 CHAPTER 18 CHARACTER OF CONSTANTINE IN HIS SONS, PART 3 Read by Claude Banta, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, July 2007. The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his funeral to the piety of Constantius, and that Prince, by the vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the diligence of his brothers, who resided in their distant government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove the apprehensions of his kinsmen by a solemn oath which he pledged for their security. His next employment was to find some specious pretense which might release his conscience from the obligation of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made some-servient to the designs of cruelty, and a manifest forgery was attested by the person of the most sacred character. From the hands of the bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father, in which the emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his brothers, and conjured his sons to revenge his death and to consult their own safety by the punishment of the guilty. Other reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate princes to defend their life and honor against so incredible an accusation. They were silenced by the furious clamors of the soldiers, who declared themselves at once their enemies, their judges, and their executioners. The spirit and even the forms of legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a promiscuous massacre, which involved the two uncles of Constantius, seven of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hanna Bolanus were the most illustrious. The patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of the late emperor, and the praefect Ablavius, whose power and riches had inspired him with some hopes of obtaining the purple. If it were necessary to aggravate the horrors of this bloody scene, we might add that Constantius himself had espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister in marriage on his cousin Hanna Bolanus. These alliances, which the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public prejudice, had formed between the several branches of the imperial house, served only to convince mankind that these princes were as cold to the endearments of conjugal affection as they were insensible to the ties of consanguinity and the moving entreaties of youth and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from the hand of the assassins, till their age satiated with slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The emperor Constantius, who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to guilt and reproach, discovered on some future occasions a faint and transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious councils of his ministers and the irresistible violence of the troops had exhorted from his inexperienced youth. The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division of the provinces, which was ratified in a personal interview of the three brothers, Constantine, the eldest of the Caesar's, obtained with a certain preeminence of rank the possession of the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father. The race and the countries of the east were allotted for the patrimony of Constantius, and Constance was acknowledged as a lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and western Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary right, and they condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate the title of Augustus. When they first assumed the reigns of government, the eldest of these princes was twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third only seventeen years of age. While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the decease of Constantine, the throne of the east was filled by Sopor, son of Ormus or Ormisadas, the grandson of Narcissus, who, after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sopor was in the thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of youth. As the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality, had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Ormus remained pregnant at the time of her husband's death, and the uncertainty of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed by the positive assurances of the Magi that the widow of Ormus had conceived and would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation. A royal bed on which the queen lay in state was exhibited in the midst of the palace. The diadem was placed on the spot which might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Adorexus, and the prostrate Satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and insensible sovereign. If any credit can be given to this marvelous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the manners of the people and by the extraordinary duration of his reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius of Sopor. In the soft sequestered education of a Persian harem, the royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigor of his mind and body, and, by his personal merit, deserved a throne on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord. His capital was surprised and plundered by Ther, a powerful king of Yemen or Arabia, and the majesty of the royal family was degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the deceased king. But as soon as Sopor attained the age of manhood, the presumptuous Ther, his nation, and his country, fell beneath the first effort of the young warrior, who used his victory with so judicious a mixture of rigor and clemency, that he obtained, from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs, a title of duenclave, or protector of the nation. The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribed the virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wrestling from the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The military fame of Constantine and the real or apparent strength of his government suspended the attack, and while the hostile conduct of Sopor provoked the resentment, his artful negotiations amused the patience of the imperial court. The death of Constantine was a signal of war, and the actual condition of the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example of the massacres of the palace diffused a spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the east, who were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who from the interview with his brothers in Pannonia immediately hastened to the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored to a sense of duty and discipline. But the season of anarchy had permitted Sopor to form the siege of Nisibis, and to occupy several of the most important fortresses of Mesopotamia. In Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace and glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of Rome. But the firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine was productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits. By the conversion of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the public tranquility was disturbed by a discontented faction which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign and impatiently expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign of 56 years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile. The Christian priests were either murdered or expelled from their churches. The barbarous tribes of Albania were solicited to descend from their mountains. And two of the most powerful governors usurping the ensigns of the powers of royalty implored the assistance of Sapor and opened the gates of their cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party under the guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxia, the immediate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the piety of Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three years, Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with success the imperial commission of restoring Kosrows, the son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing honors and rewards among the faithful servants of the House of Arceses, and of proclaiming a general amnesty which was accepted by the greater part of the rebellious Satraps. But the Romans derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Kosrows was a prince of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit. Unequal to the fatigues of war, adverse to the society of mankind, he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace, which he built on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the center of a shady grove, where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he submitted to the conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to impose, the payment of an annual tribute, and the restitution of the fertile province of Atropitin, which the courage of Tiridates and the victorious arms of Galerius had annexed to the Armenian monarchy. During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces of the east were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian War. The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the Euphrates, from the gates of Sestaphon to those of Antioch, and this act of service was performed by Arabs of the desert, who were divided in their interests and defections. Some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. The more grave and important operations of the war were conducted with equal vigor and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person. The event of the day was most commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara, their imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive victory. The stationary troops of Singara retired on the approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and occupied near the village of Hele, an advantageous camp, which, by the labor of his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks of the river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of the plain above the twelve miles which separated the two armies. Both were alike impatient to engage, but the barbarians, after a slight resistance, fled in disorder, unable to resist, or desirous to worry the strength of the heavy legions, who fainting with heat and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a line of cavalry clothed in complete armor, which had been posted before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat. Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted without effect to restrain the ardor of his troops by representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and the certainty of completing their success with the return of day. As they depended much more on their own valor than on the experience or abilities of their chief, they silenced by their clamors his timid remonstrances, and rushed with fury to the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted strength and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the prudent support had watched the moment of victory, his army, of which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the shadow of the night, and his Persian archers, guided by the illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed and licentious crowd. The sincerity of history declares that the Romans were vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of Panagyric, confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with amazing coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as in the judgment of posterity, must imprint a fair deeper strain on the honor of the imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy youth, who might have excited the compassion of the most savage enemy, was scourged, tortured, and publicly executed by the inhuman Romans. Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field, through nine repeated victories, diffused among the nations the fame of his valor and conduct. He could not hope to succeed in the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of Mesopotamia and, above all, the strong and ancient city of Nisibis remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space of twelve years, Nisibis, which since the time of Lucalus, had been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the east, sustained three memorable sieges against the power of Sapor, and the disappointed monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. This large and populous city was situate about two days journey from the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at the foot of Mount Macias. A treble enclosure of brick walls was defended by a deep ditch, and the intrepid resistance of Count Lucilanus, and his garrison was seconded by the desperate courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by the exhortations of their bishop, enured to arms by the presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to plant a Persian colony in their room and to lead them away into distant and barbarous captivity. The event of two former sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty spirit of the great king, who advanced a third time toward Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India. The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls, were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans, and many days had vainly elapsed when Sapor embraced a resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the river Macdonias, which divides the plain of the city of Nisibis, forms like denial, and inundation over the adjacent country. By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped below the town, and the waters were confined on every side by solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet of armed vessels filled with soldiers and with engines which discharged stones of five hundred pounds weight advanced in order of battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which defended the ramparts. The irresistible force of the waters was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a portion of the walls unable to sustain the accumulated pressure gave way at once, and exposed an ample beach of one hundred and fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault, and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The heavy armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column, were embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder, and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The great king, who from an exalted throne beheld the misfortune of his arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the retreat, and suspended for some hours the prosecution of the attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the night, and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sepur still pressed the reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could have yielded only to the necessity of defending the eastern provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the Mesogatai. Alarmed by this intelligence, he hastily relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence, from the banks of the Tigris to those of the Oksus. The danger and difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards to conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman Emperor, which was equally grateful to both princes, as Constantius himself, after the death of his two brothers, was involved by the revolutions of the West in a civil contest, which required and seemed to exceed the most vigorous extortion of his undivided strength. After the partition of the Empire, three years had scarcely elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind that they were incapable of contenting themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained that he was defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered kinsmen, and though he might yield to the superior guilt and merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constance the session of the African provinces as an equivalent for the rich countries of Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death of Dalmatias. The want of sincerity which Constantine experienced in a simultaneous and fruitless negotiation exasperated the fierceness of his temper, and he eagerly listened to those favorites who suggested to him that his honor, as well as his interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the head of a tumultary band, suited for repine rather than for conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constance by the way of the Julian Alps and the country round Akelia felt the first effects of his resentment. The measures of Constance, who then resided in Dacia, were directed with more prudence and ability. On the news of his brother's invasion, he detached a select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, proposing to follow them in person with the remainder of his forces. But the conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest. By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed into an emboscade which had been concealed in a wood where the rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of the Alca, obtained the honors of an imperial sepulcher. But his provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who, refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in these new acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of more than two-thirds of the Roman Empire. End of Chapter 18, Part 3. Chapter 18, Part 4 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 18, Character of Constantine and His Sons, Part 4, Read by Claude Banta, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, July 2007. The fate of Constance himself was delayed about ten years longer, and the revenge of his brother's death was reserved for the more ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his sons, who by their vices and weakness soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride assumed by Constance from the unmerited success of his arms was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and application. His fond partiality towards some German captives distinguished only by the charms of youth was an object of scandal to the people, and Magentius, an ambitious soldier who was himself a barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. The chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged Magentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and important station in the imperial camp. The friendship of Marcellinus, count of the sacred largest, was supplied with the liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced by the most specious arguments that the republic summoned them to break the bonds of hereditary servitude, and by the choice of an active and vigilant prince to reward the same virtues which had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constance from a private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the pretense of celebrating his son's birthday, gave a splendid entertainment to the illustrious and honorable persons of the Court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autune. The intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very late hour of the night, and the unsuspecting guests were tempted to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and Magentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor, the surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes, and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly prompted them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards hastened to take the oath of fidelity. The gates of the town were shut, and before the dawn of day, Magentius became master of the troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autune. By his secrecy and diligence, he entertained some hope of surprising the person of Constance, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertation of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena at the foot of the Pyrenees by a party of light cavalry whose chief, regardless of the sanctity of the temple, executed his commission by the murder of the son