane, acts of a pagan majority. In that assembly the dying embers of freedom were, for a moment, revived and inflamed by the breath of fanaticism. Four respectable deputations were successively voted to the imperial court to represent the grievances of the priesthood and the Senate, and to solicit the restoration of the altar of victory. The conduct of this important business was entrusted to the eloquent Simacus, a wealthy and noble senator who united the sacred characters of Pontiff and Augur with the civil dignities of proconsul of Africa and prefect of the city. The breast of Simacus was animated by the warmest zeal for the cause of expiring paganism, and his religious antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius and the inefficacy of his moral virtues. The orator, whose petition is extant to the emperor Valentinian, was conscious of the difficulty and danger of the office which he had assumed. He cautiously avoids every topic which might appear to reflect on the religion of his sovereign. Humbly declares that prayers and entreaties are his only arms, and artfully draws his arguments from the schools of rhetoric, rather than from those of philosophy. Simacus endeavors to seduce the imagination of a young prince by displaying the attributes of the goddess of victory. He insinuates that the confiscation of the revenues which were consecrated to the service of the gods was a measure unworthy of his liberal and disinterested character, and he maintains that the Roman sacrifices would be deprived of their force and energy if they were no longer celebrated at the expense as well as in the name of the republic. Even skepticism is made to supply an apology for superstition. The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. For reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide, and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence by a faithful attachment to those rights and opinions which have received the sanction of ages. If those ages have been crowned with glory and prosperity, if the devout people have frequently obtained the blessings which they have solicited at the altars of the gods, it must appear still more advisable to persist in the same salutary practice, and not to risk the unknown perils that may attend any rash innovations. The test of antiquity and success was applied with singular advantage to the religion of Numa, and Rome herself, the celestial genius that presided over the fates of the city, is introduced by the orator to plead her own cause before the tribunal of the emperors. Most excellent princes, says the venerable matron, fathers of your country, pity and respect my age, which has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of piety. Since I do not repent, permit me to continue in the practice of my ancient rights. Since I am born free, allow me to enjoy my domestic institutions. This religion has reduced the world under my laws. These rights have repelled Hannibal from the city, and the Gauls from the capital. Were my gray hairs reserved for such intolerable disgrace, I am ignorant of the new system that I am required to adopt, but I am well assured that the correction of old age is always an ungrateful and ignominious office. The fears of the people supplied what the discretion of the orator had suppressed, and the calamities which afflicted or threatened the declining empire were unanimously imputed by the pagans to the new religion of Christ and of Constantine. But the hopes of Simacus were repeatedly baffled by the firm and dexterous opposition of the Archbishop of Milan, who fortified the emperors against the fallacious eloquence of the Advocate of Rome. In this controversy Ambrose condescends to speak the language of a philosopher and to ask with some contempt why it should be thought necessary to introduce an imaginary and invisible power as the cause of those victories which were sufficiently explained by the valor and discipline of the legions. He justly derides the absurd reverence for antiquity which could only tend to discourage the improvements of art and to replunge the human race into their original barbarism. From thence, gradually rising to a more lofty and theological tone, he pronounces that Christianity alone is the doctrine of truth and salvation, and that every mode of polytheism conducts its deluded votaries through the paths of error to the abyss of eternal perdition. Words like these, when they were suggested by a favorite bishop, had power to prevent the restoration of the altar of victory. But the same arguments fell, with much more energy in effect, from the mouth of a conqueror, and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph at the chariot wheels of the Edoces. In a full meeting of the senate the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the republic, the important question, whether the worship of Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the Romans. The liberty of suffrages, which he effected to follow, was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired, and the arbitrary exile of Simacus was a recent admonition, that it might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch. On a regular division of the senate Jupiter was condemned and degraded by the sense of a very large majority, and it is rather surprising that any members should be found bold enough to declare, by their speeches and votes, that they were still attached to the interests of an abdicated deity. The hasty conversion of the senate must be attributed either to supernatural or to sorted motives, and many of these reluctant proselytes, betrayed, on every favorable occasion, their secret disposition to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause of the ancient became more hopeless, they yielded to the authority of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the entreaties of their wives and children, who were instigated and governed by the clergy of Rome and the monks of the East. The edifying example of the Anishin family was soon imitated by the rest of the nobility. The Basi, the Paulini, the Gracchi embraced the Christian religion. And the luminaries of the world, the venerable assembly of Catoes, such are the high-flown expressions of Prudentius, were impatient to strip themselves of their pontifical garment, to cast the skin of the old serpent, to assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence, and to humble the pride of the consular faces before the tombs of the martyrs. The citizens who subsisted by their own industry, and the populace who were supported by the public liberally, filled the churches of the Latterin and Vatican with an incessant throng of devout proselytes. The decrees of the senate, which prescribed the worship of idols, were ratified by the general consent of the Romans, the splendor of the capital was defaced, and the solitary temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. Rome submitted to the yoke of the gospel, and the vanquished provinces had not yet lost their reverence for the name and authority of Rome. End of Chapter 28, Part 1 Chapter 28, Part 2 of The Declined Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 28 Destruction of Paganism, Part 2 The filial piety of the emperors themselves engaged them to proceed with some caution and tenderness in the reformation of the eternal city. Those absolute monarchs acted with less regard to the prejudices of the provincials. The pious labor which had been suspended near twenty years since the death of Constantius was vigorously resumed and finally accomplished by the zeal of Theodosius. Whilst that warlike prince yet struggled with the gods, not for the glory but for the safety of the republic, he ventured to offend a considerable party of his subjects by some acts which might perhaps secure the protection of heaven, but which must seem rash and unseasonable in the eye of human prudence. The success of his first experiments against the pagans encouraged the pious emperor to reiterate and enforce his edicts a prescription. The same laws which had been originally published in the provinces of the east were applied after the defeat of Maximus to the whole extent of the western empire and every victory of the orthodox Theodosius contributed to the triumph of the Christian and Catholic faith. He attacked superstition in her most vital part by prohibiting the use of sacrifices, which he declared to be criminal as well as infamous, and if the terms of his edicts more strictly condemned the empire's curiosity which examined the entrails of the victim, every subsequent explanation tended to involve in the same guilt the general practice of immolation, which essentially constituted the religion of the pagans. As the temples had been erected for the purpose of sacrifice, it was the duty of a benevolent prince to remove from his subjects the dangerous temptation of offending against the laws which he had enacted. A special commission was granted to Sunigius, the Praetorian Prefect of the east, and afterwards to the Counts of Jobius and Gaudensius, two officers of distinguished rank in the west, by which they were directed to shut the temples, to seize or destroy the instruments of idolatry, to abolish the privileges of the priests, and to confiscate the consecrated property for the benefit of the emperor of the church or of the army. Here the desolation might have stopped and the naked edifices, which were no longer employed in the service of idolatry, might have been protected from the destructive rage of fanaticism. Many of these temples were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian architecture, and the emperor himself was interested not to deface the splendour of his own cities or to diminish the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered to remain as so many lasting trophies are now the victory of Christ in the decline of the arts. They might be usefully converted into magazines, manufacturers, or places of public assembly, and perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently purified by holy rites, the worship of the true deity might be allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry. But as long as they subsisted, the pagans fondly cherished the secret hope that an auspicious revolution, a second Julian, might again restore the altars of the gods, and the earnestness with which they addressed their unavailing prayers to the throne, increased the zeal of the Christian reformers to extopate, without mercy, the root of superstition. The laws of the emperors exhibit some symptoms of milder disposition, but their cold and languid efforts were insufficient to stem the torrent of enthusiasm and rapine, which was conducted, or rather impelled, by the spiritual rulers of the church. In Gaul, the Holy Martin, bishop of Tours, marched at the head of his faithful monks to destroy the idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees of his extensive diocese, and in the execution of this arduous task, the prudent reader will judge whether Martin was supported by the aid