 CHAPTER 27. Civil Wars, Reign of Theodosius, Part I. Death of Gratian, Ruin of Arianism, Saint Ambrose, First Civil War Against Maximus, Character Administration and Penance of Theodosius, Death of Valentinian II, Second Civil War Against Eugenius, Death of Theodosius. The fame of Gratian, before he had accomplished the twentieth year of his age, was equal to that of the most celebrated princes. His gentle and amiable disposition endeared him to his private friends. The graceful affability of his manners engaged the affection of the people, the men of letters who enjoyed the liberality, acknowledged the taste and eloquence of their sovereign. His valor and dexterity in arms were equally applauded by the soldiers, and the clergy considered the humble piety of Gratian as the first and most useful of his virtues. The victory of Comar had delivered the West from a formidable invasion, and the grateful provinces of the East ascribed the merits of Theodosius to the author of his greatness and of the public safety. Gratian survived those memorable events only four or five years, but he survived his reputation, and before he fell a victim to rebellion he had lost in a great measure the respect and confidence of the Roman world. The remarkable alteration of his character or conduct may not be imputed to the arts of flattery, which had besieged the son of Valentinian from his infancy, nor to the headstrong passions which that gentle youth appears to have escaped. A more attentive view of the life of Gratian may perhaps suggest the true cause of the disappointment of the public hopes. His apparent virtues, instead of being the hearty productions of experience and adversity, were the premature and artificial fruits of a royal education. The anxious tenderness of his father was continually employed to bestow on him those advantages which he might perhaps esteem the more highly as he himself had been deprived of them, and the most skillful masters of every science and of every art had labored to form the mind and body of the young prince. The knowledge which they painfully communicated was displayed with ostentation and celebrated with lavish praise. His soft and tractable disposition received the fair impression of their judicious precepts, and the absence of passion might easily be mistaken for the strength of reason. His preceptors gradually rose to the rank and consequence of ministers of state, and as they wisely dissembled their secret authority he seemed to act with firmness, with propriety and with judgment on the most important occasions of his life and reign. But the influence of this elaborate instruction did not penetrate beyond the surface, and the skillful preceptors who so accurately guided the steps of their royal pupil could not infuse in his feeble and indolent character the vigorous and independent principle of action, which renders the laborious pursuit of glory essentially necessary to the happiness and almost to the existence of the hero. As soon as time an accident had removed those faithful counselors from the throne, the emperor of the west insensibly descended to the level of his natural genius, abandoned the reins of government to the ambitious hands which were stretched forward to grasp them, and amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications. A public sale of favor and injustice was instituted, both in the court and in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his power, whose merit it was made sacrilege to question. The conscience of the credulous prince was directed by saints and bishops, who procured an imperial edict to punish, as a capital offense, the violation, the neglect, or even the ignorance of the divine law. Among the various arts which had exercised the youth of Gratian, he had applied himself, with singular inclination and success, to manage the horse, to draw the bow, and to dart the javelin, and these qualifications, which might be useful to a soldier, were prostituted to the vile or purposes of hunting. Large parks were enclosed for the imperial pleasures, and plentifully stocked with every species of wild beasts, and Gratian neglected the duties, and even the dignity of his rank, to consume whole days in the vain display of his dexterity and boldness in the chase. The pride in which of the Roman emperor to excel in an art, in which he might be surpassed by the meanest of his slaves, reminded the numerous spectators of the examples of Nero and Comedus. But the chaste and temperate Gratian was a stranger to their monstrous vices, and his hands were stained only with the blood of animals. The behavior of Gratian, which degraded his character in the eyes of mankind, could not have disturbed the security of his reign, if the army had not been provoked to resent their peculiar injuries. As long as the young emperor was guided by the instructions of his masters, he professed himself the friend and pupil of the soldiers. Many of his hours were spent in the familiar conversation of the camp, and the health, the comforts, the rewards, the honors of his faithful troops, appeared to be the objects of his attentive concern. But after Gratian more freely indulged his prevailing taste for hunting and shooting, he naturally connected himself with the most dexterous ministers of his favorite amusement. A body of the Alani was received into the military and domestic service of the palace, and the admirable skill which they were accustomed to display in the unbounded plains of Scythia was exercised on a more narrow theater in the parks and enclosures of Gaul. Gratian admired the talents and customs of these favorite guards, to whom alone he entrusted the defense of his person, and, as if he meant to insult the public opinion, he frequently showed himself to the soldiers and people with the dress and arms, the longbow, the sounding quiver, and the fur garments of a Scythian warrior. The unworthy spectacle of a Roman prince, who had renounced the dress and manners of his country, filled the minds of the legions with grief and indignation. Even the Germans, so strong and formidable in the armies of the empire, affected to disdain the strange and horrid appearance of the savages of the North, who, in the space of a few years, had wandered from the banks of the Volga to those of the Sen. Allowed in Lysentius murmur was echoed through the camps and garrisons of the West, and as the mild indolence of Gratian neglected to extinguish the first symptoms of discontent, the want of love and respect was not supplied by the influence of fear. But the subversion of an established government is always a work of some real, and of much apparent difficulty, and the throne of Gratian was protected by the sanctions of custom, law, religion, and the nice balance of the civil and military powers. Which had been established by the policy of Constantine. It is not very important to inquire from what caused the revolt of Britain was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of disorder. The seeds of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and usurpers. The legion of that sequestered island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance, and the name of Maximus was proclaimed by the tumultiary but unanimous voice both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor, or the rebel, for this title was not yet ascertained by fortune, was a native of Spain, the countrymen, the fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius, whose elevation he had not seen without some emotions of envy and resentment. The events of his life had long since fixed him in Britain, and I should not be unwilling to find some evidence for the marriage which he is said to have contracted with the daughter of a wealthy lord of Canarvonshire. With this provincial rank might justly be considered as a state of exile and obscurity, and if Maximus had obtained any civil or military office, he was not invested with the authority either of general or governor. His abilities and even his integrity are acknowledged by the partial writers of the age, and the merit must indeed have been conspicuous that could extort such a confession in favour of the vanquished enemy of Theodosius. The discontent of Maximus might incline him to censure the conduct of his sovereign, and to encourage, perhaps, without any views of ambition the murmurs of the troops. But in the midst of the tumult he artfully or modestly refused to ascend the throne, and some credit appears to have been given to his own positive declaration that he was compelled to accept the dangerous present of the imperial purple. But there was danger likewise in refusing the empire, and from the moment that Maximus had violated his allegiance to his lawful sovereign he could not hope to reign, or even to live, if he confined his moderate ambition within the narrow limits of Britain. He boldly and wisely resolved to prevent the designs of Gratian, the youth of the island crowded to his standard, and he invaded Gaul with a fleet and army which were long afterwards remembered as the emigration of a considerable part of the British nation. The emperor, in his peaceful residence of Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach, and the darts which he idly wasted on lions and bears might have been employed more honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts announced his degenerate spirit and desperate situation, and deprived him of the resources which he still might have found in the support of his subjects and allies. The armies of Gaul, instead of opposing the march of Maximus, received him with joyful and loyal acclamations, and the shame of the desertion was transferred from the people to the prince. The troops who stationed more immediately attached them to the service of the palace abandoned the standard of Gratian the first time that it was displayed in the neighborhood of Paris. The emperor of the west fled toward Lyon with a train of only three hundred horse, and in the cities along the road where he hoped to find refutes, or at least a passage, he was taught by cruel experience that every gate is shut against the unfortunate. Yet he might still have reached, in safety, the dominions of his brother, and soon have returned with the forces of Italy and the east if he had not suffered himself to be fatally deceived by the perfidious governor of the Lyonnaise province. Gratian was amused by protestations of doubtful fidelity and the hopes of a support which could not be effectual till the arrival of Androgatheus, the general of the Calvary of Maximus, put an end to his suspense. That resolute officer executed, without remorse, the orders or the intentions of the usurper. Gratian, as he rose from his supper, was delivered into the hands of the assassin, and his body was denied to the pious and pressing entreaties of his brother, Valentinian. The death of the emperor was followed by that of his powerful general, Melobotus, the king of the Franks, who maintained to the last moment of his life the ambiguous reputation which is the just recompense of obscure and subtle policy. These executions might be necessary to the public's safety, but the successful usurper, whose power was acknowledged by all the provinces of the west, had the merit and the satisfaction of boasting that, except those who had not perished by the chance of war, his triumph was not stained by the blood of the Romans. The events of this revolution had passed in such rapid succession that it would have been impossible for Theodosius to march to the relief of his benefactor, before he received the intelligence of his defeat and death. During the season of sincere grief, or ostentatious mourning, the eastern emperor was interrupted by the arrival of the principal chamberlain of Maximus, and the choice of a venerable old man, for an office which was usually exercised by units, announced to the court of Constantinople the gravity and temperance of the British usurper. The ambassador condescended to justify or excuse the conduct of his master, and to protest in specious language that the murder of Gratian had been perpetrated without his knowledge or consent by the precipitant zeal of the soldiers, but he proceeded in a firm and equal tone to offer Theodosius the alternative of peace or war. The speech of the ambassador concluded with a spirited declaration that although Maximus as a Roman and as the father of his people would choose rather to employ his forces in the common defense of the Republic, he was armed and prepared if his friendship should be rejected to dispute in a field of battle the empire of the world. An immediate and peremptory answer was required, but it was extremely difficult for Theodosius to satisfy on this important occasion either the feelings of his own mind or the expectations of the public. The imperious voice of honor and gratitude called aloud for revenge. From the liberality of Gratian he had received the imperial diadem. His patience would encourage the odious suspicion that he was more deeply sensible of former injuries than of recent obligations, and that if he accepted the friendship he must seem to share the guilt of the assassin. Even the principles of justice and the interest of society would receive a fatal blow from the impunity of Maximus, and the example of a successful usurpation would tend to dissolve the artificial fabric of government, and once more to replunge the empire in the crimes and calamities of the preceding age. But as the sentiments of gratitude and honor should invariably regulate the conduct of an individual, they may be overbalanced in the mind of a sovereign by the sense of superior duties, and the maxims both of justice and humanity must permit the escape of an atrocious criminal if an innocent people would be involved in the consequences of his punishment. The assassin of Gratian had usurped, but he actually possessed the most war-like provinces of the empire. The East was exhausted by the misfortunes and even by the success of the Gothic war, and it was seriously to be apprehended that, after the vital strength of the Republic had been wasted in a doubtful and destructive contest, the feeble conqueror would remain