Chapter XXXI: Invasion Of Italy, Occupation Of Territories By

Barbarians.—Part VII.

The situation of Spain, separated, on all sides, from the enemies of

Rome, by the sea, by the mountains, and by intermediate provinces, had

secured the long tranquillity of that remote and sequestered country;

and we may observe, as a sure symptom of domestic happiness, that, in a

period of four hundred years, Spain furnished very few materials to the

history of the Roman empire. The footsteps of the Barbarians, who, in

the reign of Gallienus, had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon

obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of the

Christian æra, the cities of Emerita, or Merida, of Corduba, Seville,

Bracara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most illustrious of the

Roman world. The various plenty of the animal, the vegetable, and the

mineral kingdoms, was improved and manufactured by the skill of

an industrious people; and the peculiar advantages of naval stores

contributed to support an extensive and profitable trade. The arts and

sciences flourished under the protection of the emperors; and if the

character of the Spaniards was enfeebled by peace and servitude, the

hostile approach of the Germans, who had spread terror and desolation

from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed to rekindle some sparks of

military ardor. As long as the defence of the mountains was intrusted

to the hardy and faithful militia of the country, they successfully

repelled the frequent attempts of the Barbarians. But no sooner had

the national troops been compelled to resign their post to the Honorian

bands, in the service of Constantine, than the gates of Spain were

treacherously betrayed to the public enemy, about ten months before the

sack of Rome by the Goths. The consciousness of guilt, and the thirst

of rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to desert their

station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Alani;

and to swell the torrent which was poured with irresistible violence

from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of Africa. The misfortunes of

Spain may be described in the language of its most eloquent historian,

who has concisely expressed the passionate, and perhaps exaggerated,

declamations of contemporary writers. "The irruption of these nations

was followed by the most dreadful calamities; as the Barbarians

exercised their indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of the Romans

and the Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open

country. The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants to

feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures; and even the wild beasts,

who multiplied, without control, in the desert, were exasperated, by

the taste of blood, and the impatience of hunger, boldly to attack

and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon appeared, the inseparable

companion of famine; a large proportion of the people was swept away;

and the groans of the dying excited only the envy of their surviving

friends. At length the Barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and

afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced,

fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient

Gallicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castille, was divided

between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the

provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from the Mediterranean to the

Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful territory of Baetica was allotted to

the Silingi, another branch of the Vandalic nation. After regulating

this partition, the conquerors contracted with their new subjects some

reciprocal engagements of protection and obedience: the lands were again

cultivated; and the towns and villages were again occupied by a captive

people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even disposed to prefer

this new condition of poverty and barbarism, to the severe oppressions

of the Roman government; yet there were many who still asserted their

native freedom; and who refused, more especially in the mountains of

Gallicia, to submit to the Barbarian yoke."

The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had approved

the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to the obedience of his

brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with the situation and temper

of the king of the Goths. He readily accepted the proposal of turning

his victorious arms against the Barbarians of Spain; the troops of

Constantius intercepted his communication with the seaports of Gaul, and

gently pressed his march towards the Pyrenees: he passed the mountains,

and surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The

fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride, was not abated by time or

possession: and the birth of a son, surnamed, from his illustrious

grandsire, Theodosius, appeared to fix him forever in the interest of

the republic. The loss of that infant, whose remains were deposited in

a silver coffin in one of the churches near Barcelona, afflicted his

parents; but the grief of the Gothic king was suspended by the labors

of the field; and the course of his victories was soon interrupted by

domestic treason. He had imprudently received into his service one

of the followers of Sarus; a Barbarian of a daring spirit, but of a

diminutive stature; whose secret desire of revenging the death of his

beloved patron was continually irritated by the sarcasms of his insolent

master. Adolphus was assassinated in the palace of Barcelona; the laws

of the succession were violated by a tumultuous faction; and a stranger

to the royal race, Singeric, the brother of Sarus himself, was seated on

the Gothic throne. The first act of his reign was the inhuman murder of

the six children of Adolphus, the issue of a former marriage, whom he

tore, without pity, from the feeble arms of a venerable bishop. The

unfortunate Placidia, instead of the respectful compassion, which she

might have excited in the most savage breasts, was treated with cruel

and wanton insult. The daughter of the emperor Theodosius, confounded

among a crowd of vulgar captives, was compelled to march on foot above

twelve miles, before the horse of a Barbarian, the assassin of a husband

whom Placidia loved and lamented.