of miraculous powers or of carnal weapons. In Syria, the divine and excellent Marcelus, as he is styled by Teodoret, a bishop animated with apostolic fervour, resolved to level with the ground the stately temples within the dioceses of Apamea. His attack was resisted by the skill and solidity with which the temple of Jupiter had been constructed, and the building was seated in an eminence. On each of the four sides, the lofty roof was supported by 15 massy columns, 16 feet in circumference, and a large stone of which they were composed, were firmly cemented with lead and iron. The force of the strongest and sharpest tools had been tried without effect. It was found necessary to undermine the foundations of the columns, which fell down as soon as the temporary wooden props had been consumed with fire, and the difficulties of the enterprise are described under the allegory of a black demon who retarded, though he could not defeat, the operations of the Christian engineers. Erated with victory, Marcelus took the field in person against the powers of darkness, an humorous troop of soldiers and gladiators marched under the episcopal banner, and he successively attacked the villages and country temples of the diocese of Apamea. Whenever any resistance or danger was apprehended, the champion of the faith, whose lameness would not allow him either to fight or fly, placed himself at a convenient distance beyond the reach of the arts. But this prudence was the occasion of his death. He was surprised and slain by a body of exasperated rustics, and a synod of the province pronounced without hesitation that the holy Marcelus had sacrificed his life in the course of God. In the support of this cause, the monks, who rushed with tumultuous fury from the desert, distinguished themselves by their zeal and diligence. They deserved the enmity of the pagans, and some of them might deserve the reproaches of avarice and intemperance, of avarice which they gratified with holy plunder, and of intemperance which they indulged at the expense of the people who foolishly admired their tattered garments, loud and salmony and artificial paleness. A small number of temples was protected by the fears, the venality, the taste, or the prudence of the civil and ecclesiastical governors. The temple of the celestial Venus at Carthage, whose sacred precincts formed a circumference of two miles, was judiciously converted into a Christian church, and a similar consecration has preserved in violet the majestic dome of the Pantheon at Rome, but in almost every province of the Roman world. An army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants, and the ruin or the fairest structures of antiquity still displaced the ravages of those barbarians, who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction. In this wide and various prospect of devastation, the spectator may distinguish the ruins of the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. Serapis does not appear to have been one of the native gods or monsters who sprung from the fruitful soil of superstitious Egypt. The first of the Ptolemies had been commanded by a dream to import the mysterious stranger from the coast of Pontus, where he had been long adored by the inhabitants of Sinope, but his attributes and his reign were so imperfectly understood that it became a subject of dispute whether he represented the bright orb of day or the gloomy monarch of the sub-terraneous regions. The Egyptians, who were obstinately devoted to the religion of their fathers, refused to admit this foreign deity within the walls of their cities, but the absicuous priests were seduced by the liberality of the Ptolemies, submitted without resistance to the power of the god of Pontus, an honorable and domestic genealogy was provided, and this fortunate usurper was introduced into the throne and bed of Osiris, the husband of Isis, and the celestial monarch of Egypt. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar protection, gloried in the name of the city of Serapis. His temple, which rivaled the pride and magnificence of the capital, was erected on the spacious summit of an artificial mount, raised 100 steps above the level of the adjacent parts of the city, and the interior cavity was strongly supported by arches and distributed into walls and sub-terraneous apartments. The consecrated buildings were surrounded by a quadrangular portico, the stately halls and exquisite statues, displayed the triumph of the arts, and the treasures of ancient learning were preserved in the famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with newsplendor from its ashes. After the edicts of Theodosius had severely prohibited the sacrifices of the pagans, they were still tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis, and this singular indulgence was imprudently ascribed to the superstitious terrors of the Christians themselves, as if they had feared to abolish those ancient rites, which could alone secure the inundations of the Nile, the harvests of Egypt, and the subsistence of Constantinople. At that time, the archbishopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, a bold, bad man whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood. His pious indignation was excited by the honors of Serapis, and the insults which he offered to an ancient temple of Bacchus convinced the pagans that he meditated a more important and dangerous enterprise. In the tumultuous capital of Egypt, the slightest provocation was sufficient to inflame a civil war. The votaries of Serapis, whose strength and numbers were much inferior to those of their antagonists, rose in arms at the instigation of the philosopher Olympius, who exhorted them to die in the defense of the altar of the gods. These pagan fanatics fortified themselves in the temple, or rather fortress of Serapis, repelled the besiegers by daring sallies, and the resolute defense and by the inhuman cruelties which they exercised on their Christian prisoners, obtained the last consolation of despair. The efforts of the prudent magistrate were usefully exerted for the establishment of a truce, till the answer of Theodosius should determine the fate of Serapis. The two parties assembled, without arms, in the principal square, and the imperial rescript was publicly read. But when a sentence of destruction against the idols of Alexandria was pronounced, the Christians set out a shout of joy and exaltation, whilst the unfortunate pagans, whose fury had given way to consternation, retired with hasty and silent steps, and eluded by their flight or obscurity the resentment of their enemies. Theophilus proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other difficulties than those which he found in the weight and solidity of the materials. But these obstacles proved so insuperable that he was obliged to leave the foundations, and to content himself with reducing the edifice itself to a heap of rubbish, a part of which was soon afterwards cleared away to make room for a church erected in honour of the Christian martyrs. The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed, and near 20 years afterwards the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice. The compositions of ancient genius, so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely have been accepted from the wreck of idolatry for the amusement and instruction of succeeding ages, and either the zeal or the avarice of the archbishop might have been satiated with the rich spoils which were the reward of his victory. While the images and vases of gold and silver were carefully melted, and those of a less valuable metal were contemptuously broken and cast into the streets, Telphilus laboured to expose the frauds and vices or the ministers of the idols, their dexterity in the management of the lodestone, their secret methods of introducing a human actor into a hollow statue, and their scandalous abuse of the confidence of the wild husbands and unsuspecting females. Charges like these may seem to deserve some degree of credit, as they are not repugnant to the crafty and interested spirit of superstition. But the same spirit is equally prone to the base practice of insulting and colluminating a fallen enemy, and our belief is naturally checked by the reflection that it is much less difficult to invent a fictitious story than to support a practical fraud. The colossal statue of Serapis was involved in the ruin of his temple and religion. A great number of plates of different metals artificially joined together composed the majestic figure of the deity who touched on either side the walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, his sitting posture and the skeptor, which he bore on his left hand, were extremely similar to the ordinary representations of Jupiter. He was distinguished from Jupiter by the basket or bushel, which was placed on his head, and by the emblematic monster which he held in his right hand. The head and body of a serpent branching into three tails, which were again terminated by the triple heads, the dog, a lion and a wolf. It was confidently affirmed that if any empire's hand should dare to violate the majesty of the god, the heavens and the earth would instantly return to their original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal and armed with a weighty battle axe, ascended the ladder, and even the Christian multitude expected with some anxiety the event of the combat. He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of Serapis. The cheek fell to the ground, the thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquility. The victorious soldier repeated his blows. The huge idol was overthrown and broken in pieces, and the limbs of Serapis were anonymously dragged through the streets of Alexandria. His mangled caucus was burned in the amphitheater amidst the shouts of the populace, and many persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the importance of their tutelor deity. The popular modes of religion that propose invisible and material objects of worship have the advantage of adapting and familiarizing themselves to the senses of mankind, but this advantage is counterbalanced by the various and inevitable accidents to which the fate of the idolator is exposed. It is scarcely possible that, in every disposition of mind, he should preserve his implicit reverence for the idols, for the relics with which the naked eye and the profane hand are unable to distinguish from the most common productions of art or nature, and if, in the hour of danger, their secret and miraculous virtue does not operate for their own preservation, he scorns the vain apologies of the priests and justly derights the object and the folly of his superstitious attachment. After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still entertained by the pagans that denial would refuse his annual supply to the pious masters of Egypt, and the extraordinary delay of the inundation seemed to announce this pleasure of the river god, but this delay was soon compensated by the rapid swell