an easy prey to the barbarians of the North. These weighty considerations engaged the Edocious to disassemble his resentment and to accept the alliance of the tyrant. But he stipulated that Maximus should content himself with the possessions of the countries beyond the Alps. The brother of Gratian was confirmed and secured in the sovereignty of Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum, and some honorable conditions were inserted in the treaty to protect the memory and the laws of the deceased emperor. According to the custom of the age, the images of the three imperial colleagues were exhibited to the veneration of the people, nor should it be lightly supposed that, in the moment of a solemn reconciliation, the Edocious secretly cherished the intention of perfidity and revenge. The contempt of Gratian for the Roman soldiers had exposed him to the fatal effects of their resentment. His profound veneration for the Christian clergy was rewarded by the applause and gratitude of a powerful order, which has claimed in every age the privilege of dispensing honors both on earth and in heaven. The orthodox bishops bewailed his death and their own irreparable loss, but they were soon comforted by the discovery that Gratian had committed the scepter of the east to the hands of a prince, whose humble faith and fervent zeal were supported by the spirit and abilities of a more vigorous character. Among the benefactors of the church the fame of Constantine has been rivaled by the glory of the Edocious. If Constantine had the advantage of erecting the standard of the cross, the emulation of his successor assumed the merit of subduing the Aryan heresy, and of abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. The Edocious was the first of the emperors baptized in the true faith of the Trinity. Although he was born of a Christian family, the maxims, or at least the practice of the age encouraged him to delay the ceremony of his initiation till he was admonished of the danger of delay by the serious illness which threatened his life towards the end of the first year of his reign. Before he again took the field against the Goths, he received the sacrament of baptism from Acolyus, the orthodox bishop of Thessalonica, and as the emperor ascended from the holy font, still glowing with the warm feelings of regeneration, he dictated a solemn edict which proclaimed his own faith and prescribed the religion of his subjects. It is our pleasure, such is the imperial style, that all the nations which are governed by our clemency and moderation should standfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans, which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now professed by the Pontiff de Masses and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the discipline of the apostles and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, under an equal majesty and a pious trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to assume the title of Catholic Christians, and as we judge that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them with the infamous name of heretics, and declare that their conventicals shall no longer usurp the respectable appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice they must expect to suffer the severe penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict upon them. The faith of a soldier is commonly the fruit of instruction, rather than of inquiry, but as the emperor always fixed his eyes on the visible landmarks of orthodoxy, which he had so prudently constituted, his religious opinions were never affected by the specious texts, the subtle arguments, and the ambiguous creeds of the Aryan doctors. Once indeed he expressed a faint inclination to converse with the eloquent and learned Eunomius, who lived in retirement at a small distance from Constantinople. But the dangerous interview was prevented by the prayers of the emperous Flaquilla, who trembled for the salvation of her husband, and the mind of the Edocious was confirmed by a theological argument adapted to the rudest capacity. He had lately bestowed on his eldest son, Arcadius the name and honors of Augustus, and the two princes were seated on a stately throne to receive the homage of their subjects. A bishop, Amphilochius of Iconium, approached the throne, and after saluting, with due reverence, the person of his sovereign, he accosted the royal youth with the same familiar tenderness which he might have used towards a plebeian child. Provoked by this insolent behavior, the monarch gave orders that the rustic priest should be instantly driven from his presence. But while the guards were forcing him to the door, the dexterous polemic had time to execute his design by exclaiming with a loud voice, such is the treatment, O Emperor, which the King of Heaven has prepared for those impious men who affect to worship the Father but refuse to acknowledge the equal majesty of his divine son. The Edocious immediately embraced the bishop of Iconium and never forgot the important lesson which he had received from this dramatic parable. CHAPTER 27 THE ARCHAPISCOPAL THRONE OF MASSEDONIUS Their diocese enjoyed a free importation of vice and error from every province of the empire. The eager pursuit of religious controversy afforded a new occupation to the busy idleness of the metropolis, and we may credit the assertion of an intelligent observer who describes with some pleasantry the effects of their loquacious seal. This city, says he, is full of mechanics and slaves who are, all of them, profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to chains a piece of silver, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father. If you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of a reply that the Son is inferior to the Father, and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son was made out of nothing. The heretics of various denominations subsisted in peace under the protection of the Arians of Constantinople, who endeavored to secure the attachment of those obscure secretaries while they abused with unrelenting severity the victory which they had obtained over the followers of the Council of Nice. During the partial reigns of Constantius and Valens, the feeble remnant of the Homocians was deprived of the public and private exercise of their religion, and it has been observed, in pathetic language, that the scattered flock was left without a shepherd to wander on the mountains or to be devoured by rapacious wolves. As their zeal, instead of being subdued, derived strength and vigor from oppression, they seized the first moments of imperfect freedom which they had acquired by the death of Valens to form themselves into a regular congregation under the conduct of an Episcopal pastor. Two natives of Cappadocia, Basil, and Gregory Nazanianzen, were distinguished above all their contemporaries by the rare union of profane eloquence and of orthodox piety. These orders, who might sometimes be compared by themselves and by the public to the most celebrated of the ancient Greeks, were united by the ties of the strictest friendship. They had cultivated, with equal ardour, the same liberal studies in the schools of Athens. They had retired with equal devotion to the same solitude in the deserts of Pontus, and every spark of emulation or envy appeared to be totally extinguished in the holy and ingenious breasts of Gregory and Basil. But the exaltation of Basil, from a private life to the arch-episcopal throne of Caesarea, discovered to the world, and perhaps to himself, the pride of his character, and the first favor which he condescended to bestow on his friend, was received and perhaps was intended as a cruel insult. Instead of employing the superior talents of Gregory in some useful and conspicuous station, the haughty prelates selected, among the fifty bishoprics of his extensive province, the wretched village of Sesima, without water, without verdure, without society, situate at the junction of three highways, and frequented only by the incessant passage of rude and clamorous wagoners. Gregory submitted with reluctance to this humiliating exile. He was ordained bishop of Sesima, but he solemnly protested that he never consummated his spiritual marriage with this disgusting bride. He afterwards consented to undertake the government of his native church of Nazianzus, of which his father had been bishop above five and forty years. But as he was still conscious that he had deserved another audience and another theatre, he accepted, with no unworthy ambition, the honorable invitation which was addressed to him from the Orthodox Party of Constantinople. On his arrival in the capital Gregory was entertained in the house of Apias and charitable kinsmen. The most spacious room was consecrated to the uses of religious worship, and the name of Anastasia was chosen to express the resurrection of the Nicene faith. This private conventical was afterwards converted into a magnificent church, and the credulity of the seceding age was prepared to believe the miracles and visions which attested to the presence, or at least the protection, of the mother of God. The pulpit of the Anastasia was the scene of the labours and triumphs of Gregory Nazianzus, and in the space of two years he experienced all the spiritual adventures which constitute the prosperous or adverse fortunes of a missionary. The Aryans, who were provoked by the boldness of his enterprise, represented his doctrine as if he had preached three distinct and equal deities, and the devout populace was excited to suppress, by violence and tumult, the irregular assemblies of the Athenacean heretics. From the cathedral of Saint Sophia there issued a motley crowd of common beggars who had forfeited their claim to pity, of monks who had the appearance of goats or sadders, and of women more terrible than so many Jezebel's. The doors of the Anastasia were broken open, much mischief was perpetrated or attempted with sticks, stones, and fire-brands, and as a man lost his life in the affray Gregory, who was summoned the next morning before the magistrate, had the satisfaction of supposing, that he publicly confessed the name of Christ. After he was delivered from the fear and danger of a foreign enemy, his infant church was disgraced and distracted by intestine faction. A stranger who assumed the name of Maximus, and the cloak of a cynic philosopher, insinuated himself into the confidence of Gregory, deceived and abused his favourable opinion, and forming a secret connection with some bishops of Egypt, attempted by clandestine ordination, to supplant his patron in the Episcopal seat of Constantinople. These mortifications might sometimes tempt the Cappadocian missionary to regret his obscure solitude. But his fatigues were rewarded by the daily increase of his fame and his congregation, and he enjoyed the pleasure of observing that the greater part of his numerous audience retired from his sermons satisfied with the eloquence of the preacher, or dissatisfied with the manifold imperfections of their faith and practice. The Catholics of Constantinople were animated with joyful confidence by the baptism and edict of Theodosius, and they impatiently waited the effects of his gracious promise. Their hopes were speedily accomplished, and the emperor, as soon as he had finished the operations of the campaign, made his public entry into the capital at the head of a victorious army. The next day after his arrival he summoned Demophilus to his presence, and offered that Arian Prelate the hard alternative of subscribing to the Nicene Creed, or of instantly resigning to the Orthodox believers the use and possession of the Episcopal palace, the Cathedral of Saint Sophia, and all the churches of Constantinople. The zeal of Demophilus, which in a Catholic saint would have been justly applauded, embraced without hesitation a life of poverty and exile, and his removal was immediately followed by the purification of the imperial city. The Arians might complain, with some appearance of justice, that an inconsiderable congregation of sectaries should usurp the hundred churches which they were insufficient to fill, whilst the far greater part of the people was cruelly excluded from every place of religious worship. Theodosius was still inexorable, but as the angels who had protected the Catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith, he prudently reinforced those heavenly legions with the more effectual aid of temporal and carnal weapons, and the Church of Saint Sophia was occupied by a large body of the imperial guards. If the mind of Gregory was susceptible of pride he must have felt a very lively satisfaction, when the emperor conducted him through the streets in solemn triumph, and with his own hand respectfully placed him on the arch-episcopal throne of Constantinople. But the saint, who had not subdued the imperfections of human virtue, was deeply affected by the mortifying consideration that his entrance into the fold was that of a wolf, rather than of a shepherd, that the glittering arms which surrounded his person were necessary for his safety, and that he alone was the object of the implications of a great party, whom as men and citizens it was impossible for him to despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude of either sex, and of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, and the roofs of the houses. He heard the tumultuous voice of rage, grief, astonishment, and despair, and Gregory fairly confesses that on the memorable day of his installation the capital of the East were the appearance of a city taken by storm, and in the hands of a barbarian conqueror. About six weeks afterwards the Edocious declared his resolution of expelling from all the churches of his dominions the bishops and their clergy who should obstinately refuse to believe, or at least to profess, the doctrine of the Council of Nice. His lieutenant, Sapor, was armed with the ample powers of a general law, a special commission, and a military force, and this ecclesiastical revolution was conducted with so much discretion and vigor that the religion of the emperor was established, without