But Placidia soon obtained the pleasure of revenge, and the view of

her ignominious sufferings might rouse an indignant people against the

tyrant, who was assassinated on the seventh day of his usurpation. After

the death of Singeric, the free choice of the nation bestowed the Gothic

sceptre on Wallia; whose warlike and ambitious temper appeared, in the

beginning of his reign, extremely hostile to the republic. He marched

in arms from Barcelona to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, which the

ancients revered and dreaded as the boundary of the world. But when he

reached the southern promontory of Spain, and, from the rock now covered

by the fortress of Gibraltar, contemplated the neighboring and fertile

coast of Africa, Wallia resumed the designs of conquest, which had

been interrupted by the death of Alaric. The winds and waves

again disappointed the enterprise of the Goths; and the minds of a

superstitious people were deeply affected by the repeated disasters of

storms and shipwrecks. In this disposition the successor of Adolphus

no longer refused to listen to a Roman ambassador, whose proposals were

enforced by the real, or supposed, approach of a numerous army, under

the conduct of the brave Constantius. A solemn treaty was stipulated and

observed; Placidia was honorably restored to her brother; six hundred

thousand measures of wheat were delivered to the hungry Goths; and

Wallia engaged to draw his sword in the service of the empire. A

bloody war was instantly excited among the Barbarians of Spain; and

the contending princes are said to have addressed their letters, their

ambassadors, and their hostages, to the throne of the Western emperor,

exhorting him to remain a tranquil spectator of their contest; the

events of which must be favorable to the Romans, by the mutual slaughter

of their common enemies. The Spanish war was obstinately supported,

during three campaigns, with desperate valor, and various success;

and the martial achievements of Wallia diffused through the empire the

superior renown of the Gothic hero. He exterminated the Silingi, who had

irretrievably ruined the elegant plenty of the province of Baetica.

He slew, in battle, the king of the Alani; and the remains of those

Scythian wanderers, who escaped from the field, instead of choosing a

new leader, humbly sought a refuge under the standard of the Vandals,

with whom they were ever afterwards confounded. The Vandals themselves,

and the Suevi, yielded to the efforts of the invincible Goths. The

promiscuous multitude of Barbarians, whose retreat had been intercepted,

were driven into the mountains of Gallicia; where they still continued,

in a narrow compass and on a barren soil, to exercise their domestic and

implacable hostilities. In the pride of victory, Wallia was faithful to

his engagements: he restored his Spanish conquests to the obedience

of Honorius; and the tyranny of the Imperial officers soon reduced an

oppressed people to regret the time of their Barbarian servitude. While

the event of the war was still doubtful, the first advantages obtained

by the arms of Wallia had encouraged the court of Ravenna to decree the

honors of a triumph to their feeble sovereign. He entered Rome like

the ancient conquerors of nations; and if the monuments of servile

corruption had not long since met with the fate which they deserved, we

should probably find that a crowd of poets and orators, of magistrates

and bishops, applauded the fortune, the wisdom, and the invincible

courage, of the emperor Honorius.