of Constantine. As soon as the death of Constance had decided this easy but important revolution, the example of the court of Autune was imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of Magentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two great prefectures of Gaul and Italy, and the usurper prepared, by every act of oppression, to collect a treasure which might discharge the obligation of an immense donative and supply the expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum, from the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the government of the Traneo, an aged general, beloved for the simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some reputation by his experience and services in war. By habit, by duty, and by gratitude to the House of Constantine, he immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only surviving son of his late master that he would expose with unshaken fidelity his person and his troops to inflict a just revenge on the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of the Traneo were seduced rather than provoked by the example of rebellion. Their leaders soon betrayed a want of firmness or want of sincerity, and his ambition derived a specious pretense from the approbation of the Princess Constantia, that cruel and aspiring woman who had obtained from the great Constantine her father, the rank of Augusta, placed a diadem on her own hands on the head of the Illyrian general, and seemed to expect from his vicinity the accomplishment of those unbounded hopes of which she had been disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalanus. Perhaps it was without consent of Constantia that the new Emperor formed a necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained with her brother's blood. The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply affected the honor and safety of the Imperial House, recalled the arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian War. He recommended the care of the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised from a prison to a throne, and marched towards Europe with a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and indignation. On his arrival at Heraclia in Thrace, the Emperor gave audience to the ambassadors of Magentius and Vitranio, the first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this dangerous commission, and his three colleagues were selected from the illustrious personages of the State and Army. These deputies were instructed to soothe the resentment and to alarm the fears of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship and alliance of the Western princes to cement their union by a double marriage of Constantius with the daughter of Magentius, and of Magentius himself with the ambitious Constantia. And to acknowledge in the treaty the preeminence of rank, which might justly be claimed by the Emperor of the East, should pride and mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the ambassadors were ordered to expiate on the inevitable ruin which must attend his rashness if he ventured to provoke the sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength, and to employ against him that valor, those abilities and those legions to which the House of Constantine had been indebted for so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared to deserve the most serious attention. The answer of Constantius was deferred till the next day, and as he reflected on the importance of justifying a civil war in the opinion of the people, he thus addressed his council, who listened with real or afflicted credulity. Last night, said he, after I retired to rest, the shade of the great Constantine embracing the corpse of my murdered brother rose before my eyes, his well-known voice awakened me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic and assured me of the success and immortal glory which would crown the justice of my arms. The authority of such a vision, or rather of the Prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt and excluded all negotiation. The anonymous terms of peace were rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius. His colleagues, as unworthy of the privileges of law of nations, were put in irons and the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable war. Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty of the brother of Constance, towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The situation and character of the tyrannio admitted of milder measures and the policy of the Eastern Emperor was directed to disunite his antagonists and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness and simplicity of the tyrannio, who, fluctuating some time between opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as a legitimate and equal colleague in the Empire, on condition that he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magentius, and appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective provinces, where they might pledge their friendship by mutual vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future operations of the Civil War. In consequence of this agreement, the tyrannio advanced to the city of Sardica at the head of twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry, a power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the Illyrian Emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations, had seduced the troops and undermined the throne of the tyrannio. The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius, prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover and inflame the passions of the multitude. The United Armies were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city, in the center, according to the rules of ancient discipline. A military tribunal, or rather, scaffold, was erected from whence the emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the squadrons of cavalry and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished by the variety of arms and ensigns, formed an immense circle around the tribunal. And the attempt of silence, which they preserved, was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public affairs. The presidency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of Constantius, and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant of Gaul. But while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of Constance, he insinuated that none except a brother could claim a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed, with some complacency, the glories of his imperial race, and recalled to the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his most favorite servants had tempted them to violate. The officers, who surrounded the tribunal and were instructed to act their part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible power of reason and eloquence by saluting the emperor Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty and repentance was communicated from rank to rank, till the plains of Sardica resounded with universal acclamation of, away with these upstart usurpers, long life and victory to the son of Constantine, under his banners alone we will fight and conquer. The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of the Traneo, who stood amidst the defection of his followers and anxious and silent suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his fate, and taking the diadem from his head in the view of both armies fell prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his victory with prudence and moderation. And raising from the ground the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the endearing name of father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne. The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile, or retirement, of the abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the goodness of Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity, advised his benefactor to resign the scepter of the world and to seek for content were alone it could be found in the peaceful obscurity of a private condition. The behavior of the Constantius on this memorable occasion was celebrated with some appearance of justice, and his courtiers compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes addressed to the populace of Athens with victorious eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and depose the object of their partial choice. The approaching contest with Magentius was of a more serious and bloody kind. The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius at the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of Franks and Saxons, of those provincials who supply the strength of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the most formidable enemies of the Republic. The fertile plains of the Lower Pannonia between the Drav, the Sov, and the Danube presented a spacious theater and the operations of the civil war were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity of the combatants. Constantius had declared his intention of deciding the quarrel in the fields of Sibalis, a name that would animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory which, on the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with which the Emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline rather than to invite a general engagement. It was the object of Magentius to tempt or to compel his adversary to relinquish this advantageous position, and he employed with that view the various marches, evolutions, and stratagems which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest to an experienced officer. He carried, by assault, the important town of Sicia, made an attack on the city of Sermium, which lay in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage over the Sov into the eastern provinces of Illyricum, and cut in pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the narrow passes of the Ardan. During the greater part of the summer, the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops of Constantius were harassed and dispirited. His