tumult or blood shed in all the provinces of the East. The writings of the Aryans, if they had been permitted to exist, would perhaps contain the lamentable story of the persecution which afflicted the church under the reign of the impious the Edocious, and the sufferings of their holy confessors might claim the pity of the disinterested reader. Yet there is reason to imagine that the violence of zeal and revenge was, in some measure, eluded by the want of resistance, and that in their adversity the Aryans displayed much less firmness than had been exerted by the Orthodox Party under the reigns of Constantius and Valens. The moral character and conduct of the hostile sects appear to have been governed by the same principles of nature and religion, but a very material circumstance may be discovered which tended to distinguish the degrees of their theological faith. Both parties in the schools as well as in the temples acknowledged and worshiped the Divine Majesty of Christ, and, as we are always prone to impute our own sentiments and passions to the deity, it would be deemed more prudent and respectful to exaggerate than to circumscribe the adorable perfections of the Son of God. The disciple of Athanasius exalted in the proud confidence that he had entitled himself to the Divine Favor, while the follower of Arius must have been tormented by the secret apprehension that he was guilty, perhaps, of an unpardonable offense by the scanty praise and parsimonious honors which he bestowed on the judge of the world. The opinions of Arianism might satisfy a cold and speculative mind, but the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, most powerfully recommended by the merits of faith and devotion, was much better adapted to become popular and successful in a believing age. The hope that truth and wisdom would be found in the assemblies of the Orthodox clergy induced the Emperor to convene, at Constantinople, a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops, who proceeded, without much difficulty or delay, to complete the theological system which had been established on the Council of Nice. The vehement disputes of the fourth century had been chiefly employed on the nature of the Son of God, and the various opinions which were embraced concerning the second were extended and transferred by a natural analogy to the third person of the Trinity. But it was found, or it was thought necessary, by the victorious adversaries of Arianism to explain the ambiguous language of some respectable doctors, to confirm the faith of the Catholics, and to condemn an unpopular and inconsistent sect of Macedonians who freely admitted that the Son was consubstantial to the Father while they were fearful of seeming to acknowledge the existence of three gods. A final and unanimous sentence was pronounced to ratify the equal deity of the Holy Ghost. The mysterious doctrine has been received by all the nations and all the churches of the Christian world, and their grateful reverence has assigned to the bishops of the Edocious the second rank among the general councils. Their knowledge of religious truth may have been preserved by tradition, or it may have been communicated by inspiration, but the sober evidence of history will not allow much weight to the personal authority of the fathers of Constantinople. In an age when the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the model of apostolic purity, the most worthless and corrupt were always the most eager to frequent and to disturb the Episcopal assemblies. The conflict and fermentation of so many opposite interests and tempers inflamed the passions of the bishops, and their ruling passions were the love of gold and the love of dispute. Many of the same prelates who now applauded the orthodox piety of the Edocious had repeatedly changed, with prudent flexibility, their creeds and opinions, and in the various revolutions of the church and state, the religion of their sovereign was the rule of their obsequious faith. When the Emperor suspended his prevailing influence, the turbulent Synod was blindly impelled by the absurd or selfish motives of pride, hatred, or resentment. The death of Miletius, which happened at the Council of Constantinople, presented the most favorable opportunity of terminating the schism of Antioch, by suffering his aged rival, Paulinus, peaceably to end his days in the Episcopal chair. The faith and virtues of Paulinus were unblemished, but his cause was supported by the Western Churches, and the bishops of the Synod resolved to perpetrate the mischiefs of discord by the hasty ordination of a perjured candidate, rather than to betray the imagined dignity of the East, which had been illustrated by the birth and death of the Son of God. Such unjust and disorderly proceedings forced the gravest members of the Assembly to dissent and to secede, and the clamorous majority, which remained masters of the field of battle, could be compared only to wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes or to a flock of geese. A suspicion may possibly arise that so unfavorable a picture of ecclesiastical synods has been drawn by the partial hand of some obstinate heretic, or some malicious infidel. But the name of the sincere historian who has conveyed this instructive lesson to the knowledge of posterity must silence the important murmurs of superstition and bigotry. He was one of the most pious and eloquent bishops of the age, a saint and a doctor of the Church, the scourge of Arianism, and the pillar of the Orthodox faith, a distinguished member of the Council of Constantinople, in which, after the death of Malicious, he exercised the functions of President, in a word, Gregory Nazanienzen himself. The harsh and ungenerous treatment which he had experienced, instead of derogating from the truth of his evidence, affords an additional proof of the Spirit which actuated the deliberations of the Synod. Their unanimous suffrage had confirmed the pretensions which the Bishop of Constantinople derived from the choice of the people, and the approbation of the Emperor. But Gregory soon became the victim of Malice and Enby. The bishops of the East, his strenuous adherents, provoked by his moderation in the affairs of Antioch, abandoned him, without support to the adverse faction of the Egyptians, who disputed the validity of his election, and rigorously asserted the obsolete canon that prohibited the licentious practice of Episcopal translations. The pride or the humility of Gregory prompted him to decline a contest which might have been imputed to ambition and avarice, and he publicly offered, not without some mixture of indignation, to renounce the government of a church which had been restored and almost created by his labors. His resignation was accepted by the Synod, and by the Emperor, with more readiness than he seems to have expected. At the time when he might have hoped to enjoy the fruits of his victory, his Episcopal throne was filled by the Senator Nectarius, and the new Archbishop, accidentally recommended by his easy temper and venerable aspect, was obliged to delay the ceremony of his consecration till he had previously dispatched the rites of his baptism. After this remarkable experience of the ingratitude of princes and prelates, Gregory retired once more to his obscure solitude of Cappadocia, where he employed the remainder of his life about eight years in the exercises of poetry and devotion. The title of saint has been added to his name, but the tenderness of his heart and the elegance of his genius reflect a more pleasing luster on the memory of Gregory Nazanianzen. It was not enough that the Edotius had suppressed the insolent reign of Arianism, or that he had abundantly revenged the injuries which the Catholics sustained from the zeal of Constantius and Valens. The Orthodox Emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and earth, and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty. The decrees of the Council of Constantinople had ascertained the true standard of the faith, and the ecclesiastics who governed the conscience of the Edotius suggested the most effectual methods of persecution. In the space of fifteen years he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics, more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favor, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of heretics, and the passions of the legislature were expressed in the language of declamation and invective. 1. The heretical teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of bishops or presbyters, were not only excluded from the privileges and emoluments so liberally granted to the orthodox clergy, but they were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation if they presumed to preach the doctrine or to practice the rights of their accursed sex. A fine of ten pounds of gold, above four hundred pounds sterling, was imposed on every person who should dare to confer or receive or promote an heretical ordination, and it was reasonably expected that if the race of pastors could be extinguished their hopeless flocks would be compelled by ignorance and hunger to return within the pale of the Catholic Church. 2. The rigorous prohibition of conventicals was carefully extended to every possible circumstance in which the heretics could assemble with the intention of worshiping God and Christ according to the dictates of their conscious. Their religious meetings, whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the country, were equally prescribed by the edicts of Theodosius, and the building or ground which had been used for that illegal purpose was forfeited to the imperial domain. 3. It was supposed that the error of the heretics could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds, and that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment. The anethemas of the Church were fortified by a sort of civil excommunication which separated them from their fellow-citizens by a peculiar brand of infamy, and this declaration of the supreme magistrate tended to justify, or at least to excuse, the insults of a fanatic populace. The sectaries were gradually disqualified from the possession of honorable or lucrative employments, and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice, when he decreed that, as the Unomians distinguished the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills or of receiving any advantage from testamentary donations. The guilt of the Manichaean heresy was esteemed of such magnitude that it could be expiated only by the death of the offender, and the same capital punishment was inflicted on the audience or courtodessamans who should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating on an improper day the festival of Easter. Every Roman might exercise the right of public accusation, but the office of inquisitors of the faith, a name so deservedly abhorred, was first instituted under the reign of Theodosius. Yet we are assured that the execution of his penal edits was seldom enforced, and that the pious emperor appeared less desirous to punish than to reclaim or terrify his refactory subjects. The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius, whose justice and piety have been applauded by the saints, but the practice of it, in its fullest extent, was reserved for his rival and colleague Maximus, the first among the Christian princes who shed the blood of his Christian subjects on account of their religious opinions. The cause of the prosilieness, a recent sect of heretics, who disturbed the provinces of Spain, was transferred by appeal from the Synod of Bordeaux to the imperial consistory of Treves, and by the sentence of the Praetorian Prefect, seven persons were tortured, condemned, and executed. The first of these was prosilien himself, Bishop of Avila in Spain, who adorned the advantages of birth and fortune by the accomplishments of eloquence and learning. Two presbyters and two deacons accompanied their beloved master in his death, which they esteemed as a glorious martyrdom, and the number of religious victims was completed by the execution of Latronian, a poet who rivaled the fame of the ancients, and of Eurotia, a noble matron of Bordeaux, the widow of the orator Delphidius. Two bishops who had embraced the sentiments of prosilien were condemned to a distant and dreary exile, and some indulgence was shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed the merit of an early repentance. If any credit could be allowed to convessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports, the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the prosilieness, would be found to include the various abominations of magic, of impiety and of lewdness. Prosilien, who wandered about the world in the company of his spiritual sisters, was accused of praying start-naked in the midst of the congregation, and it was confidently asserted that the effects of his criminal intercourse with the daughter of Eurotia had been suppressed by means still more odious and criminal. But an accurate or rather candid inquiry will discover that if the prosilieness violated the laws of nature it was not by livilessentiousness but by the austerity of their lives. They absolutely condemned the use of the marriage-bed, and the peace of families was often disturbed by indiscreet separations. They enjoyed or recommended a total abstinence from all animal food, and their continual prayers, fasts and vigils, inculcated a rule of strict and perfect devotion. The speculative tenets of the sect concerning the person of Christ and the nature of the human soul were derived from the Gnostic and Manichean system, and this vain philosophy, which had been transported from Egypt to Spain, was ill-adapted to the grosser spirits of the West. The obscure disciples of prosilien suffered languished and gradually disappeared. His tenets were rejected by the clergy and people, but his death was the subject of a long and vehement controversy, while some arraigned and others applauded the justice of his sentence. It is with pleasure that we can observe the human inconsistency of the most illustrious saints and bishops, ambrose