Such a triumph might have been justly claimed by the ally of Rome, if

Wallia, before he repassed the Pyrenees, had extirpated the seeds of

the Spanish war. His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had

passed the Danube, were established, according to the faith of treaties,

in the possession of the second Aquitain; a maritime province

between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical

jurisdiction of Bourdeaux. That metropolis, advantageously situated for

the trade of the ocean, was built in a regular and elegant form; and its

numerous inhabitants were distinguished among the Gauls by their wealth,

their learning, and the politeness of their manners. The adjacent

province, which has been fondly compared to the garden of Eden, is

blessed with a fruitful soil, and a temperate climate; the face of the

country displayed the arts and the rewards of industry; and the Goths,

after their martial toils, luxuriously exhausted the rich vineyards of

Aquitain. The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some

neighboring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal

residence at Thoulouse, which included five populous quarters, or

cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls. About the same time,

in the last years of the reign of Honorius, the Goths, the Burgundians,

and the Franks, obtained a permanent seat and dominion in the provinces

of Gaul. The liberal grant of the usurper Jovinus to his Burgundian

allies, was confirmed by the lawful emperor; the lands of the First,

or Upper, Germany, were ceded to those formidable Barbarians; and they

gradually occupied, either by conquest or treaty, the two provinces

which still retain, with the titles of Duchy and County, the national

appellation of Burgundy. The Franks, the valiant and faithful allies of

the Roman republic, were soon tempted to imitate the invaders, whom they

had so bravely resisted. Treves, the capital of Gaul, was pillaged

by their lawless bands; and the humble colony, which they so long

maintained in the district of Toxandia, in Brabant, insensibly

multiplied along the banks of the Meuse and Scheld, till their

independent power filled the whole extent of the Second, or Lower

Germany. These facts may be sufficiently justified by historic evidence;

but the foundation of the French monarchy by Pharamond, the conquests,

the laws, and even the existence, of that hero, have been justly

arraigned by the impartial severity of modern criticism.

The ruin of the opulent provinces of Gaul may be dated from the

establishment of these Barbarians, whose alliance was dangerous and

oppressive, and who were capriciously impelled, by interest or passion,

to violate the public peace. A heavy and partial ransom was imposed on

the surviving provincials, who had escaped the calamities of war; the

fairest and most fertile lands were assigned to the rapacious strangers,

for the use of their families, their slaves, and their cattle; and the

trembling natives relinquished with a sigh the inheritance of their

fathers. Yet these domestic misfortunes, which are seldom the lot of a

vanquished people, had been felt and inflicted by the Romans themselves,

not only in the insolence of foreign conquest, but in the madness of

civil discord. The Triumvirs proscribed eighteen of the most flourishing

colonies of Italy; and distributed their lands and houses to the

veterans who revenged the death of Cæsar, and oppressed the liberty

of their country. Two poets of unequal fame have deplored, in similar

circumstances, the loss of their patrimony; but the legionaries of

Augustus appear to have surpassed, in violence and injustice, the

Barbarians who invaded Gaul under the reign of Honorius. It was not

without the utmost difficulty that Virgil escaped from the sword of the

Centurion, who had usurped his farm in the neighborhood of Mantua; but

Paulinus of Bourdeaux received a sum of money from his Gothic purchaser,

which he accepted with pleasure and surprise; and though it was much

inferior to the real value of his estate, this act of rapine was

disguised by some colors of moderation and equity. The odious name of

conquerors was softened into the mild and friendly appellation of the

guests of the Romans; and the Barbarians of Gaul, more especially the

Goths, repeatedly declared, that they were bound to the people by the

ties of hospitality, and to the emperor by the duty of allegiance and

military service. The title of Honorius and his successors, their laws,

and their civil magistrates, were still respected in the provinces of

Gaul, of which they had resigned the possession to the Barbarian allies;

and the kings, who exercised a supreme and independent authority over

their native subjects, ambitiously solicited the more honorable rank

of master-generals of the Imperial armies. Such was the involuntary

reverence which the Roman name still impressed on the minds of those

warriors, who had borne away in triumph the spoils of the Capitol.