of the waters. This suddenly rose to such an unusual height as to comfort the discontented party, the pleasing expectation of a deluge, till the peaceful river against subsided to the well-known and fertilizing level of 16 qubits or about 30 English feet. The temples of the Roman Empire were deserted or destroyed, but the ingenious superstition of the pagans still attempted to elude the loss of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely prohibited. The inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was less opposed to the eye of malicious curiosity, disguised their religious, under the appearance of convivial, meetings. On the days of solemn festivals, they assembled in great numbers on the spreading shade of some consecrated trees, sheep and oxen were slaughtered and roasted, and this rural entertainment was sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns which were sung in honor of the gods. But it was alleged that, as no part of the animal was made a burnt offering, as no altar was provided to receive the blood, and as the previous oblation of salt cakes and the concluding ceremony of libations were carefully omitted, these festival meetings did not involve the guests in the guilt or penalty of an illegal sacrifice. Whatever might be the truth of the facts or the merit of the distinction, these vain pretenses were swept away by the last addict of Theodosius, which inflicted a deadly wound on the superstition of the pagans. This prohibitory law is expressed in the most absolute and comprehensive terms. It is our will and pleasure, says the Emperor, that none of our subjects were the magistrates or private citizens, however exalted or however humble maybe their rank and condition shall presume, in any city or in any place, to worship an inanimate idol by the sacrifice of a guiltless victim. The act of sacrificing and the practice of divination by the entrails of a victim are declared, without any regard to the object of the inquiry, a crime of high treason against the state, which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty. The riots of begging superstition, which might seem less bloody and detrocious, are abolished as highly injurious to the truth and honour of religion. Luminaries, garlands, frankincense and libations of wine are specially enumerated and condemned, and the harmless claims of the domestic genius or the household gods are included in this rigorous prescription. The use of any of these profane and illegal ceremonies subjects the offender to the forfeiture of the house or a state, where they have been performed, and if he has artfully chosen the property of another for the scene of his impiety, he is compelled to discharge, without delay, a heavy fine of 25 pounds of gold, or more than 1000 pounds sterling. A fine, not less considerable, is imposed on the connivance of the secret enemies of religion, who shall neglect the duty of their respective stations, either to reveal or to punish the guilt of idolatry. Such was the persecuting spirit of the laws of theodosius, which were repeatedly enforced by his sons and grandsons, with the loud and unanimous applause of the Christian world. End of chapter 28, part 2, recording by Monsbrew Helsingfors, Finland. Chapter 28, part 3 of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Monsbrew Helsingfors, Finland. Chapter 28, destruction of paganism, part 3. In the cruel reigns of Dequeus and the Euclesian, Christianity had been prescribed as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary religion on the empire, and the unjust suspicions which were entertained of a dark and dangerous faction were, in some measure, countenanced by the inseparable union and rapid conquests of the Catholic Church. But the same excuses of fear and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian emperors who violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel. The experience of ages had betrayed the weakness as well as the folly of paganism, the light of reason and of faith had already exposed to the greatest part of mankind the vanity of idols, and the declining sect which still adhered to their worship might have been permitted to enjoy in peace and obscurity the religious costumes of their ancestors. Had the pagans been animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed the minds of the primitive believers, the triumph of the Church must have been stained with blood, and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo might have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives and fortunes at the feet of their altars. But such obstinate zeal was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of polytheism. The violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were broken by the soft and yielding substance against which they were directed, and the radiobedience of the pagans protected them from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. Instead of asserting that the authority of the gods was superior to that of the Emperor, they desisted with a plaintive murmur from the use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. If they were sometimes tempted by a sally of passion or by the hopes of concealment to indulge their favorite superstition, their humble repentance disarmed the severity of the Christian magistrate, and they seldom refused to atone for their rashness by submitting with some secret reluctance to the yoke of the Gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of these unworthy proselytes who had conformed from temporal motives to the reigning religion, and whilst they devoutly imitated the postures and recited the prayers of the faithful, they satisfied their conscience by the silent and sincere invocation of the gods of antiquity. If the pagans wanted patients to suffer, they wanted the spirit to resist, and the scattered myriads who deplored the ruin of the temples yielded without a contest to the fortune of their adversaries. The disorderly opposition of the peasants of Syria and the populace of Alexandria to the rage of private fanaticism was silenced by the name and authority of the Emperor. The pagans of the West, without contributing to the elevation of eugenius, disgraced by their partial attachment to the cause and character of the usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed that he aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostasy, that by his permission the altar of victory was again restored, and that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules were displayed in the field against the invincible standard of the cross. But the vain hopes of the pagans were soon annihilated by the defeat of Abenius, and they were left exposed to the resentment of the conqueror, who labored to deserve the favour of heaven by the extirpation of idolatry. A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression. Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his pagan subjects the alternative of baptism or of death, and eloquently Banius has praised the moderation of a prince who never enacted by any positive law that all his subjects should immediately embrace and practice the religion of their sovereign. The profession of Christianity was not made an essential qualification for the enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar hardships imposed on the sectaries who credulously received the fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the gospel. The palace, the schools, the army and the senate, were filled with declared and devout pagans they obtained without distinction the civil and military honours of the empire. Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius by the consular dignity which he bestowed on Simacus, and by the personal friendship which he expressed to Lebanius, and the two eloquent apologists of paganism were neither required either to change or to disemble the religious opinions. The pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and writing. The historical and philosophical remains of Eunapius, Sozemus and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato betrayed the most furious animosity and contained the sharpest invectives against the sentiments and conduct of the victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels were publicly known, we must applaud the good sense of the Christian princes who viewed with a smile of contempt the last struggles of superstition and despair. But the imperial laws which prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies of paganism were rigidly executed and every hour contributed to destroy the influence of religion which was supported by custom rather than by argument. The devotion of the poet or the philosopher may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation and study, but the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid foundation of the religious sentiments of the people which derive their force from imitation and habit. The interruption of that public exercise may consummate in the period of a few years the important work of a national revolution. The memory of theological opinions cannot long be preserved without the artificial help of priests of temples and of books. The ignorant vulgar whose minds are still agitated by the blind hopes and terrors of superstition will be soon persuaded by their superiors to direct their vows to the reigning deities of the age and will insensibly imbibe an ardent zeal for the support and propagation of the new doctrine which spiritual hunger at first compelled them to accept. The generation that arose in the world after the promulgation of the imperial laws was attracted within the pale of the catholic church and so rapid, yet so gentle was the fall of paganism that only 28 years after the death of Theodosius the faint and minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the legislator. The ruin of the pagan religion is described by the Sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy which covered the earth with darkness and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate in solemn and pathetic strains that the temples were converted into sepulchres and that the holy places which had been adorned by the statues of the gods were basely polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. The monks, a race of filthy animals to whom Eonapius is tempted to refuse the name of men, are the authors of this new worship, which in the place of those deities who are conceived by the understanding has substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted and pickled of those infamous malefactors, who for the multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and anonymous death. Their bodies still marked by the impression of the lash and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the sentence of the magistrate. Such, continues Eonapius, are the gods which the earth produces in our days. Such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the deity whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of the people. Without approving the malice, it is natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the spectator of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of the loss of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible protectors of the Roman Empire. The grateful respect of the Christians for the martyrs of the faith was exalted by time and victory into religious adoration, and the most illustrious of the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honors of the martyrs. 