of Milan and martin of Tor, who on this occasion asserted the cause of toleration. They pity the unhappy men who had been executed at Trev. They refused to hold communion with their episcopal murderers, and if Martin deviated from that generous resolution his motives were laudable and his repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pronounced, without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics, but they were surprised and shocked by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of theology. The humanity of ambrose and martin was confirmed by the scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against prosilien and his adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministered has transgressed the limits of their respective provinces. The secular judge had presumed to receive an appeal and to pronounce a definitive sentence in a matter of faith and an episcopal jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced themselves by exercising the functions of accusers in a criminal prosecution. The cruelty of Ithachias, who beheld the tortures and solicited the death of the heretics, provoked the just indignation of mankind, and the vices of that profligate bishop were admitted as a proof that his zeal was instigated by the sordid motives of interest. Since the death of prosilien, the rude attempts of persecution have been refined and methodized in the Holy Office, which assigns their distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular powers. The devoted victim is regularly delivered by the priest to the magistrate, and by the magistrate to the executioner, and the inexorable sentence of the church, which declares the spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed in the mild language of pity and intercession. CHAPTER 27 CIVIL WARS, RAIN OF THE IDOCHIAS, PART III Among the ecclesiastics who illustrated the reign of the Idoches, Gregory Nazanianzen was distinguished by the talents of an eloquent preacher. The reputation of miraculous gifts added weight and dignity to the monastic virtues of Martin of Tours, but the palm of episcopal vigor and ability was justly claimed by the intrepid ambrose. He was descended from a noble family of Romans. His father had exercised the important office of Praetorian Prefective Gaul, and the son, after passing through the studies of a liberal education, attained in the regular gradation of civil honors the station of consular of Liguria, a province which included the imperial residence of Milan. At the age of thirty-four, and before he had received the sacrament of baptism, the palm of episcopal vigor and the palm of episcopal vigor was suddenly transformed from a governor to an archbishop. Without the least mixture, as it is said, of art or intrigue, the whole body of the people unanimously saluted him with the episcopal title. The concord and perseverance of their acclamations were ascribed to a preternatural impulse, and the reluctant magistrate was compelled to undertake a spiritual office for which he was not prepared by the habits and occupations of his former life. But the active force of his genius soon qualified him to exercise, with zeal and prudence, the duties of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and while he cheerfully renounced the vain and splendid trappings of temporal greatness, he condescended, for the good of the church, to direct the conscience of the emperors, and to control the administration of the empire. Gracian loved and revered him as a father, and the elaborate treatise on the faith of the Trinity was designed for the instruction of the young prince. After his tragic death at a time when the Empress Justina trembled for her own safety, and for that of her son Valentinian, the Archbishop of Milan was dispatched on two different embassies to the court of Trev. He exercised with equal firmness and dexterity the powers of his spiritual and political characters, and perhaps contributed, by his authority and eloquence, to check the ambition of Maximus and to protect the peace of Italy. Maximus had devoted his life and his abilities to the service of the church. Wealth was the object of his contempt. He had renounced his private patrimony, and he sold without hesitation the consecrated plate for the redemption of captives. The clergy and people of Milan were attached to their archbishop, and he deserved the esteem without soliciting the favour or apprehending the displeasure of his feeble sovereigns. The government of Italy and of the young emperor naturally devolved to his mother Justina, a woman of beauty and spirit, but who in the midst of an orthodox people had the misfortune of professing the Aryan heresy, which she endeavored to instill into the mind of her son. Justina was persuaded that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own dominions, the public exercise of his religion, and she proposed to the archbishop as a moderate and a reasonable concession that he should resign the use of a single church, either in the city or in the suburbs of Milan. But the conduct of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. The palaces of the earth might indeed belong to Caesar, but the churches were the houses of God, and within the limits of his diocese he himself, as the lawful successor of the apostles, was the only minister of God. The privileges of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual, were confined to the true believers, and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth and orthodoxy. The archbishop who refused to hold any conference or negotiation with the instruments of Satan declared with modest firmness his resolution to die a martyr rather than to yield to the impious sacrilege, and Justina, who resented the refusal as an act of insolence and rebellion, hastily determined to exert the imperial prerogative of her son. As she desired to perform her public devotions on the approaching Festival of Easter, Ambrose was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the summons with the respect of a faithful subject, but he was followed without his consent by an innumerable people. They pressed with impetuous zeal against the gates of the palace, and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead of pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of Milan, humbly requested that he would interpose his authority to protect the person of the emperor and to restore the tranquility of the capital. But the promises which Ambrose received and communicated were soon violated by a perfidious court, and during six of the most solemn days, which Christian piety had set apart for the exercise of religion, the city was agitated by the irregular convulsions of tumult and fanaticism. The officers of the household were directed to prepare first the portion and afterwards the new basilica for the immediate reception of the emperor and his mother. The splendid canopy and hangings of the royal seat were arranged in the customary manner, but it was found necessary to defend them, by a strong guard from the insults of the populace. The Aryan ecclesiastics who ventured to show themselves in the streets were exposed to the most imminent danger of their lives, and Ambrose enjoyed the merit and reputation of rescuing his personal enemies from the hands of the enraged multitude. But while he labored to restrain the effects of their zeal, the pathetic vehemence of his sermons continually inflamed the angry and seditious temper of the people of Milan. The characters of Eve, the wife of Job, of Jezebel, of Herodias, were indecently applied to the mother of the emperor, and her desire to obtain a church for the Aryans was compared to the most cruel persecutions which Christianity had endured under the reign of paganism. The measures of the court served only to expose the magnitude of the evil. A fine of two hundred pounds of gold was imposed on the corporate body of merchants and manufacturers. An order was signified in the name of the emperor to all the officers and inferior servants of the courts of justice, that during the continuance of the public disorders they should strictly confine themselves to their houses, and the ministers of Valentinian imprudently confessed that the most respectable part of the citizens of Milan was attached to the cause of their archbishop. He was again solicited to restore peace to his country by timely compliance with the will of his sovereign. The reply of Ambrose was couched in the most humble and respectable terms, which might, however, be interpreted as a serious declaration of civil war. His life and fortune were in the hands of the emperor, but he would never betray the Church of Christ, or degrade the dignity of the episcopal character. In such a cause he was prepared to suffer whatever the malice of the daemon could inflict, and he only wished to die in the presence of his faithful flock, and at the foot of the altar. He had not contributed to excite, but it was in the power of God alone to appease the rage of the people. He deprecated the scenes of blood and confusion which were likely to ensue, and it was his fervent prayer that he might not survive to behold a ruin of a flourishing city, and perhaps the desolation of all Italy. The obstinate bigotry of Justina would have endangered the empire of her son, if in this contest with the church and people of Milan she could have depended on the active obedience of the troops of the palace. A large body of Goths had marched to occupy the Basilica, which was the object of the dispute, and it might be expected from the Arian principles and barbarous manners of these foreign mercenaries that they would not entertain any scruples in the execution of the most sanguinary orders. They were encountered on the sacred threshold by the Archbishop, who, rendering against them a sentence of excommunication, asked them in the tone of a father and a master whether it was to invade the house of God that they had implored the hospitable protection of the Republic. The suspense of the barbarians allowed some hours for a more effectual negotiation, and the Empress was persuaded, by the advice of her wisest counselors, to leave the Catholics in possession of all the churches in Milan, and to dissemble, till a more convenient season, her intentions of revenge. The mother of Valentinian could never forgive the triumph of Ambrose, and the royal youth uttered a passionate exclamation that his own servants were ready to betray him into the hands of an insolent priest. The laws of the Empire, some of which were inscribed with the name of Valentinian, still condemned the Arian heresy, and seemed to excuse the resistance of the Catholics. By the influence of Justina an edict of toleration was promulgated in all the provinces which were subject to the court of Milan. The free exercise of their religion was granted to those who professed the faith of remedy, and the Emperor declared that all persons who should infringe this sacred and salutary constitution should be capitally punished as the enemies of the public peace. The character and language of the Archbishop of Milan may justify the suspicion that his conduct soon afforded a reasonable ground, or at least a specious pretense, to the Arian ministers, who watched the opportunity of surprising him in some act of disobedience to a law which he strangely represents as a law of blood and tyranny. A sentence of easy and honorable banishment was pronounced, which enjoined Ambrose to depart from Milan without delay, whilst it permitted him to choose the place of his exile and the number of his companions. But the authority of the saints, who have preached and practiced the maxims of passive loyalty, appeared to Ambrose of less moment than the extreme and pressing danger of the Church, and his refusal was supported by the unanimous consent of his faithful people. They guarded by turns the person of their Archbishop, the gates of the Cathedral and the Episcopal Palace were strongly secured, and the Imperial troops who had formed the blockade were unwilling to risk the attack of that impregnable fortress. The numerous poor, who had been relieved by the liberality of Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion of signalizing their zeal and gratitude, and, as the patience of the multitude might have been exhausted by the length and uniformity of nocturnal vigils, he prudently introduced into the Church of Milan the useful institution of a loud and regular psalmody. While he maintained this arduous contest, he was instructed by a dream to open the earth in a place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and Protaceus, had been depositive above three hundred years. Only under the pavement of the Church two perfect skeletons were found, with the heads separated from their bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. The holy relics were presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the people, and every circumstance of this fortunate discovery was admirably adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. The bones of the martyrs, their blood, their garments, were supposed to contain a healing power, and the preternatural influence was communicated to the most distant objects without losing any part of its original virtue. The extraordinary care of a blind man, and the reluctant confession of several demoniacs, appeared to justify the faith and sanctity of Ambrose, and the truth of those miracles is attested by Ambrose himself, by his secretary, Polanus, and by his proselytite, the celebrated Augustine, who at that time professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The reason of the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of Justina and her Aryan court, who derided the theatrical representations which were exhibited by the contrivance, and at the expense of the archbishop. Their effect, however, on the minds of the people, was rapid and irresistible, and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself unable to contend with the favor of heaven. The powers likewise of the earth interposed in the defense of Ambrose, the disinterested advice of the Adotius was the genuine