reputation declined in the eye of the world, and his pride condescended to solicit a treaty of peace which would have resigned to the assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip, the Imperial Ambassador, and the council, as well as the army of Magentius, were disposed to accept them. But the haute usurper, careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that Philip should be detained as a captive, or at least as a hostage, while he dispatched an officer to reproach Constantius with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. That he should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of an avenging deity, was the only answer which honor permitted the emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of a situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined Silvanus the Frank, a general of merit and reputation, to desert with a considerable body of cavalry a few days before the Battle of Merca. The city of Merca, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a bridge of boats five miles in length over the river Drov, and the adjacent morasses has been always considered as a place of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magentius, directing his march towards Merca, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames. The approach of Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the siege, and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had taken post in an adjoining amphitheater. The field of battle round Merca was a naked and level plain. On this ground the army of Constantius formed, with the Drov on their right, while their left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank of Magentius. The troops on both sides remained under arms, in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning. And the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. They deserved his confidence by the valor and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the action upon the left, and advancing their whole wing of cavalry in an oblique line, they suddenly wielded it on the right flank of the enemy which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied by the habits of discipline, and the barbarians of Germany supported their renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became general, was maintained with various and singular turns of fortune, and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the arms of his cavalry. His caressirs are described as so many statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor and breaking with their ponderous lances the firm army of the Gallic legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more active squadrons of the second line rode sword and hand into the intervals and completed the disorder. In the meanwhile, the huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the dexterity of the Oriental archers, and whole troops of those barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the draught. The number of the slain was computed at 54,000 men, and the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that of the vanquished. A circumstance which proves the obstinacy of the contest and justifies the observation of an ancient writer that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal battle of Mercia by the loss of a veteran army sufficient to defend the frontiers or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome, not withstanding the invectives of a servile orator, there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the enemy. Magentius then consulted his safety and throwing away the imperial ornaments escaped with some difficulty from the pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight from the banks of the drave to the foot of the Julian Alps. The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius with specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till the ensuing spring. Magentius had fixed his residence in the city of Akelia and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the confines of the nation province. The surprise of a castle in the Alps by the secret march of the imperialists could scarcely have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy if the inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their tyrant. But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his ministers after the unsuccessful revolt of Napotian had left a deep impression of horror and resentment on the minds of the Romans. That rash youth, the son of the Princess Utropia and the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation the scepter of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a desperate troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble guard of the domestic tranquility of Rome, received the homage of the Senate, and assuming the title of Augustus precariously reigned during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular forces put an end to his ambitious hopes. The rebellion was extinguished in the blood of Napotian, of his mother Utropia, and of his adherents, and the prescription was extended to all who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of Constantine. But as soon as Constantius, after the Battle of Mercia, became master of the sea coast of Dalmatia, a band of noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor in the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious camp. By their secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome and the Italian cities were persuaded to display the banners of Constantius on their walls. The grateful veterans, enriched by the liberality of the father, signalized their gratitude and loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions, and the auxiliaries of Italy renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius, and the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled, with the remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the Alps into the provinces of Gaul. The detachments, however, which were ordered either to press or to intercept the flight of Magentius, conducted themselves with the usual imprudence of success, and allowed him, in planes of Pavia, an opportunity of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the carnage of a useless victory. The pride of Magentius was reduced by repeated misfortunes to Sue and to Sue in vain for peace. He first dispatched a senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several bishops, whose holy character might obtain a more favorable audience, with the offer of resigning the purple, and the promise of devoting the remainder of his life to the service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of rebellion, avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to overwhelm on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain, confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a considerable force which passed the Pyrenees and advanced towards Lyons, the last and fatal station of Magentius. The temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression which could extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. Their patience was at length exhausted, and Treves, the seat of the Petorian government, gave the signal of revolt by shutting her gates against Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to the rank either of Caesar or of Augustus. From Treves, Decentius was obliged to retire to Sons, where he was soon surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious arts of Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. In the meantime, the imperial troops forced the passages of the Cotcian Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Salucius irrecoverably fixed the title of the rebels on the party of Magentius. He was unable to bring another army into the field. The fidelity of his guards was corrupted, and when he appeared in public to animate them by exhortations, he was saluted with a unanimous shout of long live the Emperor Constantius, the tyrant who perceived that they were preparing to deserve pardon and rewards by the sacrifice of the most obnoxious criminal prevented their design by falling on his sword. A death more easy and more honorable than he could hope to obtain from the hands of an enemy whose revenge would have been colored with the specious pretense of justice and fraternal piety. The example of suicide was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the news of his brother's death. The author of the conspiracy, Marcellinus, had long since disappeared in the Battle of Mercia, and the public tranquility was confirmed by the execution of the surviving leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A severe inquisition was extended all over who either from choice or from compulsion had been involved in the cause of rebellion. Paul, surnamed Catena, from a superior skill in the judicial exercise of tyranny, was sent to explore the latent remains of the conspiracy and the remote province of Britain. The honest indignation expressed by Martin, vice prefect of the island, was interpreted as evidence of his own guilt, and the governor was urged to the necessity of turning against his breast the sword with which he had been provoked to wound the imperial minister. The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile and confiscation, to death and torture, and as the timid are always cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. End of Chapter 18, Part 4. Chapter 19, Part 1 of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Robin Cotter. Toronto, Ontario. March, 2007. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 2. By Edward Gibbon. Chapter 19, Constantius, sole emperor. Part 1. Constantius, sole emperor. Elevation and death of Gallus. Danger and elevation of Julian. Sarmation and Persian wars. Victories of Julian in Gaul. The divided provinces of the Empire were again united by the victory of Constantius. But as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit, either in peace or war, as he feared his generals and distrusted his ministers, the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of oriental jealousy and despotism, were introduced into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. Their progress was rapid, and the eunuchs, who in the time of Augustus had been abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, were gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves, restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced to a humble station by the prudence of Constantine. They multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons and insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction of the secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species appears to have degraded their character and to have rendered them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be of conceiving any generous sentiment or of performing any worthy action. But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery and intrigue, and they alternately governed the mind of Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the sale of justice and of honors, to disgrace the most important dignities by the promotion of those who had purchased at their hands the powers of oppression and to gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits who arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was the Chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. By his artful suggestions the Emperor was persuaded to subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the House of Constantine. When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter about six years of age, and as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and dependent life from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed by all mankind an act of the most deliberate cruelty. Different cities of Ionia and Bethania were assigned for their places of their exile and education, but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the Emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Masalem, near Caesarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six-year confinement was partially such as they could hope from a careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant. Their prison was an ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia, the situation was pleasant, the buildings of stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their studies and practiced their exercises under the tuition of the most skillful masters, and the numerous household appointed to attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety, secluded from the society of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state compelled the Emperor, or rather his eunuchs to invest gallus in the twenty-fifth year of his age with the title of Caesar, and to cement this political connection by his marriage with the princess Constantina. After a formal interview in which the two princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake anything to the prejudice of each other, they were repaired with a delay to their respective stations. Constantius continued his march towards the west, and gallus fixed his residence at Antioch. From whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five great diocese of the eastern prefecture? In this fortunate change the new Caesar was not unmindful of his brother Julian, who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty, and the restitution of an ample patrimony. The writers the most indulgent to the memory of gallus, and even Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil of the frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Caesar was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne, he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper, naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity. The remembrance of what he had endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy, and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who approached his person, or were subject to his power. Constantina, his wife, is described not as a woman, but as one of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. Instead of employing her influence to insinuate the mild councils of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her husband, and as she retained the vanity, though she had renounced the gentleness of her sex, a pearl necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent and virtuous nobleman. The cruelty of gallus was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or military executions, and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of law and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of Antioch and the places of public resort were besieged by spies and informers, and the Caesar himself, concealed in a plebeian habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria. The Prince of the East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment, the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of insensing, by their secret correspondence the timid and suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the people, whilst he furnished the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded the emperor, the fairest pretense, of exacting the forfeit of his purple and of his life. As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration to which his choice had subjected the East, and the discovery of some assassins secretly dispatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul was employed to convince the public that the emperor and the Caesar were united by the same interest, and pursued by the same enemies. But when the victory was decided in favour of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch with the connivance and almost at the instigation of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental Prefect and Montius, Quester of the palace, were empowered by a special commission to visit and reform the State of the East. They were instructed to behave towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the Prefect disappointed those prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin, as well as that of his enemy. On arrival at Antioch, Domitian passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging a slight pretense of indisposition, continued several days in sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial which he transmitted to the imperial court. Yielding at length to the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the Prefect condescended to take his seat in council, but his first step was to signify a concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Caesar should immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself would punish his delay or hesitation by suspending the usual allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of Constantine, who could ill-broke the insolence of a subject, expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his disposition. The quester reproached Gallus in a haughty language that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a municipal magistrate should presume to imprison a Praetorian Prefect. Convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers, and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate councils. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the Prefect and the quester, and tying their legs together with ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of the Eurontes. After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defense the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquility of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practiced with success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence and friendship, exhorting the Caesar to discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance. Seduced by the flattering assurances of the tribune Scudillo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier, disguised the most artful insinuation, and he depended on the credit of his wife Constantina till the unseasonable death of that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions. CHAPTER XIX DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE VOLUME II After a long delay the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his journey to the imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople he traversed the wide extent of his dominions with the numerous and stately train, and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was met by ministers of confidence commissioned to seize the offices of government to observe his motions and to prevent the hasty sallies of his despair. The persons dispatched to secure the provinces which he left behind passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain. And the troops whose station lay along the public road were studiously removed on his approach, lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil war. After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few days at Hadrianople he received a mandate expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the imperial residence at Milan. In this rapid journey the profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague of Constantius was insensibly changed into rude familiarity, and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect with terror and remorse the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved was laid aside at Petovio in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs where the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers who could neither be moved by pity nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola in Istria, a sequestered prison which had been so recently polluted with royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the appearance of his implacable enemy, the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to interrogate him concerning the administration of the east. The Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he was charged, and by imputing them to the advice of his wife exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was easily convinced