Whilst Italy was ravaged by the Goths, and a succession of feeble

tyrants oppressed the provinces beyond the Alps, the British island

separated itself from the body of the Roman empire. The regular forces,

which guarded that remote province, had been gradually withdrawn; and

Britain was abandoned without defence to the Saxon pirates, and

the savages of Ireland and Caledonia. The Britons, reduced to this

extremity, no longer relied on the tardy and doubtful aid of a declining

monarchy. They assembled in arms, repelled the invaders, and rejoiced

in the important discovery of their own strength. Afflicted by similar

calamities, and actuated by the same spirit, the Armorican provinces (a

name which comprehended the maritime countries of Gaul between the

Seine and the Loire ) resolved to imitate the example of the neighboring

island. They expelled the Roman magistrates, who acted under the

authority of the usurper Constantine; and a free government was

established among a people who had so long been subject to the arbitrary

will of a master. The independence of Britain and Armorica was soon

confirmed by Honorius himself, the lawful emperor of the West; and the

letters, by which he committed to the new states the care of their own

safety, might be interpreted as an absolute and perpetual abdication of

the exercise and rights of sovereignty. This interpretation was, in

some measure, justified by the event. After the usurpers of Gaul had

successively fallen, the maritime provinces were restored to the empire.

Yet their obedience was imperfect and precarious: the vain, inconstant,

rebellious disposition of the people, was incompatible either with

freedom or servitude; and Armorica, though it could not long maintain

the form of a republic, was agitated by frequent and destructive

revolts. Britain was irrecoverably lost. But as the emperors wisely

acquiesced in the independence of a remote province, the separation was

not imbittered by the reproach of tyranny or rebellion; and the claims

of allegiance and protection were succeeded by the mutual and voluntary

offices of national friendship.

This revolution dissolved the artificial fabric of civil and military

government; and the independent country, during a period of forty

years, till the descent of the Saxons, was ruled by the authority of the

clergy, the nobles, and the municipal towns. I. Zosimus, who alone

has preserved the memory of this singular transaction, very accurately

observes, that the letters of Honorius were addressed to the cities of

Britain. Under the protection of the Romans, ninety-two considerable

towns had arisen in the several parts of that great province; and, among

these, thirty-three cities were distinguished above the rest by their

superior privileges and importance. Each of these cities, as in all

the other provinces of the empire, formed a legal corporation, for the

purpose of regulating their domestic policy; and the powers of municipal

government were distributed among annual magistrates, a select senate,

and the assembly of the people, according to the original model of the

Roman constitution. The management of a common revenue, the exercise of

civil and criminal jurisdiction, and the habits of public counsel and

command, were inherent to these petty republics; and when they

asserted their independence, the youth of the city, and of the adjacent

districts, would naturally range themselves under the standard of the

magistrate. But the desire of obtaining the advantages, and of escaping

the burdens, of political society, is a perpetual and inexhaustible

source of discord; nor can it reasonably be presumed, that the

restoration of British freedom was exempt from tumult and faction. The

preeminence of birth and fortune must have been frequently violated by

bold and popular citizens; and the haughty nobles, who complained that

they were become the subjects of their own servants, would sometimes

regret the reign of an arbitrary monarch. II. The jurisdiction of

each city over the adjacent country, was supported by the patrimonial

influence of the principal senators; and the smaller towns, the

villages, and the proprietors of land, consulted their own safety by

adhering to the shelter of these rising republics. The sphere of their

attraction was proportioned to the respective degrees of their wealth

and populousness; but the hereditary lords of ample possessions, who

were not oppressed by the neighborhood of any powerful city, aspired

to the rank of independent princes, and boldly exercised the rights

of peace and war. The gardens and villas, which exhibited some faint

imitation of Italian elegance, would soon be converted into strong

castles, the refuge, in time of danger, of the adjacent country: the

produce of the land was applied to purchase arms and horses; to maintain

a military force of slaves, of peasants, and of licentious followers;