result of piety and friendship, and the mask of religious zeal concealed the hostile and ambitious designs of the tyrant of Gaul. The reign of Maximus might have ended in peace and prosperity, could he have contented himself with the possession of three ample countries, which now constitute the three most flourishing kingdoms of modern Europe. But the aspiring usurper, whose sordid ambition was not dignified by the love of glory and of arms, considered his actual forces of the instruments only of his future greatness, and his success was the immediate cause of his destruction. The wealth which he extorted from the oppressed provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain was employed in levying and maintaining a formidable army of barbarians, collected for the most part from the fiercest nations of Germany. The conquest of Italy was the object of his hopes and preparations, and he secretly meditated the ruin of an innocent youth whose government was abhorred and despised by his Catholic subjects. But as Maximus wished to occupy, without resistance, the passes of the Alps, he received, with perfidious smiles, Dominus of Syria, the ambassador of Valentinian, and pressed him to accept the aid of a considerable body of troops, for the service of a Panonian war. The penetration of Ambrose had discovered the snares of an enemy under the professions of friendship, but the Syrian Dominus was corrupted or deceived by the liberal favour of the court of Trev, and the Council of Milan obscenely rejected the suspicion of danger with a blind confidence which was the effect, not of courage but of fear. The march of the auxiliaries was guided by the ambassador, and they were admitted, without distrust, into the fortress of the Alps. But the crafty tyrant followed, with hasty and silent footsteps in the rear, and, as he diligently intercepted all intelligence of his motions, the gleam of armour and the dust excited by the troops of cavalry, first announced the hostile approach of a stranger to the gates of Milan. In this extremity Justina and her son might accuse their own imprudence, and the perfidious arts of Maximus, but they wanted time and force and resolution to stand against the Gauls and Germans, either in the field or within the walls of a large and disaffected city. Flight was their only hope, Aquilea their only refuge, and as Maximus now displayed his genuine character, the brother of Gratian might expect the same fate from the hands of the same assassin. Maximus entered Milan in triumph, and if the wise archbishop refused a dangerous and criminal connection with the usurper, he might indirectly contribute to the success of his arms by inculcating from the pulpit the duty of resignation rather than that of resistance. The unfortunate Justina reached Aquilea in safety, but she distrusted the strength of the fortifications, she dreaded the event of a siege, and she resolved to implore the protection of the great Diodosius, whose power and virtue were celebrated in all the countries of the West. A vessel was secretly provided to transport the imperial family, they embarked with precipitation in one of the obscure harbors of Venetia, or Istria, traversed the whole extent of the Adriatic and Ionian seas, turned the extreme promontory of Peloponnesus, and after a long but successful navigation, reposed themselves in the port of Thessalonica. All the subjects of Valentinian deserted the cause of a prince, who by his abdication had absolved them from the duty of allegiance, and if the little city of Ammonia, on the verge of Italy, had not presumed to stop the career of his inglorious victory, Maximus would have obtained, without a struggle, the sole possession of the Western Empire. Instead of inviting his royal guest to take the palace of Constantinople, Diodosius had some unknown reasons to fix their residence at Thessalonica, but these reasons did not proceed from contempt or indifference, as he speedily made a visit to that city, accompanied by the greatest part of his court and senate. After the first tender expressions of friendship and sympathy, the pious emperor of the East gently admonished Justina that the guilt of heresy was sometimes punished in this world, as well as in the next, and that the public profession of the Nicene faith would be the most efficacious step to promote the restoration of her son, by the satisfaction which it must occasion both on earth and in heaven. The momentous question of peace or war was referred by Diodosius to the deliberation of his counsel, and the arguments which might be alleged on the side of honor and justice had acquired, since the death of Gratian, a considerable degree of additional weight. The persecution of the imperial family, to which Diodosius himself had been indebted for his fortune, was now aggravated by recent and repeated injuries. Neither oaths nor treaties could restrain the boundless ambition of Maximus, and the delay of vigorous and decisive measures, instead of prolonging the blessings of peace, would expose the Eastern Empire to the danger of a hostile invasion. The barbarians, who had passed the Danube, had lately assumed the character of soldiers and subjects, but their native fierceness was yet untamed, and the operations of a war, which would exercise their valor and diminish their numbers, might tend to relieve the provinces from an intolerable oppression. Notwithstanding these specious and solid reasons, which were approved by a majority of the counsel, Diodosius still hesitated whether he should draw the sword in a contest which could no longer admit any terms of reconciliation, and his magnanimous character was not disgraced by the apprehensions which he felt for the safety of his infant sons and the welfare of his exhausted people. In this moment of anxious doubt, while the fate of the Roman world depended on the resolution of a single man, the charms of the Princess Gala most powerfully pleaded the cause of her brother, Valentinian. The heart of Diodosius was softened by the tears of beauty, his affections were insensibly engaged by the graces of youth and innocence, the art of Justina managed and directed the impulses of his passion, and the celebration of the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil war. The unfeeling critics who consider every amorous weakness as an indelible stain on the memory of a great and orthodox emperor are inclined on this occasion to dispute the suspicious evidence of the historian Zosimus. For my own part I shall frankly confess that I am willing to find, or even to seek, in the revolutions of the world some traces of the mild and tender sentiments of domestic life, and amidst the crowd of fierce and ambitious conquerors I can distinguish with peculiar complacency a gentle hero who may be supposed to receive his armor from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king was secured by the faith of treaties, the martial barbarians were persuaded to follow the standard or to respect the frontiers of an active and liberal monarch, and the minions of the Adoshas from the Euphrates to the Adriatic resounded with the preparations of war both by land and sea. The skilful disposition of the forces of the east seemed to multiply their numbers and distracted the attention of Maximus. He had reason to fear that a chosen body of troops under the command of the intrepid Arbolgastus would direct their march along the banks of the Danube and boldly penetrate through the racian provinces to the center of Gaul. A powerful fleet was equipped in the harbors of Greece and Ipirus with an apparent design that as soon as the passage had been opened by naval victory, Valentinian and his mother should land in Italy, proceed without delay to Rome and occupy the majestic seat of religion and empire. In the meanwhile the Adoshas himself advanced at the head of a brave and disciplined army to encounter his unworthy rival, who after the siege of Emona had fixed his camp in the neighborhoods of Sissia, a city of Pannonia strongly fortified by the broad and rapid stream of the Sov. CHAPTER 27 PART 4 OF THE DECLINE AND FOLLOWED THE ROMAN EMPIRE VOLUME III This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE DECLINE AND FOLLOWED THE ROMAN EMPIRE VOLUME III BY EDWARD GIVEN CHAPTER 27 CIVIL WARS RAIN OF THE ADOSHAS PART 4 The veterans who still remembered the long resistance and successful resources of the tyrant Magentius might prepare themselves for the labors of three bloody campaigns, but the contest with his successor who, like him, had usurped the throne of the West, was easily decided in the term of two months and within the space of two hundred miles. The superior genius of the emperor of the East might prevail over the feeble Maximus, who, in this important crisis, showed himself destitute of military skill or personal courage, but the abilities of the adoshas were seconded by the advantage which he possessed of a numerous inactive cavalry. The Huns, the Elani, and after their example, the Goss themselves, were formed into squadrons of archers who fought on horseback and confounded the steady valor of the Gauls and Germans by the rapid motions of a tartar war. After the fatigue of a long march in the heat of summer, they spurred their foaming horses into the waters of the Saab, swam the river in the presence of the enemy, and instantly charged and routed the troops who guarded the high ground on the opposite side. Marcellinus, the tyrant's brother, advanced to support them with the selected cohorts, which were considered as the hope and strength of the army. The action, which had been interrupted by the approach of night, was renewed in the morning, and after a sharp conflict, the surviving remnant of the bravest soldiers of Maximus threw down their arms at the feet of the conqueror. Without suspending his march to receive the loyal acclamations of the citizens of Ammona, the adoshas pressed forward to terminate the war by the death or captivity of his rival, who fled before him with the diligence of fear. From the summit of the Julian Alps he descended with such incredible speed to the plain of Italy that he reached Aquileia on the evening of the first day, and Maximus, who found himself encompassed on all sides, had scarcely time to shut the gates of the city. But the gates could not long resist the effort of a victorious enemy, and the despair, the disaffectation, the indifference of the soldiers and people, hastened the downfall of the wretched Maximus. He was dragged from his throne, rudely stripped of the imperial ornaments, the robe, the diadem, and the purple slippers, and conducted like a malefactor to the camp and presence of the adoshas, at a place about three miles from Aquileia. The behavior of the emperor was not intended to insult, and he showed disposition to pity and forgive the tyrant of the West, who had never been his personal enemy, and who was now become the object of his contempt. Our sympathy is the most forcibly excited by the misfortunes to which we are exposed, and the spectacle of a proud competitor now prostrated his feet could not fail of producing a very serious and solemn thought in the mind of the victorious emperor. But the feeble emotion of involuntary pity was checked by his regard for public justice and the memory of Gratian, and he abandoned the victim to the pious seal of the soldiers, who drew him out of the imperial presence and instantly separated his head from his body. The intelligence of his defeat and death was received with sincere or well-dissembled joy. His son Victor, on whom he had conferred the title of Augustus, died by the order, perhaps by the hand of the bold Arbaugastus, and all the military plans of the adoshas were successfully executed. When he had thus terminated the civil war with less difficulty and bloodshed than he might naturally expect, he employed the winter months of his residence at Milan to restore the state of the afflicted provinces, and early in the spring he made, after the example of Constantine and Constantius, his triumphal entry into the ancient capital of the Roman Empire. The orator, who may be silent without danger, may praise without difficulty and without reluctance, and posterity will confess that the character of the adoshas might furnish the subject of a sincere and ample panagyric. The wisdom of his laws and the success of his arms rendered his administration respectable in the eyes both of his subjects and of his enemies. He loved and practiced the virtues of domestic life which seldom hold their residence in the palaces of kings. The adoshas was chaste and temperate, he enjoyed without excess the sensual and social pleasures of the table, and the warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud titles of imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father, his uncle was raised by his affectionate esteem to the rank of a second parent, the adoshas embraced as his own the children of his brother and sister, and the expressions of his regard were extended to the most distant and obscure branches of his numerous kindred. His familiar friends were judiciously selected from among those persons who, in the equal intercourse of private life, had appeared before his eyes without a mask. The consciousness of personal and superior merit enabled him to despise the accidental distinction of the purple, and he proved by his conduct that he had forgotten all the injuries, while he most gratefully remembered all the favors and services which he had received before he ascended the throne of the Roman Empire. The serious or lively tone of his conversation was adapted to the age, the rank, or the character of his subjects, whom he admitted into his society, and the affability of his manners displayed the image of his mind. The adoshas respected the simplicity of the good and virtuous, every art, every talent, of a useful or even of an innocent nature, was rewarded by his judicious liberality, and except the heretics, whom he persecuted with an implacable hatred, the diffusive circle of his benevolence was circumscribed only by the limits of the human race. The government of a mighty empire may assuredly suffice to occupy the time and the