that his own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin. The sentence of death was signed, dispatched, and executed, and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malfactor. Those who were inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate, but that the second messenger, entrusted with their reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of the east. Thus the reigning emperor, Julian alone, survived, of all the numerous posterity of Constantius' clorus. The misfortune of his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of Milan, where he languished above seven months in the continual apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honour, as well as his life, against the ensnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his sentiments, and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice against the empires' house of Constantine. As the most effectual instrument of their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous friendship of the Empress Eusebia, a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the imperial presence. He pleaded his cause with a decent freedom. He was heard with favour, and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an adventure of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. By the effects of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs, and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the neighbourhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honourable exile. As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion for the language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure and order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labours were not unsuccessful, and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested, and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow students might perhaps examine his behaviour with an eye of prejudice and aversion. But Julian established in the schools of Athens a general prepossession in favour of his virtues and talents which was soon diffused over the Roman world. Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The impunity of Rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isarians. Those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Solution, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Of all, the Persian monarch elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the first time Constantius sincerely acknowledged that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion. Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that his all-powerful virtue and celestial fortune would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence without offending his suspicious pride. As she perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. She accustomed her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honour a subordinate station without aspiring to dispute the commands or to shade the glories of his sovereign and benefactor. After an obstinate though secret struggle, the opposition of the favoured eunuchs submitted to the ascendancy of the empress, and it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the title of Caesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appealed to the people of Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement. He trembled for his life, for his fame, and even for his virtue. And his sole confidence was derived from the persuasion that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that purpose she had borrowed from the sun and moon. He approached, with horror, the palace of Milan. Nor could the ingenious youth conceal his indignation when he found himself accosted with false and servile respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes embraced him with the tenderness of a sister, and endeavored by the most soothing caresses to dispel his terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused during a few days the levity of the imperial court. The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague, but they were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this solemn occasion the guards with the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of Milan appeared under arms, and Constantius ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. In a studied speech conceived and delivered with dignity the emperor represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the necessity of naming a Caesar for the administration of the west, and his own intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur. Gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with pleasure that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with the tone of authority which his superior age and station permitted him to assume, and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their shields against their knees, while the officers who surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius. The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot, and during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears. The four and twenty days which the Caesar spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity. Nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of freedom. His steps were watched, his correspondence was intercepted, and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics, four only were permitted to attend him. Two pages, his physician and his librarian. The last of whom was employed in the care of a valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied the inclinations, as well as the interest of her friend. In the room of these faithful servants a household was formed, such indeed as became the dignity of a Caesar, but it was filled with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable of any attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might require the assistance of a wise counsel, but the minute instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of a prince entrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by the fear of displeasing his sovereign, and even the fruits of his marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia herself, who on this occasion alone seems to have been unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by the recent and unworthy fate of Silvanus. In the summer which preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to deliver gall from the tyranny of the barbarians, but Silvanus soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in the imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory letters, and erasing the whole of the contents, except the signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his friends, the fraud was, however, detected, and in a great council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the emperor himself, the innocence of Silvanus was publicly acknowledged, but the discovery came too late. The reports of the Calmini and the hasty seizure of his estate had already provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his headquarters of Cologne, and his act of powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained by an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the east, exasperated as he might speciously allege by the injuries of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the standard, and to portray the confidence of his two credulous friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Silvanus was assassinated. The soldiers who, without any criminal intention, had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately returned to their allegiance, and the flatterers of Constantius celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. The protection of the Rician frontier and the persecution of the Catholic Church detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the east, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the Emelian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers of luxury, but in a time of profound peace he was encompassed by the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and croissiers. Under streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold and shaped in the form of dragons, waved around the person of the emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold and precious gems, and except when he bowed his head to pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible and, as it might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the imperial palace, and such were the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a slow and sultry march he was never seen to move his hand towards his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left. He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome, and the emperor surveyed with attention the civil honors of the Republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an innumerable multitude, their repeated acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself expressed with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus. He presided in the senate, harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended, assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the circus, and accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the panegyrex which had been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the seven hills and the interjace and valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the capital, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the pantheon, the massy greatness of the amphitheater of Titus, the elegant architecture of the theater of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and above all the stately structure of the Forum and Column of Trajan, acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the world. The traveller who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiment which they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty. The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial of his own gratitude and magnificence. His first idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the form of Trajan, but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution he chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these obelisks had been erected in the city of Thebes and Heliopolis by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt in a just confidence that the simplicity of their form and the hardness of their substance would resist the injuries of time and violence. Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to Rome by Augustus and his successors as the most durable monuments of their power and victory, but there remained one obelisk which from its size or sanctity escaped for a long time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by Constantine to adorn his new city, and after being removed by his order from the pedestal where it stood before the temple of the sun at Heliopolis was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose, and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital of the Empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite at least one hundred and fifteen feet in length from the banks of the Nile to those of the Tiber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed about three miles from the city and elevated by the efforts of art and labour in the great circus of Rome. The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The distractions of civil war and the irreparable loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the Battle of Mercia exposed those countries almost without defense to the light cavalry of the barbarians, and particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation who seemed to have exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military arts of their Sarmatian allies. The garrisons of the frontiers were insufficient to check their progress, and the indolent monarch was at length compelled to assemble from the extremities of his dominions, the flower of the Palantine troops, to take the field in person and to employ a whole campaign with the preceding autumn and the ensuing spring in the serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces, all that encountered his march, penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman province. The dismayed barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace. They offered the restitution of his captive subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which was shown to the first among their chieftains, who implored the clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more obstinate, to imitate their example, and the imperial camp was crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant tribes, who occupied the plains of the lesser Poland, and who might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian exiles who had been expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi. The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating dependence, and restored them by a separate treaty to the dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the friend and ally of the Republic. He declared his resolution of asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment, of the Limmigants, whose manners were still infected with the vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the Limmigants was protected against the Romans by the Danube, against the hostile barbarians by the Tess. The marshy lands which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius the Limmigants tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud and of arms, but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of their irregular valour. One of their most warlike tribes established in a small island towards the conflicts of the Tess and the Danube consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which they meditated, encompassed on every side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy, and with an undaunted countenance still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this victory a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite banks of the Danube, the Typhil, a gothic tribe engaged in the service of the empire, invaded the Limmigants on the side of the Tess, and their former masters, the Free Sarmatians, animated by hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country into the heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the barbarians which receded in the depth of the wilderness, and the soldier fought with confidence on marshy ground which it was dangerous for him to tread. In this extremity the bravest of the Limmigants were resolved to die in arms rather than to yield, but the milder sentiment enforced by the authority of their elders at length prevailed, and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children, repaired to the imperial camp to learn their fate from the mouth of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency which was still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of their exile a remote country where they might enjoy a safe and honorable repose. The Limmigants obeyed with reluctance, but before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their destined habitations they returned to the banks of the Danube, exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting with fervent professions of fidelity that the emperor would grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers, who were ready to represent the honour and advantage of accepting a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the subjects of the empire. The Limmigants were permitted to pass the Danube, and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and dignity, when one of the barbarians casting his shoe into the air exclaimed with a loud voice, Marha Marha, a word of defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor. His royal throne and golden coat were pillaged by these rude hands, but the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the Romans, and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of the name and nation of the Limmigants. The freeze-armations were reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats, and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and obsequious demeanour of Zazaeus, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him the title of king, and Zazaeus proved that he was not unworthy to reign by a sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from the acclamations of his victorious army. End of CHAPTER XIX, PART II THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE VOLUME II While the Roman Emperor and the Persian monarch at the distance of three thousand miles defended their extreme limits against the barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war and a precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius, the Praetorian prefect Mussonian, whose abilities were disgraced by the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, Duke of Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret negotiation with the satrap Tempsapur. These overtures of peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King, who resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narces, whom he invested with that character, was honorably received in his passage through Antioch and Constantinople. He reached Sermium after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. Sapor, king of kings and brother of the sun and moon, such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity, expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Caesar, had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of Darius Histapus, Sapor asserted that the river Strymon in Macedonia was the true and ancient boundary of his empire, declaring, however, that, as an evidence of his moderation, he would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his ancestors. He alleged that, without the restitution of these disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on a solid and permanent basis, and he arrogantly threatened that if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by the strength of his invincible arms. Narces, who was endowed with the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message. Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer. Quote, Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the throne. He was not, however, averse to an equal and honourable treaty, but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose to the soul and victorious emperor of the Roman world the same conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the east. The chance of arms was uncertain, and Sapor should recollect that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of the war. A few days after the departure of Narces, three ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence of Stesipon. A count, a notary, and a sophist had been selected for this important commission, and Constantius, who was secretly anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, would persuade the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the hostile arts of Antoninus, a Roman subject of Syria, who had fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the custom of the Persians, the most important business was frequently discussed. The dexterous fugitive promoted his interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the favourable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenseless provinces of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia now fortified by the alliance and accession of the fiercest barbarians. The ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second embassy of a still more honourable rank was detained in strict confinement, and threatened either with death or exile. The military historian, who was himself dispatched to observe the army of the Persians as they were preparing to construct a bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and with arms. Satora appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendour of his purple. On his left hand the place of honour among the Orientals, grumbates, king of the