150 years after the glorious deaths of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Vatican and the Austrian road were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of those spiritual heroes. In the age which followed the conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies devoutly visited the sepulchres of a tentmaker and a fisherman, and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars of Christ on which the bishops of the royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. The new capital of the eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent provinces. The bodies of Saint Andrew, Saint Luke, and Saint Timothy had reposed near 300 years in the obscure graves from whence they were transported in solemn pomp to the Church of the Apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded on the banks of the Tarakian Bosporus. About 50 years afterwards, the same banks were honored by the presence of Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a golden vase and covered with a silken veil, were delivered by the bishops into each other's hands. The relics of Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet. The highways from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople were filled with an uninterrupted procession, and the Emperor Arcadius himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guests, who had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. The example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of the saints and martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason, were universally established, and in the age of Ambrose and Jerome, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful. In the long period of 1200 years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model, and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations, which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation. One, the satisfactory experience that the relics of saints were more valuable than gold or precious stones, stimulated the clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons and actions for names. The fame of the apostles and the holy men who had imitated their virtues was darkened by religious fiction to the invincible band of genuine and primitive martyrs. They added myriads of imaginary heroes who had never existed except in the fancy or crafty or credulous legendaries, and there is reason to suspect that tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint. A superstitious practice which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world. Two, but the progress of superstition would have been much less rapid and victorious if the fate of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles to ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, a presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the village of Capar-Gamala, about 20 miles from the city, related a very singular dream which to remove his doubts had been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure stood before him in the silence of the night with a long beard, a white robe and a gold rod, announced himself by the name of Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished presbyter that his own corpse with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus, and illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added with some impatience that it was time to release himself and his companions from their obscure prison, that their appearance would be salutary to a distressed world, and that they had made choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still retarded this important discovery were successively removed by new visions, and the ground was opened by the bishop in the presence of an innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend were found in regular order, but when the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odour such as that a paradise was smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of 73 of the assistance. The companions of Stephen were left in the peaceful residence of Kapar Gamala, but the relics of the first martyr were transported in solemn procession to a church constructed in their honour on Mount Zion, and the minute particles of those relics, and drop of blood, or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged in almost every province of the Roman world to possess divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and learned Augustine, whose understanding scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen, and this marvellous narrative is inserted in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of Christianity. Augustine solemnly declares that he has selected those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons who were either the objects or the spectators of the power of the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted or forgotten, and Hippo has been less favourably treated than the other cities or the province, and yet the bishop enumerates above 70 miracles, of which three were resurrections on the dead in the space of two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. If we enlarge our view to all the dioceses and all the saints of the Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables and the errors which is sued from this inexhaustible source, but we may surely be allowed to observe that a miracle in that age of superstition and credulity lost its name and its merit since it could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and established laws of nature. Three, the innumerable miracles, or which the tombs of the martyrs were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the actual state and constitution of the invisible world, and his religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis of fact and experience, whatever might be the condition of vulgar souls. In the long interval between the dissolution and the resurrection of their bodies, it was evident that the superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. It was evident, without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity, that they enjoyed the lively and active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue and their powers, and that they had already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the measure of the human imagination, since it was proved by experience that they were capable of hearing and understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries, who in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of Martin. The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the appreciation that the saints who reigned with Christ cast an eye of pity upon earth, that they were warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic Church, and that the individuals who imitated the example of their faith and piety were the peculiar and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted kind. They viewed with partial affection the places which had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge may be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast, yet the saints themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of the liberality of their votaries, and the sharpest bolts of punishment were hurled against those impious wretches who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their supernatural power. Atrocious indeed must have been the guilt, and strange would have been the skepticism of those men if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind were compelled to obey. The immediate and almost instantaneous effects that were supposed to follow the prayer or the offense satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme God, and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace, or whether they might not be permitted to exercise according to the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship of the universal cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted, and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to restore the reign of polytheism. Four, as the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tartullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke with incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noon day, a gaudy, superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd consisting, for the most part, of strangers and pilgrims who resorted to the city on the vigil of the feast, and already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devote kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavements of the sacred edifice, and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs in the hope of obtaining, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings. They implored the preservation of their health, or the cure of their infirmities, the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook an distant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road, and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs to celebrate with grateful thanksgiving their obligation to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favours which they had received, eyes and hands and feet of golden silver, and edifying pictures which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutor or saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiving the credulity and of affecting the senses of mankind, but it must ingeniously be confessed that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of paganism if they found some resemblance, some compensation in the bosom of Christianity, the religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman Empire, but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals. End of chapter 28, part 3, recording by Monsbrew Helsingfors, Finland. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Volume 3, chapter 29, part 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 29, Division of the Roman Empire Between the Sons of Theodosius, part 1. Recording by Claude Banta. Final Division of the Roman Empire Between the Sons of Theodosius. Reign of Arcadius Andenorius. Administration of Rufinus and Stilicho. Revolt and defeat of Gildo in Africa. The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius, the last of the successors of Augustus and Constantine who appeared in the field at the head of their armies, and whose authority was universally acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the empire. The memory of his virtue still continued, however, to protect the feeble and inexperienced youth of his two sons. After the death of their father, Arcadius Andenorius were saluted by the unanimous consent of mankind as the lawful emperors of the east and of the west, and the oath of fidelity was eagerly taken by every order of the state, the senates of old and new Rome, the clergy, the magistrates, the soldiers, and the people. Arcadius, who was then about eighteen years of age, was born in Spain in the humble habitation of a private family, but he received a princely education in the palace of Constantinople, and his inglorious life was spent in that peaceful and splendid seat of royalty, from whence he appeared to reign over the provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Ethiopia. His younger brother Andenorius, assumed in the eleventh year of his age the nominal government of Italy, Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and the troops which guarded the frontiers of his kingdom, were opposed on one side to the Caledonians and on the other to the Moors. The great and martial prefecture of Illyricum was divided between the two princes. The defense and possession of the provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia still belonged to the western empire, but the two large dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia, which Gratian had entrusted to the valor of the Edocious, were forever united to the empire of the east. The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now separates the Germans and the Turks, and the respective advantages of territory, riches, populousness, and military strength were fairly balanced and compensated in this final and permanent division of the Roman empire. The hereditary scepter of the sons of the Edocious appeared to be the gift of nature and of their father. The generals and ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the royal infants, and the army and people were not admonished of their rights and of their power by the dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Anorius, and the repeated calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who still reverence the persons, or rather the names of their sovereigns, beheld with equal abhorrence, the rebels who opposed, and the ministers who abused, the authority of the throne. Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of Rufinus, an odious favorite who, in an age of civil and religious faction, has deserved from every party the imputation of every crime. The strong impulse of ambition and avarice had urged Rufinus to abandon his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, to advance his fortune in the capital of the east. The talent of bold and ready elocution qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of the law. And his success in that profession was a regular step to the most honorable and important employments of the state. He was raised, by just degrees, to the station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his various functions, so essentially connected with the whole system of civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who soon discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who long remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the covetousness of his disposition. These vices were concealed beneath the mask of profound dissimulation. His passions were subservient only to the passions of his master, yet, in the hard massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel Rufinus inflamed the fury without imitating the repentance of the Edocious. The minister, who viewed with proud indifference the rest of mankind, never forgave the appearance of an injury, and his personal enemies had forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services. Promotus, the master general of the infantry, had saved the empire from the invasion of the Ostrogoths, but he indignantly supported the preeminence of a rival, whose character and profession he despised, and in the midst of a public council, the impatient soldier was provoked to chastise with a blow the indecent pride of the favorite. This act of violence was represented to the emperor as an insult, which it was incumbent on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus were signified by a preemptory order to repair without delay to a military station on the banks of the Danube, and the death of that general, though he was slain in a skirmish with the barbarians, was imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. The sacrifice of a hero gratified his revenge. The honors of the consulship eladed his vanity, but his power was still imperfect and precarious, as long as the important posts of the Prefect of the East and of Prefect of Constantinople were failed by Tatian and his son Proclus, whose united authority balanced for some time the ambition and favor of the master of the offices. The two prefects were accused of repine and corruption in the administration of the laws and finances. For the trial of these illustrious offenders, the emperor constituted a special commission. Several judges were named to share the guilt and reproach of injustice, but the right of pronouncing sentence was reserved to the president alone, and that president was Rufinus himself. The father, stripped of the prefecture of the East, was thrown into a dungeon, but the son, conscious that few ministers can be found innocent where an enemy is their judge, had secretly escaped. And Rufinus must have been satisfied with the least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not condescended to employ the basest and most ungenerous artifice. The prosecution was conducted with an appearance of equity and moderation, which flattered Tatian with the hope of a favorable event. His confidence was fortified by the solemn assurances and perfidious oaths of the president, who presumed to interpose the sacred name of Theodosius himself. And the unhappy father was at last persuaded to recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proclus. He was instantly seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded in one of the suburbs of Constantinople, with a precipitation which disappointed the clemency of the emperor. Without respecting the misfortunes of a consular senator, the cruel judges of Tatian compelled him to behold the execution of his son. The fatal cord was fastened round his own neck. But in the moment when he expected, and perhaps desired, the relief of a speedy death, he was permitted to consume the miserable remnant of his old age in poverty and exile. The punishment of the two prefects might perhaps be excused by the exceptional parts of their own conduct. The enmity of Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous and unsociable nature of ambition. But he indulged a spirit of revenge equally repugnant to prudence and to justice, when he degraded their native country of Lycia from the rank of Roman provinces, stigmatized the guiltless people with a mark of ignomedy, and declared that the countrymen of Tatian and Proclus should forever remain incapable of holding any employment or honor of advantage under the imperial government. The new prefect of the east, for Rufinus instantly succeeded to the vacant honors of his adversary, was not diverted, however, by the most criminal pursuits from the performance of the religious duties, which in that age were considered as the most essential to salvation. In the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, he had built a magnificent villa, to which he devoutly added a stately church, consecrated to the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and continually sanctified by the prayers and penance of a regular society of monks. A numerous and almost general synod of the bishops of the Eastern Empire was summoned to celebrate at the same time the dedication of the church and the baptism of the founder. This double ceremony was performed with extraordinary pomp, and when Rufinus was purified in the holy font from all the sins that he had hithero committed, a venerable hermit of Egypt rashly proposed himself as the sponsor of a proud and ambitious statesman. The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of hypocrisy, which disguised and sometimes restrained the abusive power, and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolence lumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue which had raised him to the throne. But the absence, and soon afterwards the death of the emperor, confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and dominions of Arcadius, a feeble youth whom the imperious prefect considered as his pupil rather than his sovereign. Regardless of the public opinion, he indulged his passions without remorse and without resistance, and his malignant and rapacious spirit rejected every passion that might have contributed to his glory or the happiness of the people. His avarice, which seems to have prevailed in his corrupt mind over every other sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East by the various arts of partial and general extortion, oppressive taxes, scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confiscations, forced or fictitious testaments by which the tyrant dispoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of strangers or enemies, and the public sale of justice as well as a favor which he instituted in the palace of Constantinople. The ambitious candidate eagerly solicited at the expense of the fairest part of his patrimony, the honors and emoluments of some provincial government. The lives and fortunes of the unhappy people were abandoned to the most liberal purchaser, and the public discontent was sometimes appeased by the sacrifice of an unpopular criminal whose punishment was profitable only to the prefect of the East, his accomplice, and his judge. If avarice were not the blindest of the human passions, the motives of rutheness might excite our curiosity, and we might be tempted to inquire with what view he violated every principle of humanity and justice to accumulate those immense treasures which he could not spend without folly nor possessed without danger. Perhaps he vainly imagined that he labored for the interest of an only daughter on whom he intended to bestow his royal pupil and the august rank of empress of the East. Perhaps he deceived himself by the opinion that his avarice was the instrument of his ambition. He aspired to place his fortune on a secure and independent basis, which had no longer depended on the caprice of the young emperor. Yet he neglected to conciliate the hearts of the soldiers and people by the liberal distribution of those witches which he had acquired with so much toil and with so much guilt. The extreme parsimony of rutheness left him only the reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth. His dependent served him without attachment. The universal hatred of mankind was repressed only by the influence of servile fear. The fate of Lucian proclaimed to the East that the prefect, whose industry was much abated in the dispatch of ordinary business, was active and indefatigable in the pursuit of revenge. Lucian, the son of the prefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul and the enemy of Julian, had employed a considerable part of his inheritance, the fruit of repine and corruption, to purchase the friendship of rutheness, and the high office of Count of the East, but the new magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court and of the times, disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a virtuous and temperate administration, and presumed to refuse an act of injustice which might have tended to the profit of the emperor's uncle. Arcadius was easily persuaded to resent the supposed insult, and the prefect of the East resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance which he meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles from Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the dead of night, and spread universal consternation among a people ignorant of his design, but not ignorant of his character. The Count of the fifteen provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest malifactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rutheness. Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity, which was not impeached even by the voice of an accuser, Lucian was condemned, almost without a trial, to suffer a cruel and anonymous punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the orders and in the presence of their master, beat him on the neck with leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead, and when he fainted under the violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter to conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant city. No sooner had Rutheness perpetrated this inhuman act the sole object of his expedition than he returned amidst the deep and silent curses of a trembling people from Antioch to Constantinople, and his diligence was accelerated by the hope of accomplishing without delay the nuppetals of his daughter with the emperor of the East. But Rutheness soon experienced that a prudent minister should constantly secure his royal captive by the strong, though invisible, chain of habit, and that the merit, and much more easily the favor of the absent, are obliterated in a short time from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign, while the prefect satiated his revenged Antioch a secret conspiracy of the favorite eunuchs directed by the great Chamberlain Utropius undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople. They discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the daughter of Rutheness, who had been chosen without his consent for his bride, and they contrived to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter of Bouto, a general of the Franks in the service of Rome, and who was educated since the death of her father in the family of the sons of Promatus. The young emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious care of his tutor Arcenius, eagerly listened to the artful and flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia. He gazed with impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity of concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a minister who was so deeply interested to oppose the consummation of his happiness. Soon after the return of Rutheness, the approaching ceremony of the royal Nuppetals was announced to the people of Constantinople, who prepared to celebrate, with false and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his daughter. A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued in hymenal pomp from the gates of the palace, bearing a law for the diadem, the robes, and the inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators. But when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the principal eunuch respectfully entered the mansion, invested the fair Eudoxia with the imperial robes, and conducted her in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius. The secrecy and success, with which this conspiracy against Rutheness had been conducted, imprinted a mark of indelible ridicule on the character of a minister, who had suffered himself to be deceived in a post where the arts of deceit and dissimulation constitute the most distinguished merit. He considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the victory of an aspiring eunuch, who had secretly captivated the favour of his sovereign and the disgrace of his daughter, whose interest was inseparably connected with his own, wounded the tenderness or at least the pride of Rutheness. At the moment when he flattered himself, that he should become the father of a line of kings, a foreign maid who had been educated in the house of his implacable enemies was introduced into the imperial bed, and Eudoxia soon displayed a superiority of sense and spirit to improve the ascendant which her beauty must acquire over the mind of a fond and youthful husband. The emperor would soon be instructed to hate, to fear, and to destroy the powerful subject whom he had injured, and the consciousness of guilt to private Rutheness of every hope, either of safety or comfort, in the retirement of a private life. But he still possessed the most effectual means of defending his dignity and perhaps of oppressing his enemies. The prefect still exercised an uncontrolled authority over the civil and military government of the East, and his treasures, if he could resolve to use them, might be employed to procure proper instruments for the execution of the blackest designs. That pride, ambition, and revenge could suggest to a desperate statesman. The character of Rutheness seemed to justify the accusations that he conspired against the person of his sovereign to seat himself on the vacant throne, and that he had secretly invited the Huns and the Goths to invade the provinces of the empire, and to increase the public infusion. The subtle prefect whose life had been spent in the intrigues of the palace opposed with equal arms the artful measures of the Unicutropius, but the timid soul of Rutheness was astonished by the hostile approach of a more formidable rival of the great Stilicho, the general or rather the master of the empire of the West. The celestial gift which Achilles obtained and Alexander envied of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes has been enjoyed by Stilicho in a much higher degree than might have been expected from the declining state of genius and of art. The muse of Claudian devoted to his service was always prepared to stigmatize his adversaries, Rutheness or Utropius, with eternal infamy, or to paint in the most splendid colors the victories and virtues of a powerful benefactor. In the review of a period indifferently supplied with authentic materials we cannot refuse to illustrate the annals of Anorius from the invectives or the panagyrex of a contemporary writer. But as Claudian appears to have indulged the most ample privilege of a poet and a courtier, some criticism will be requisite to translate the language of fiction or exaggeration into the truth and simplicity of historic prose. His silence concerning the family of Stilicho may be admitted as a proof that his patron was neither able nor desirous to boast of a long series of illustrious progenitors, and the slight mention of his father, an officer of barbarian cavalry in the service of valens, seems to countenance the assertion that the general, who so long commanded the armies of Rome, was descended from the savage and perfidious race of the vandals. If Stilicho had not possessed the external advantages of strength and stature, the most flattering bard in the presence of so many thousand spectators would have hesitated to affirm that he surpassed the measure of the demigods of antiquity, and that whenever he moved with lofty steps through the streets of the capital, the astonished crowd made room for the stranger who displayed in a private condition the awful majesty of a hero. From his earliest youth he embraced the profession of arms, his prudence and valor were soon distinguished in the field, the horsemen and archers of the East admired his superior dexterity, and in each degree of his military promotions the public judgment always prevented and approved the choice of the sovereign. He was named by Theodosius to ratify a solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia. He supported during that important embassy the dignity of the Roman name, and after he returned to Constantinople his merit was rewarded by an intimate and honorable alliance with the imperial family. The Eodosius had been prompted by a pious motive of eternal affection to adopt for his own the daughter of his brother Anorius. The beauty and accomplishments of Serena were universally admired by the obsequious court, and Stilichot obtained the preference over a crowd of rivals who ambitiously disputed the hand of the princess and the favor of her adopted father. The assurance that the husband of Serena would be faithful to the throne, which he was permitted to approach, engaged the emperor to exalt the fortunes and to employ the abilities of the sagacious and intrepid Stilichot. He rose through the successive steps of master of the horse and count of the domestics to the supreme rank of master general of all the cavalry and infantry of the Roman or at least of the western empire, and his enemies confessed that he invariably disdained to barter for gold the rewards of merit or to defraud the soldiers of the pay and gratifications which they deserved or claimed from the liberality of the state. The valor and conduct which he afterwards displayed at the defense of Italy against the arms of Alaric and Ragadesius may justify the fame of his early achievements in an age less attentive to the laws of honor or of pride. The Roman generals might yield the preeminence of rank to the ascendant of superior genius. He lamented and revenged the murder of Promotus, his rival and his friend, and the massacre of many thousands of the flying Bostarnay is represented by the poet as a bloody sacrifice which the Roman Achilles offered to the mains of another protroclus. The virtues and victories of Stilichot deserve the hatred of Rufinus, and the arts of Calumni might have been successful if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic foes whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of the empire. The Edocious continued to support an unworthy minister to whose diligence he delegated the government of the palace and of the east, but when he marched against the tyrant Eugenius he associated his faithful general to the labors and glories of the civil war, and in the last moments of his life the dying monarch recommended to Stilichot the care of his sons and of the republic. The ambition and the abilities of Stilichot were not unequal to the important trust, and he claimed the guardianship of the two empires during the minority of Arcadius and Anorius. The first measure of his administration, or rather of his