abilities of a mortal, yet the diligent prince, without aspiring to the unsuitable reputation of profound learning, always reserved some moments of his leisure for the instructive amusement of reading. History, which enlarged his experience, was his favorite study. The annals of Rome, in the long period of eleven hundred years, presented him with a various and splendid picture of human life, and it has been particularly observed that whenever he perused the cruel acts of Sina, of Marius, or of Silla, he warmly expressed his generous detestation of those enemies of humanity and freedom. His disinterested opinion of past events was usefully applied as the rule of his own actions, and the adoshas has deserved the singular commendation that his virtues always seemed to expand with his fortune. The season of his prosperity was that of his moderation, and his clemency appeared the most conspicuous after the danger and success of a civil war. The moorish guards of the tyrant had been massacred in the first heat of the victory, and a small number of the most obnoxious criminals suffered the punishment of law. But the emperor showed himself much more attentive to relieve the innocent than to chastise the guilty. The oppressed subject of the West, who would have deemed themselves happy in the restoration of their lands, were astonished to receive a sum of money equivalent to their losses, and the liberality of the conqueror supported the aged mother and educated the orphaned daughters of Maximus. A character thus accomplished might almost excuse the extravagant supposition of the orator Pasadus that if the elder Brutus could be permitted to revisit the earth, the stern republican would abjure at the feet of the adoshas his hatred of kings, and ingeniously confess that such a monarch was the most faithful guardian of the happiness and dignity of the Roman people. Yet the piercing eye of the founder of the republic must have discerned two essential imperfections, which might, perhaps, have evaded his recent love of despotism. The virtuous mind of the adoshas was often relaxed by indolence, and it was sometimes inflamed by passion. In the pursuit of an important object his active courage was capable of the most vigorous exertions, but as soon as the design was accomplished or the danger was surmounted, the hero sunk into inglorious repose, and forgetful that the time of a prince is the property of his people resigned himself to the enjoyment of the innocent but trifling pleasures of a luxurious court. The natural disposition of the adoshas was hasty and choleric, and in a station where none could resist and few would dissuade the fatal consequences of his resentment the humane monarch was justly alarmed by the consciousness of his infirmity and of his power. It was the constant study of his life to suppress or regulate the intemperate sallies of passion and the success of his efforts enhanced the merit of his clemency. But the painful virtue which claims the merit of victory is exposed to the danger of defeat, and the reign of a wise and merciful prince was polluted by an act of cruelty which would stain the annals of nero or demission. Within the space of three years the inconsistent historian of the adoshas must relate the generous pardon of the citizens of Antioch and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thessalonica. The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never satisfied with their own situation, or with the character and conduct of their successive sovereigns. The Aryan subjects of the adoshas deplored the loss of their churches, and as three rival bishops disputed the throne of Antioch, the sentence which decided their pretensions excited the murmurs of the two unsuccessful congregations. The exongencies of the Gothic war and the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion of the peace had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of the public in positions, and the provinces of Asia, as they had not been involved in the distress, were the less inclined to contribute to the relief of Europe. The auspicious period now approached of the tenth year of his reign, a festival more grateful to the soldiers who received a liberal donative than to the subjects whose voluntary offerings had been long since converted into an extraordinary and oppressive burden. The edicts of taxation interrupted the repose and pleasures of Antioch, and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged by a suppliant crowd, who, in pathetic but at first respectful language, solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their complaints as a criminal resistance, their satirical wit degenerated into sharp and angry invectives, and from the subordinate powers of government the invectives of the people insensibly rose to attack the sacred character of the emperor himself. Their fury provoked by a feeble opposition discharged itself on the images of the imperial family, which were erected as objects of public veneration in the most conspicuous places of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his father, of his wife Lysilla, of his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, were insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or dragged with contempt through the streets, and the indignities which were offered to the representations of imperial majesty sufficiently declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the populace. The tumult was almost immediately suppressed by the arrival of a body of archers, and Antioch had leisure to reflect on the nature and consequences of her crime. According to the duty of his office, the governor of the province dispatched a faithful narrative of the whole transaction, while the trembling citizens entrusted the confession of their crime and the assurances of their repentance to the zeal of Flavian, their bishop, and to the eloquence of the senator, Hilarius, the friend and most probably the disciple of Labanius, whose genius on this melancholy occasion was not useless to his country. But the two capitals, Antioch and Constantinople, were separated by the distance of eight hundred miles, and notwithstanding the diligence of the imperial posts, the guilty city was severely punished by a long and dreadful interval of suspense. Every rumour agitated the hopes and fears of the Antiochians, and they heard with terror that their sovereign, exasperated by the insult which had been offered to his own statues, and more especially to those of his beloved wife, had resolved to level to the ground the offending city, and to massacre, without distinction of age or sex, the criminal inhabitants, many of whom were actually driven by their apprehensions to seek a refuge in the mountains of Syria and the adjacent desert. At length, twenty-four days after this addition, the general Helibicus and Caesarius, master of the offices, declared the will of the emperor and the sentence of Antioch. That proud capital was degraded from the rank of a city, and the metropolis of the east stripped of its lands, its privileges, and its revenues, was subjected under the humiliating denomination of a village to the jurisdiction of Laodicea. The baths, the circus, and the theaters were shut, and that every source of plenty and pleasure might at the same time be intercepted the distribution of corn was abolished by the severe instructions of Theodosius. His commissioners then proceeded to inquire into the guilt of individuals, of those who had perpetrated and of those who had not prevented the destruction of the sacred statues. The tribunal of Helibicus and Caesarius, encompassed with armed soldiers, was erected in the midst of the Forum. The noblest and most wealthy of the citizens of Antioch appeared before them in chains. The examination was assisted by the use of torture, and their sentence was pronounced or suspended according to the judgment of these extraordinary magistrates. The houses of the criminals were exposed to sale, their wives and children were suddenly reduced from affluence and luxury to the most abject distress, and a bloody execution was expected to conclude the horrors of the day, which the preacher of Antioch, the eloquent Cisostrum, has represented as a lively image of the last and universal judgment of the world. But the ministers of Theodosius performed with reluctance the cruel task which had been assigned to them. They dropped a gentle tear over the calamities of the people, and they listened with reverence to the pressing solicitations of the monks and hermits, who descended in swarms from the mountains. Helibicus and Cisarius were persuaded to suspend the execution of their sentence, and it was agreed that the former should remain at Antioch, while the latter returned, with all possible speed, to Constantinople, and presumed once more to consult the will of his sovereign. The resentment of Theodosius had already subsided, the deputies of the people, both the bishop and the orator, had obtained a favorable audience, and the reproaches of the emperor were the complaints of injured friendship, rather than the stern menaces of pride and power. A free and general pardon was granted to the city and the citizens of Antioch. The prison doors were thrown open, the senators, who, despaired of their lives, recovered the possession of their houses and estates, and the capital of the east was restored to the enjoyment of her ancient dignity and splendor. Theodosius condescended to praise the senate of Constantinople, who had generously interceded for their distressed brethren. He rewarded the eloquence of the hilarious with the government of Palestine, and dismissed the bishop of Antioch with the warmest expressions of his respect and gratitude. A thousand new statues arose to the clemency of Theodosius. The applause of his subjects was ratified by the approbation of his own heart, and the emperor confessed that, if the exercise of justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure of a sovereign. The sedition of Thessalonica is ascribed to a more shameful cause, and was productive of much more dreadful consequences. That great city, the metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces, had been protected from the dangers of the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous garrison. Botheric, the general of those troops, and, as it should seem from his name, a barbarian, had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who excited the impure desires of one of the charioteers of the circus. The insolent and brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order of Botheric, and he sternly rejected the importunate clamors of the multitude, who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of their favorite, and considered the skill of a charioteer as an object of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the people was embittered by some previous disputes, and as the strength of the garrison had been drawn away for the service of the Italian war, the feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced by desertion, could not save the unhappy general from their finalizantious fury. Botheric and several of his principal officers were inhumanely murdered, their mangled bodies were dragged about the streets, and the emperor, who then resided at Milan, was surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton cruelty of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of the crime, and the merit of Botheric might contribute to exasperate the grief and indignation of his master. The fiery and choleric temper of the audacious was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry, and he hastily resolved that the blood of his lieutenant should be expiated by the blood of the guilty people. Yet his mind still fluctuated between the councils of clemency and of revenge. The zeal of the bishops had almost extorted from their reluctant emperor the promise of a general pardon. His passion was again inflamed by the flattering suggestions of his minister Rufinas, and after the audacious dispatched the messengers of death he attempted when it was too late to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a Roman city was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of the barbarians, and the hostile preparations were concerted with the dark and perfidious artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The people of Thessalonica were treacherously invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of the circus, and such was their insatiate avidity for those amusements that every consideration of fear or suspicion was disregarded by the numerous spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete the soldiers who had secretly been posted round the circus received the signal, not of the races, but of a general massacre. The promiscuous carnage continued three hours without discrimination of strangers or natives, of age or sex, of innocent or guilt. The most moderate accounts state the number of the slain at seven thousand, and it is affirmed by some riders that more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the names of Botherick. A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in his murder, offered his own life and all his wealth to supply the place of one of his two sons, but while the father hesitated with equal tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose and unwilling to condemn, the soldiers determined his suspense by plunging their daggers at the same moment into the breasts of the defenseless youths. The apology of the assassins that they were obliged to produce the prescribed number of heads serves only to increase, by an appearance of order and design, the horrors of the massacre which was executed by the commands of the Edocious. The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long and frequent residence at Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate city, the aspect of the streets and buildings, the dress and faces of the inhabitants, were familiar and even present to his imagination, and the Edocious possessed a quick and lively sense of the existence of the people whom he destroyed. The