Keonites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent tribes from the shores of the Caspian. The satraps and generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and the whole army, besides the numerous train of oriental luxury, consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, enured to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor, had prudently advised that instead of wasting the summer in tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every precaution had been used which could retard their progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places of strength. The green forage throughout the country was set on fire. The fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes. Military engines were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the Euphrates deterred the barbarians from attempting the ordinary passage of the bridge of Thapskis. Their skillful guide, changing his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer circuit, but through a fertile territory towards the head of the Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength of Nisibis, but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random dart which glanced against the royal tiara convinced him of his error, and the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the advice of his ministers who conjured him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification of his resentment. The following day grumbates advanced towards the gates with the select body of troops, and required the instant surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin, shot from one of the balusty. The funeral of the prince of the Keonites was celebrated according to the rites of the country, and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should serve as a funeral pyre to expiate the death and to perpetuate the memory of his son. The ancient city of Amid, or Amida, which sometimes assumes the provincial appellation of Diarbaker, is advantageously situate in a fertile plain watered by the natural and artificial channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city. The Emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honour of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reinforced to the amount of seven legions when the place was invested by the arms of Sapor. His first and most sanguine hopes depended on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned, the south to the Verte, the north to the Albanians, the east to the Keonites, inflamed with grief and indignation, the west to the Segistans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front with a formidable line of Indian elephants. The Persians on every side supported their efforts and animated their courage, and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety, displayed in the prosecution of the Siege, the ardour of a youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat the barbarians were repulsed, they incessantly returned to the charge. They were again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel legions of Gauls who had been banished into the east signaled their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who indicated to the barbarians a secret and neglected staircase, scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice. They elevated on high the Persian banner the signal of confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged, and if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried, without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular Siege. In the conduct of which he was instructed by the scale of the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch and undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels till the soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defense of Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may be exhausted, the Persians repaired their losses, and pushed their approaches. A large breach was made by the battering ram, and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors in a promiscuous massacre. But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces. As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise the disobedient city he had lost the flour of his troops, and the most favorable season for conquest. Thirty thousand of his veterans had fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a siege which lasted seventy-three days, and the disappointed monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret mortification. It is more than probable that the inconstancy of his barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which they had encountered such unexpected difficulties, and that the aged king of the Keonites, satiated with revenge, turned away with horror from a scene of action, where he had been deprived of the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the spirit of the army, with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing spring, was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the east, he was obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified cities of Mesopotamia, Singara, and Bizabdi. The one situate in the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula, surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of the Tigris. Five Roman legions of the diminutive size to which they had been reduced in the age of Constantine were made prisoners and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror abandoned that solitary and sequestered place, but he carefully restored the fortifications of Bizabdi, and fixed in that important post a garrison or colony of veterans, amply supplied with every means of defense, and animated by high sentiments of honor and fidelity. Against the close of the campaign, the arms of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise against Vertha or Tecrit, a strong ore as it was universally esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of the independent Arabs. The defense of the east against the arms of Sapor required and would have exercised the abilities of the most consummate general, and it seemed fortunate for the state that it was the actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the eunuchs, and the military command of the east was bestowed by the same influence on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran who had attained the infirmities without acquiring the experience of age. By a second order, which issued from the same jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again dispatched to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the walls of Odessa, and while he amused himself with the idle parade of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the Pyrrhic dance, the public defense was abandoned to the boldness and diligence of the former general of the east. But whenever Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations, when he proposed at the head of a light and act of army to wheel round the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy, to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve the distress of Amida, the timid and envious commander alleged that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken, its bravest defenders, who had escaped the sword of the barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner, and Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it his no easy task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the barbarians of the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the east, and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed with the powerful army the siege of Bizabdi. The walls were shaken by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the battering rams. The town was reduced to the last extremity, but it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege, and ingloriously to retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch. The pride of Constantius and the ingenuity of his courtiers were at a loss to discover any materials for panagyric in the events of the Persian War, while the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had entrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in the simple and concise narrative of his exploits. In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul which still acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemani were invited to cross the Rhine by presence and promises, by the hopes of spoil and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they should be able to subdue. But the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the barbarians, soon discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable allies after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the empire who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring. Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Trevis, Worms, Spires, Strasburg, etc. These a far greater number of towns and villages were pillaged and for the most part reduced to ashes. The barbarians of Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the confinement of walls to which they applied the odious names of prisons and sepulchres, and fixing their independent habitations on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Muse, they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise by a rude and hasty fortification of large trees which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemani were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine. The Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of Brabant, which was then known by the Appalachian of Tuxandria, and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of the Gallic monarchy. From the sources to the mouth of the Rhine, the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation, and the scene of their devastations was three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of Gall were deserted and the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions, destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians. End of Chapter 19, Part 3