reign, displayed to the nations the vigor and the activity of his spirit worthy to command. He passed the Alps in the depth of winter, descended the stream of the Rhine from the fortress of Basil to the marshes of Batavia, reviewed the state of the garrisons, repressed the enterprises of the Germans, and after establishing along the banks a firm and honorable peace returned with incredible speed to the palace of Milan. The person and court of Anorius were subject to the master general of the west, and the armies and provinces of Europe obeyed without hesitation a regular authority which was exercised in the name of their young sovereign. Two rivals only remained to dispute the claims and to provoke the vengeance of Stilichot. Within the limits of Africa, Gildo the Moor maintained a proud and dangerous independence, and the minister of Constantinople asserted his equal reign over the emperor and the empire of the east. Chapter 29 Division of the Roman Empire Between the Sons of Theodosius Part 2 The impartiality which Stilichot affected as the common guardian of the royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the equal division of the arms, the jewels, and the magnificent wardrobe and furniture of the deceased emperor. But the most important object of the inheritance consisted of the numerous legions, cohorts, and squadrons of Romans or barbarians whom the event of the civil war had united under the standard of Theodosius. The various multitudes of Europe and Asia, exasperated by recent animosities, were overawed by the authority of a single man, and the rigid discipline of Stilichot protected the lands of the citizens from the repine of licentious soldier. Anxious, however, and impatient to relieve Italy from the presence of this formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers of the empire, he listened to the just requisition of the minister of Arcadius, declared his intention of reconducting in person the troops of the east, and dexterously employed the rumor of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private designs of ambition and revenge. The guilty soul of Raphinas was alarmed by the approach of a warrior and a rival whose enmity he deserved. He computed with increasing terror the narrow space of his life and greatness, and as a last hope of safety, he interposed the authority of the emperor Arcadius. Stilichot, who appears to have directed his march along the sea coast of the Adriatic, was not far distant from the city of Thessalonica when he received a preemptory message to recall the troops of the east and to declare that his nearer approach would be considered by the Byzantine court as an act of hostility. The prompt and unexpected obedience of the general of the west convinced the vulgar of his loyalty and moderation. And, as he had already engaged the affection of the eastern troops, he recommended to their zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be accomplished in his absence with less danger perhaps and with less reproach. Stilichot left the command of the troops of the east to guiness the gulf, on whose fidelity he firmly relied, with an assurance at least, that the hardy barbarians would never be diverted from his purpose by any consideration of fear or remorse. The soldiers were easily persuaded to punish the enemy of Stilichot and of Rome, and such was the general hatred which Raphinas had excited, that the fatal secret communicated to thousands was faithfully preserved during a long march from Thessalonica to the gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had resolved his death, they condescended to flatter his pride. The ambitious prefect was seduced to believe that those powerful auxiliaries might be tempted to place a diadem on his head, and the treasures which he distributed with a tardy and reluctant hand were accepted by the indignant multitude as an insult rather than as a gift. At the distance of a mile from the capital in the field of Mars before the palace of Hebdemon, the troops halted, and the emperor as well as his minister advanced, according to the ancient custom, respectfully to salute the power which supported their throne. As Raphinas passed along the ranks and disguised with studied courtesy, his innate haughtiness, the wings insensibly wheeled from the right and left, and enclosed the devoted victim within the circle of their arms. Before he could reflect on the danger of his situation, Gaines gave the signal of death, a daring and forward soldier punched his sword into the breast of the guilty prefect, and Raphinas fell, groaned, and expired at the feet of the frightened emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate the crimes of a whole life, or if the outrage is inflicted on a breathless corpse could be the object of pity, our humanity might perhaps be affected by the horrid circumstances which accompanied the murder of Raphinas. His mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds from every quarter of the city to trample on the remains of the haughty minister at whose frown they had so lately trembled. His right hand was cut off and carried through the streets of Constantinople in cruel mockery to extort contributions for the avaricious tyrant whose head was publicly exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long lance. According to the savage maxims of the Greek republics, his innocent family would have shared the punishment of his crimes. The wife and daughter of Raphinas were indebted for their safety to the influence of religion. Hare sanctuary protected them from the raging madness of the people, and they were permitted to spend their remainder of their lives in the exercise of Christian devotions in the peaceful retirement of Jerusalem. Under the name of a favorite, the weakness of Arcadius required a master, but he naturally preferred the obsequious arts of the eunuch Utropius, who had obtained his domestic confidence, and the emperor contemplated with terror and aversion the stern genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided by the jealousy of power, the sword of Guinus and the charms of Eudoxia supported the favor of the great Chamberlain to the palace. The perfidious god, who was appointed master general of the east, betrayed without scruple the interest of his benefactor, and the same troops who had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho were engaged to support against him the independence of the throne of Constantinople. The favorites of Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcilable war against a formidable hero who aspired to govern and to defend the two empires of Rome and the two sons of Theodosius. They incessantly labored by dark and treacherous machinations to deprive them of the esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the friendship of the barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the dagger of hired assassins, and a decree was obtained from the Senate of Constantinople to declare him an enemy of the Republic and to confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the east. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union and reciprocal aid of all the nations to whom it had been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other in a foreign and even hostile light, to rejoice in their mutual calamities, and to embrace their faithful allies, the barbarians, whom they excited to invade the territories of their countrymen. The natives of Italy affected to despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who presumed to imitate the dress and to assert the dignity of Roman senators. And the Greeks had not yet forgot the sentiments of hatred and contempt, which their polished ancestors had so long entertained for the rude inhabitants of the west. The distinction of two governments, which soon produced the separation of two nations, will justify my design of suspending the series of the Byzantium history to prosecute without interruption the disgraceful but memorable reign of Honorius. Gildo, the brother of the tyrant firmus, had preserved and obtained as their award of his apparent fidelity the immense patrimony which was forfeited by treason. Long and meritorious service in the armies of Rome raised him to the dignity of a military count. The narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted the mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by the interest of a powerful family. And the brother of firmus was invested with the command of Africa. His ambitions soon usurped the administration of justice and of the finances without account and without control. And he maintained during a reign of twelve years the possession of an office from which it was impossible to remove him without the danger of the civil war. During those twelve years the provinces of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with the partial resentments of domestic faction. The forms of law were often superseded by the use of poison and if the trembling guests who were invited to the table of Gildo presumed to express fears the insolence suspicion served only to excite his fury and he loudly summoned the ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions of avarice and lust and if his days were terrible to the rich his nights were not less dreadful to the husbands and parents. The fairest of their wives and daughters were prostituted to the embraces of the tyrant and afterwards abandoned to a ferocious troop of barbarians and assassins. The black or swarthing natives of the desert whom Gildo considered as the only guardians of his throne. In the civil war between Theodosius and Eugenus the count or rather the sovereign of Africa maintained a haughty and suspicious neutrality, refused to exist either the contending parties with troops or vessels, expected the declaration of fortune and reserved for the conqueror the vain professions of his allegiance. Such professions would not have satisfied the master of the Roman world but the death of Theodosius and the weakness and discord of his sons confirmed the power of the Moor who condescended as a proof of his moderation to abstain from the use of the diadem and to supply Rome with the customary tribute or rather subsidy of corn. In every division of the empire the five provinces of Africa were invariably assigned to the west and Gildo had to govern that extensive country in the name of Honorius but his knowledge of the character and designs of Stilichot soon engaged him to address his homage to a more distant and feeble sovereign. The ministers of Arcadius embraced the cause of a perfidious rebel and the delusive hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to the empire of the east tempted them to assert a claim which they were incapable of supporting either by reason or by arms when Stilichot had given a firm and decisive answer to the pretensions of the Byzantine court. He solemnly accused the tyrant of Africa before the tribunal which had formally judged the kings and nations of the earth and the image of the republic was revived after a