respectful attachment of the emperor for the Orthodox clergy had disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose, who united all the Episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The friends and ministers of the Edocious imitated the example of their sovereign, and he observed, with more surprise than displeasure, that all his secret councils were immediately communicated to the Archbishop, who acted from the laudable persuasion that every measure of civil government may have some connection with the glory of God and the interest of the true religion. The monks and populists of Calanism, an obscure town on the frontier of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism and by that of their bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventical of the Valentinians and a synagogue of the Jews. The seditious prelate was condemned by the magistrate of the province, either to rebuild the synagogue, or to repay the damage, and this moderate sentence was confirmed by the emperor. But it was not confirmed by the Archbishop of Milan. He dictated an epistle of censure and reproach, more suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the mark of circumcision, and renounced the faith of his baptism. Ambrose considers the toleration of the Jewish as the persecution of the Christian religion. Boldly declares that he himself and every true believer would eagerly dispute with the bishop of Calanism the merit of the deed and the crown of martyrdom, and laments in the most pathetic terms that the execution of the sentence would be fatal to the fame and salvation of Theodosius. As this private admonition did not pernuce an immediate effect, the Archbishop, from his pulpit, publicly addressed the emperor on his throne, nor would he consent to offer the oblation of the altar till he had obtained from Theodosius a solemn and positive declaration which secured the impunity of the bishop and monks of Calanism. The recantation of Theodosius was sincere, and during the term of his residence at Milan his affection for Ambrose was continually increased by the habits of pious and familiar conversation. When Ambrose was informed of the massacre of Thessalonica, his mind was filled with horror and anguish. He retired into the country to indulge his grief and to avoid the presence of Theodosius. But as the Archbishop was satisfied that a timid silence would render him the accomplice of his guilt, he represented in a private letter the enormity of the crime which could only be faced by the tears of penance. The episcopal vigor of Ambrose was tempered by prudence, and he contented himself with signifying an indirect sort of excommunication by the assurance that he had been warned in a vision not to offer the oblation in the name or in the presence of Theodosius, and by the advice that he would confine himself to the use of prayer without presuming to approach the altar of Christ or to receive the holy Eucharist with those hands that were still polluted with the blood of an innocent people. The Emperor was deeply affected by his own reproaches and by those of his spiritual father, and after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable consequences of his rash fury he proceeded in the accustomed manner to perform his devotions in the great Church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the Archbishop who, in the tone and language of an ambassador of heaven, declared to his sovereign that private contrition was not sufficient to atone for a public fault or to appease the justice of the offended deity. Theodosius humbly represented that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty not only of murder but of adultery. You have imitated David in his crime, then imitate his repentance, was the reply of the undaunted ambrose. The rigorous conditions of peace and pardon were accepted, and the public penance of the Emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of the most honorable events in the annals of the Church. According to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which were established in the fourth century, the crime of homicide was expiated by the penance of twenty years, and as it was impossible, in the period of human life, to purge the accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica, the murderer should have been excluded from the Holy Communion till the hour of his death. But the Archbishop, consulting the maxims of religious policy, granted some indulgence to the rank of his illustrious penitent, who humbled in the dust the pride of the diadem, and the public edification might be admitted as a weighty reason to abridge the duration of his punishment. It was sufficient that the Emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns of royalty, should appear in a mournful and suppliant posture, and that in the midst of the Church of Milan he should humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of his sins. In this spiritual cure Ambrose employed the various methods of mildness and severity. After a delay of about eight months, the Edocious was restored to the Communion of the Faithful, and the Edict, which interposes the salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his repentance. Posterity has applauded the virtuous firmness of the archbishop, and the example of the Edocious may prove the beneficial influence of those principles which could force a monarch, exalted above the apprehension of human punishment, to respect the laws and ministers of an invisible judge. The Prince, says Montesquieu, who is actuated by the hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a lion, docile, only to the voice, and tractable to the hand of his keeper. The motions of the royal animal will therefore depend on the inclination and interest of the man who has acquired such dangerous authority over him, and the priest, who holds in his hands the conscious of a king, may inflame or moderate his sanguinary passions. The cause of humanity and that of persecution have been asserted by the same Ambrose with equal energy and with equal success. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. This recording by Nicholas James Bridgewater, chapter 27, part 5, of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, volume 3. After the defeat and death of the Tyrant of Gaul, the Roman world was in the possession of Theodosius. He derived from the choice of Gratian, his honourable title to the provinces of the east. He had acquired the west by the right of conquest, and the three years which he spent in Italy were usefully employed to restore the authority of the laws and to correct the abuses which had prevailed with impunity under the usurpation of Maximus, and the minority of Valentinian. The name of Valentinian was regularly inserted in the public acts, but the tender age and doubtful faith of the son of Justina appeared to require the prudent care of an orthodox guardian, and his specious ambition might have excluded the unfortunate youth without a struggle and almost without a murmur from the administration and even from the inheritance of the empire. If Theodosius had consulted the rigid maxims of interest and policy, his conduct would have been justified by his friends, but the generosity of his behaviour on this memorable occasion has exhorted the applause of his most inveterate enemies. He seated Valentinian on the throne of Milan, and without stipulating any present or future advantages restored him to the absolute dominion of all the provinces, from which he had been driven by the arms of Maximus, to the restitution of his ample patrimony, Theodosius added the free and generous gift of the countries beyond the Alps, which his successful valour had recovered from the assassin of Gratian. Satisfied with the glory which he had acquired by avenging the death of his benefactor and delivering the west from the yoke of tyranny, the emperor returned from Milan to Constantinople, and in the peaceful possession of the east, insensibly relapsed into his former habits of luxury and indolence. Theodosius discharged his obligation to the brother, he indulged his conjugal tenderness to the sister of Valentinian, and posterity which admires the pure and singular glory of his elevation must applaud his unrivaled generosity in the use of victory. The Empress Justina did not long survive her return to Italy, and although she beheld the triumph of Theodosius, she was not allowed to influence the government of her son. The pernicious attachment to the Aryan sect which Valentinian had imbibed from her example and instructions was soon erased by the lessons of a more orthodox education. His growing zeal for the faith of Nice, and his filial reverence for the character and authority of Ambrose, disposed the Catholics to entertain the most favourable opinion of the virtues of the young emperor of the west. They applauded his chastity and temperance, his contempt of pleasure, his application to business, and his tender affection for his two sisters, which could not however seduce his impartial equity to pronounce an unjust sentence against the meanest of his subjects. But this amiable youth, before he had accomplished the 20th year of his age, was oppressed by domestic treason, and the empire was again involved in the horrors of a civil war. Arbogastis, a gallant soldier of the nation of the Franks, held the second rank in the service of Gratian. On the death of his master, he joined the standard of Theodosius, contributed by his valour and military conduct to the destruction of the tyrant, and was appointed after the victory master general of the armies of Gaul. His real merit and apparent fidelity had gained the confidence both of the prince and people. His boundless liberality corrupted the allegiance of the troops, and whilst he was universally esteemed, as the pillar of the state, the bold and crafty barbarian was secretly determined either to rule or to ruin the empire of the west. The important commands of the army were distributed among the Franks. The creatures of Arbogastis were promoted to all the honours and offices of the civil government. The progress of the conspiracy removed every faithful servant from the presence of Valentinian, and the emperor, without power and without intelligence, insensibly sunk into the precarious independent condition of a captive. The indignation which he expressed, though it might arise only from the rash and impatient temper of youth, may be candidly ascribed to the generous spirit of a prince who felt that he was not unworthy to reign. He secretly invited the archbishop of Milan to undertake the office of a mediator, as the pledge of his sincerity and the guardian of his safety. He contrived to apprise the emperor of the east of his helpless situation, and he declared that, unless Theodosius could speedily march to his assistance, he must attempt to escape from the palace, or rather prison, of Viennian Gaul, where he had imprudently fixed his residence in the midst of the hostile faction, but the hopes of relief were distant and doubtful. And, as every day furnished some new provocation, the emperor without strength the council to hastily resolve to risk an immediate contest with his powerful general. He received Arbogastis on the throne, and as the counter approach with some appearance of respect delivered to him a paper, which dismissed him from all his employments. My authority, replied Arbogastis, with insulting coolness, does not depend on the smile or the frown of a monarch, and he contemptuously threw the paper on the ground. The indignant monarch snatched at the sword of one of the guards, which he struggled to draw from its scabbard, and it was not without some degree of violence that he was prevented from using the deadly weapon against his enemy, or against himself. A few days after this extraordinary quarrel, in which he had exposed his resentment and his weakness, the unfortunate Valentinian was found strangled in his apartment, and some pains were employed to disguise the manifest guilt of Arbogastis, and to persuade the world that the death of the young emperor had been the voluntary effect of his own despair. His body was conducted with decent pomp to the sepulchre of Milan, and the archbishop pronounced a funeral oration to commemorate his virtues and his misfortunes. On this occasion the humanity of Ambrose tempted him to make a singular breach of his theological system, and to comfort the weeping sisters of Valentinian by the firm assurance that their pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of baptism, was introduced without difficulty into the mansions of eternal bliss. The prudence of Arbogastis had prepared the success of his ambitious designs, and the provincials in whose breast every sentiment of patriotism or loyalty was extinguished expected with tame resignation the unknown master whom the choice of a Frank might place on the imperial throne. But some remains of pride and prejudice still opposed the elevation of Arbogastis himself, and the judicious barbarian thought it more advisable to reign under the name of some dependent Roman. He bestowed the purple on the rhetorician Eugenius, whom he had already raised from the place of his domestic secretary to the rank of master of the offices. In the course both of his private and public service the count had always approved the attachment and abilities of Eugenius. His learning and eloquence supported by the gravity of his manners recommended him to the esteem of the people, and the reluctance with which he seemed to ascend the throne may inspire a favorable prejudice of his virtue and moderation. The ambassadors of the new emperor were immediately dispatched to the court of Theodosius to communicate with affected grief the unfortunate accident of the death of Valentinian, and without mentioning the name of Arbogastis to request that the monarch of the east would embrace as his lawful colleague the respectable citizen who had obtained the unanimous suffrage of the armies and provinces of the west. Theodosius was justly provoked that the perfidy of a barbarian should have destroyed in a moment the labours and the fruit of his former victory, and he was excited by the tears of his beloved wife to revenge the fate of her unhappy brother, and once more to assert by arms the violated majesty of the throne. But as the second conquest of the west was a task of difficulty and danger he dismissed with splendid presence and an ambiguous answer the ambassadors of Eugenius, and almost two years were consumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before he formed any decisive resolution the pious emperor was anxious to discover the will of heaven, and as the progress of Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona he consulted an Egyptian monk who possessed in the opinion of the age the gift of miracles and the knowledge of futurity. Eutropius, one of the favourite eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople embarked for Alexandria from whence he sailed up the Nile as far as the city of Lycopolis or of Wolves in the remote province of Thebes. In the neighbourhood of that city and on the summit of a lofty mountain the Holy John had constructed with his own hands an humble cell in which he had dwelt for above 50 years without opening his door, without seeing the face of a woman, and without tasting any food that had been prepared by fire or any human art. Five days of the week he spent in prayer and meditation but on Saturdays and Sundays he regularly opened a small window and gave audience to the crowd of suppliants who successively flowed from every part of the Christian world. The eunuch of Theodosius approached the window with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the event of the Civil War, and soon returned with a favourable oracle which animated the courage of the Emperor by the assurance of a bloody but infallible victory. The accomplishment of the prediction was forwarded by all the means that human prudence could supply. The industry of the two master generals Stiliho and Timasius was directed to recruit the numbers and to revive the discipline of the Roman legions. The formidable troops of barbarians marched under the ensigns of their national chieftains, the Iberian, the Arab and the Goth, who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted in the service of the same prince, and the renowned Alaric acquired in the School of Theodosius the knowledge of the art of war which he afterwards so fatally exerted for the destruction of Rome. The Emperor of the West, or to speak more properly, his general Arbogastis was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of Maximus how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of defense against the skillful antagonist who was free to press or to suspend, to contract or to multiply his various methods of attack. Arbogastis fixed his station on the confines of Italy. The troops of Theodosius were permitted to occupy without resistance the provinces of Pannonia, as far as the foot of the Julian Alps and even the passes of the mountains were negligently or perhaps artfully abandoned to the bold invader. He descended from the hills and beheld with some astonishment the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans that covered with arms and tents the open country which extends to the walls of Aquileia and the banks of the Fridus, or Cold River. This narrow theater of the war circumscribed by the Alps and the Adriatic did not allow much room for the operations of military skill. The spirit of Arbogastis would have disdained a pardon. His guilt extinguished the hope of a negotiation and Theodosius was impatient to satisfy his glory and revenge by the chastisement of the assassins of Valentinian. Without weighing the natural and artificial obstacles that opposed his efforts, the emperor of the west immediately attacked the fortifications of his rivals, assigned the post of honorable danger to the Goths, and cherished a secret wish that the bloody conflict might diminish the pride and numbers of the conquerors. Ten thousand of those exiliaries and Bacourius general of the Iberians died bravely on the field of battle. But the victory was not purchased by their blood. The Gauls maintained their advantage and the approach of night protected the disorderly flight or retreat of the troops of Theodosius. The emperor retired to the adjacent hills where he passed the disconsolate night without sleep, without provisions, and without hopes, except that strong assurance which under the most desperate circumstances the independent mind may derive from the contempt of fortune and of life. The triumph of Eugenius was celebrated by the insolent and desolate joy of his camp whilst the active and vigilant Arbogastis secretly detached a considerable body of troops to occupy the passes of the mountains and to encompass the rear of the eastern army. The dawn of day discovered to the eyes of Theodosius the extent and the extremity of his danger, but his apprehensions were soon dispelled by a friendly message from the leaders of those troops who expressed their inclination to desert the standard of the tyrant. The honorable and lucrative rewards which they stipulated as the price of their perfidy were granted without hesitation and as ink and paper could not easily be procured the emperor subscribed on his own tablets the ratification of the treaty. The spirit of his soldiers was revived by this seasonal reinforcement and they again marched with confidence to surprise the camp of a tyrant whose principal officers appeared to distrust either the justice or the success of his arms. In the heat of the battle a violent tempest such as is often felt among the Alps suddenly arose from the east. The army of Theodosius was sheltered by their position from the impetuosity of the wind which blew a cloud of dust in the faces of the enemy, disordered their ranks, rested their weapons from their hands and diverted or repelled their ineffectual javelins. This accidental advantage was skillfully improved the violence of the storm was magnified by the superstitious terrors of the Gauls and they yielded without shame to the invisible powers of heaven who seemed to militate on the side of the pious emperor. His victory was decisive and the deaths of his two rivals were distinguished only by the difference of their characters. The rhetorician eugenius who had almost acquired the dominion of the world was reduced to implore the mercy of the conqueror and the unrelenting soldiers separated his head from his body as he lay prostrate at the feet of Theodosius. Arbogastis after the loss of a battle in which he had discharged the duties of a soldier and a general wandered several days among the mountains, but when he was convinced that his cause was desperate and his escape impracticable, the intrepid barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans and turned his sword against his own breast. The fate of the empire was determined in a narrow corner of Italy and the legitimate successor of the house of Valentinian embraced the archbishop of Milan and graciously received the submission of the provinces of the west. Those provinces were involved in the guilt of rebellion while the inflexible courage of Ambrose alone had resisted the claims of successful usurpation with a manly freedom which might have been fatal to any other subject the archbishop rejected the gifts of eugenius declined his correspondence and withdrew himself from Milan to avoid the odious presence of a tyrant whose downfall he predicted in discreet and ambiguous language. The merit of Ambrose was applauded by the conqueror who secured the attachment of the people by his alliance with the church and the clemency of Theodosius is ascribed to the humane intercession of the archbishop of Milan. After the defeat of eugenius the merit as well as the authority of Theodosius was cheerfully acknowledged by all the inhabitants of the Roman world. The experience of his past conduct encouraged the most pleasing expectations of his future reign and the age of the emperor which did not exceed 50 years seemed to extend the prospect of the public felicity. His death only four months after his victory was considered by the people as an unforeseen and fatal event which destroyed in a moment the hopes of the rising generation but the indulgence of ease and luxury had secretly nourished the principles of disease. The strength of Theodosius was unable to support the sudden and violent transition from the palace to the camp and the increasing symptoms of a dropsy announced the speedy dissolution of the emperor. The opinion and perhaps the interest of the public had confirmed the division of the eastern and western empires and the two royal youths Arcadius and Honorius who had already obtained from the tenderness of their father the title of Augustus were destined to fail the thrones of Constantinople and of Rome. Those princes were not permitted to share the danger and glory of the civil war but as soon as Theodosius had triumphed over his unworthy rivals he called his younger son Honorius to enjoy the fruits of the victory and to receive the scepter of the west from the hands of his dying father. The arrival of Honorius of Milan was welcomed by a splendid exhibition of the games of the circus and the emperor though he was oppressed by the weight of his disorder contributed by his presence to the public joy but the remains of his strength were exhausted by the painful effort which he made to assist at the spectacles of the morning. Honorius supplied during the rest of the day the place of his father and the great Theodosius expired in the ensuing night notwithstanding the recent animosities of a civil war his death was universally lamented the barbarians whom he had vanquished and the churchmen by whom he had been subdued celebrated with loud and sincere applause the qualities of the deceased emperor which appeared the most valuable in their eyes. The Romans were terrified by the impending dangers of a feeble and divided administration and every disgraceful moment of the unfortunate reigns of Arcadius and Honorius revived the memory of their irreparable loss. In the faithful picture of the virtues of Theodosius his imperfections have not been dissembled the act of cruelty and the habits of indolence which tarnished the glory of one of the greatest of the roman princes an historian perpetually adverse to the fame of Theodosius has exaggerated his vices and their pernicious effects he boldly asserts that every rank of subjects imitated the effeminate manners of their sovereign and that every species and corruption polluted the course of public and private life that the feeble restraints of order and decency were insufficient to resist the progress of that degenerate spirit which sacrifices without a blush the consideration of duty and interest to the base indulgence of sloth and appetite the complaints of contemporary writers who deplore the increase of luxury and deprivation of manners are commonly expressive of their peculiar temper and situation there are few observers who possess a clear uncomprehensive view of the revolutions of society and who are capable of discovering the nice and secret springs of action which impel in the same uniform direction the blind and capricious passions of a multitude of individuals if it can be affirmed with any degree of truth that the luxury of the romans was more shameless and disillute in the reign of Theodosius than in the age of Constantine perhaps or of Augustus the alteration cannot be ascribed to any beneficial improvements which had gradually increased the stock of natural riches a long period of calamity or decay must have checked the industry and diminished the wealth of the people and their profuse luxury must have been the result of that indolent despair which enjoys the present hour and declines the thoughts of futurity the uncertain condition of their property discouraged the subjects of Theodosius from engaging in those useful and laborious undertakings which require an immediate expense and promise a slow and distant advantage the frequent examples of ruin and desolation tempted them not to spare the remains of a patrimony which might every hour become the prey of the rapacious scoff and the mad prodigality which prevails in the confusion of a shipwreck or a siege may serve to explain the progress of luxury amidst the misfortunes and terrors of a sinking nation the effeminate luxury which infected the manners of courts and cities had instilled a secret and destructive poison into the camps of the legions and their degeneracy has been marked by the pen of a military writer who had accurately studied the genuine and ancient principles of roman discipline it is the just and important observation of vergetius that the infantry was invariably covered with defensive armor from the foundation of the city to the reign of the emperor grattian the relaxation of discipline and the disuse of exercise rendered the soldiers less able and less willing to support the fatigues of the service they complained of the weight of the armor which they seldom wore and they successively obtained the permission of laying aside both their curuses and their helmets the heavy weapons of their ancestors the short sword and the formidable pylum which had subdued the world insensibly dropped from their feeble hands as the use of the shield is incompatible with that of the bow they reluctantly marched into the field condemned to suffer either the pains of wounds or the ignominy of flight and always disposed to prefer the more shameful alternative the cavalry of the goths the huns and the alani had felt the benefits and adopted the use of defensive armor and as they excelled in the management of missile weapons they easily overwhelmed the naked and trembling legions whose heads and breasts were exposed without defense to the arrows of the barbarians the loss of armies the destruction of cities and the dishonor of the roman name ineffectually solicited the successors of gratian to restore the helmets and the curacies of the infantry the enervated soldiers abandoned their own and the public defense and their pusillanimous indolence may be considered as the immediate cause of the downfall of the empire end of chapter 27 part 5