long interval under the reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and ample detail of the complaints of the provincials and the crimes of Gildo to the Roman senate and the members of that venerable assembly were required to pronounce the condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous suffrage declared an enemy of the republic and the decree of the senate added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms. A people who still remember that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded with conscious pride the representation of ancient freedom if they had not since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the harvests of Africa and it was evident that a declaration of war would be the signal of famine. The cause of Rome and the conduct of the African war were entrusted by Stilichot to a general active and ardent to avenge his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The spirit of discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal had excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons Gildo and Massa Zell. The usurper pursued with implacable rage the life of his younger brother whose courage and abilities he feared and Massa Zell oppressed by superior power seek refuge in the court of Milan where he soon received the cruel intelligence that his two innocent and helpless children had been murdered by their inhuman uncle. The affliction of the father was suspended only by the desire of revenge. The vigilant Stilichot already prepared to collect the naval and military force of the western empire and he had resolved if the tyrant should be able to wage an equal and doubtful war to march against him in person. But as Italy required his presence and as it might be dangerous to weaken the frontier he judged it more advisable that Massa Zell should attempt this arduous adventure at the head of a chosen body of Gaelic veterans who had lately served and extorted to convince the world that they could subvert as well as defend the throne of a usurper. Consisting of the Jovian, Urkulian and the Augustan legions and of the Nervian auxiliaries of the soldiers who displayed in their banners a symbol of a lion and of the troops which were distinguished by the auspicious names of fortunate and invincible. Yet such was a smallness of their establishments or of the difficulty of recruiting that these seven bands of high dignity and reputation in the service of Rome amounted to no more than 5,000 effective men. The fleet of galleys and transport sailed in tempestuous weather from the port of Pisa in Tuscany and steered their course to the little island of Capraria which had borrowed that name from the wild goats its original inhabitants whose place was occupied by a new colony of strange and salvage appearance. The whole island says an ingenious traveler of those times is filled or rather defiled by men who fly from the light. They call themselves monks or solitaires because they choose to live alone without any witness of their actions. They fear the gifts of fortune from the apprehension of losing them and lest they should be miserable they embrace a life of voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice how perverse their understanding to dread the evils without being able to support the blessings of the human condition. Either this melancholy madness is the effect of disease or exercised on their own bodies by the tortures which are inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice. Such was the contempt of a profane magistrate for the monks as the chosen servants of God. Some of them were persuaded by his entreaties to embark on board the fleet and it is observed to praise the Roman general that his days and nights were employed in prayer fasting and the occupation of singing psalms. The devout leader who with such reinforcement appeared confident of victory avoided the dangerous rocks of Corsica coasted along the eastern side of Sardinia and secured his ships against the violence of the south wind by casting anchor in the capacious harbor of Caligari at the distance of 140 miles from the African shore. Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the forces of Africa by the liberality of his gifts and promises. He endeavored to secure the doubtful allegiance of the Roman soldiers whilst he attracted to his standard the distant tribes of Gaetulia and Ethiopia. He proudly reviewed an army of 70,000 men and boasted with the rash presumption which is a forerunner of disgrace that his numerous cavalry would trample under their horses feet the troops of Mossacelle and involve in a cloud of burning sand the natives of the cold regions of Gaul and Germany. But the Moor who commanded the legions of Honorius was too well acquainted with the manners of his countrymen to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked and disorderly host of barbarians whose left arm instead of a shield was protected only by Mantle who were totally disarmed as soon as they had darted their javelins from their right hand and whose horses he had never seen. He fixed his camp of 5,000 veterans in the face of a superior enemy and after the delay of three days gave the signal of a general engagement. As Mossacelle advanced before the front with fair offers of peace and pardon he encountered one of the foremost standard bearers of the Africans and on his refusal to yield struck him on the arm with his sword. The arm and the standard sunk under the weight of the blow and the imaginary act of submission was hastily repeated by all the standards of the line. At this the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their lawful sovereign the barbarians astonished by the defection of their Roman allies dispersed according to their custom in tumultary flight and Mossacelle obtained the easy and almost bloodless victory. The tyrant escaped from the field of battle to the seashore and threw himself into a small vessel with the hope of reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the east but the obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the harbor of Tobracca which had acknowledged with the rest of the province the dominion of honorius and the authority of his lieutenant. The inhabitants as proof of their repentance and loyalty seized and confined the person of gildo in a dungeon and his own despair saved him from the intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured and victorious brother. The captives and the spoils of Africa were laid at the feet of the emperor but more sincere in the midst of prosperity still affected to consult the laws of the republic and referred to the senate and people of Rome the judgment of the most illustrious criminals. Their trial was public and solemn but the judges in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious jurisdiction were impatient to punish the african magistrates who had intercepted the subsistence of the roman people. The rich and guilty province was oppressed by the imperial ministers who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices of gildo and if an edict of honorius seems to check the malicious industry of informers a subsequent edict at the distance of 10 years continues and renews the prosecution of which has been committed in the time of general rebellion. The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first fury of the soldiers and the judges might derive some consolation from the tragic fate of his brother who could never obtain his pardon from the extraordinary services which he had performed. After he had finished an important war in the space of a single winter Masa Zell was received at the court of Milan with loud applause affected gratitude and secret jealousy and his death which perhaps was the effect of passage over a bridge. The Moorish prince who accompanied the master general of the west was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river. The officious haste of the attendants who was on the countenance of stilicho and while they delay the necessary assistance the unfortunate Masa Zell was irrecoverably drowned. The joy of the african triumph was happily connected with the knuppetles of the emperor Anorius and of his cousin Maria the daughter of stilicho and this equal and honorable alliance seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive pupil. The muse of Claudine was not silent on this propitious day. He sung in various and lively strains the happiness of the royal pair and the glory of the hero who confirmed their union and supported their throne. The ancient fables of Greece which had almost ceased to be the object of religious faith were saved from oblivion by the genius of poetry. The picture of the Cyprian Grove the seat of harmony and love the triumphant progress of Venus over her native seas and the mild influence which her press diffused in the palace of Milan expressed to every age the natural sentiments of the heart in the just and pleasing language of allegorical fiction. But the amorous impatience which Claudine attributes to the young prince must excite the smiles of the court and his beautacious spouse if she deserved the prize of beauty had not much to fear or to hope from the passions of her lover. Anorius was only in the 14th year of his age. Serena the mother of his bride deferred by art of persuasion the consummation of the royal knuppetles. Maria died a virgin after she had been 10 years a wife and the chastity of the emperor was secured by the coldness perhaps the debility of his constitution. His subjects who had tentatively studied the character of their young sovereign discovered that Anorius was without passions and consequently without talents and that his feeble and languid disposition was alike and capable of discharging the duties of his rank or of enjoying the pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made some progress in the exercise of writing and drawing the bow but he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations and the amusements of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the west who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skillful hand of his guardian Stilichot. The experience of history will countenance the suspicion that a prince who was born in the purple received a worse education than the meanest peasant of his dominions and that the ambitious minister suffered him to attain the age of manhood without attempting to excite his courage or to enlighten his understanding. The predecessors of Anorius were accustomed to animate by their example or at least by their presence the valor of the legions and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman world but the son of the Edocious passed the slumber of his life a captive in his palace a stranger in his country and the patient almost the indifferent spectator of the ruin of the western empire which was repeatedly attacked and finally subverted by the arms of the barbarians in the eventful history of a reign of 28 years it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Anorius and a