and the chieftain might assume, within his own domain, the powers of a

civil magistrate. Several of these British chiefs might be the genuine

posterity of ancient kings; and many more would be tempted to adopt this

honorable genealogy, and to vindicate their hereditary claims, which

had been suspended by the usurpation of the Cæsars. Their situation and

their hopes would dispose them to affect the dress, the language, and

the customs of their ancestors. If the princes of Britain relapsed into

barbarism, while the cities studiously preserved the laws and manners

of Rome, the whole island must have been gradually divided by the

distinction of two national parties; again broken into a thousand

subdivisions of war and faction, by the various provocations of interest

and resentment. The public strength, instead of being united against a

foreign enemy, was consumed in obscure and intestine quarrels; and the

personal merit which had placed a successful leader at the head of

his equals, might enable him to subdue the freedom of some neighboring

cities; and to claim a rank among the tyrants, who infested Britain

after the dissolution of the Roman government. III. The British

church might be composed of thirty or forty bishops, with an adequate

proportion of the inferior clergy; and the want of riches (for they seem

to have been poor ) would compel them to deserve the public esteem, by

a decent and exemplary behavior. The interest, as well as the temper

of the clergy, was favorable to the peace and union of their distracted

country: those salutary lessons might be frequently inculcated in their

popular discourses; and the episcopal synods were the only councils that

could pretend to the weight and authority of a national assembly. In

such councils, where the princes and magistrates sat promiscuously

with the bishops, the important affairs of the state, as well as of

the church, might be freely debated; differences reconciled, alliances

formed, contributions imposed, wise resolutions often concerted, and

sometimes executed; and there is reason to believe, that, in moments

of extreme danger, a Pendragon, or Dictator, was elected by the general

consent of the Britons. These pastoral cares, so worthy of the episcopal

character, were interrupted, however, by zeal and superstition; and the

British clergy incessantly labored to eradicate the Pelagian heresy,

which they abhorred, as the peculiar disgrace of their native country.

It is somewhat remarkable, or rather it is extremely natural, that the

revolt of Britain and Armorica should have introduced an appearance of

liberty into the obedient provinces of Gaul. In a solemn edict, filled

with the strongest assurances of that paternal affection which princes

so often express, and so seldom feel, the emperor Honorius promulgated

his intention of convening an annual assembly of the seven provinces:

a name peculiarly appropriated to Aquitain and the ancient Narbonnese,

which had long since exchanged their Celtic rudeness for the useful and

elegant arts of Italy. Arles, the seat of government and commerce,

was appointed for the place of the assembly; which regularly continued

twenty-eight days, from the fifteenth of August to the thirteenth of

September, of every year. It consisted of the Prætorian præfect of the

Gauls; of seven provincial governors, one consular, and six presidents;

of the magistrates, and perhaps the bishops, of about sixty cities;

and of a competent, though indefinite, number of the most honorable

and opulent possessors of land, who might justly be considered as the

representatives of their country. They were empowered to interpret and

communicate the laws of their sovereign; to expose the grievances and

wishes of their constituents; to moderate the excessive or unequal

weight of taxes; and to deliberate on every subject of local or

national importance, that could tend to the restoration of the peace and

prosperity of the seven provinces. If such an institution, which gave

the people an interest in their own government, had been universally

established by Trajan or the Antonines, the seeds of public wisdom and

virtue might have been cherished and propagated in the empire of Rome.

The privileges of the subject would have secured the throne of the

monarch; the abuses of an arbitrary administration might have been

prevented, in some degree, or corrected, by the interposition of these

representative assemblies; and the country would have been defended

against a foreign enemy by the arms of natives and freemen. Under the

mild and generous influence of liberty, the Roman empire might have

remained invincible and immortal; or if its excessive magnitude, and the

instability of human affairs, had opposed such perpetual continuance,

its vital and constituent members might have separately preserved their

vigor and independence. But in the decline of the empire, when every

principle of health and life had been exhausted, the tardy application

of this partial remedy was incapable of producing any important or

salutary effects. The emperor Honorius expresses his surprise, that he

must compel the reluctant provinces to accept a privilege which they

should ardently have solicited. A fine of three, or even five, pounds

of gold, was imposed on the absent representatives; who seem to have

declined this imaginary gift of a free constitution, as the last and

most cruel insult of their oppressors.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part I.

Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace

Of Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John

Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister

Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division

Of Armenia.

The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the

final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign

of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one

thousand and fifty-eight years, in a state of premature and perpetual

decay. The sovereign of that empire assumed, and obstinately retained,

the vain, and at length fictitious, title of Emperor of the Romans; and

the hereditary appellation of Cæsar and Augustus continued to declare,

that he was the legitimate successor of the first of men, who had

reigned over the first of nations. The place of Constantinople rivalled,

and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia; and the eloquent

sermons of St. Chrysostom celebrate, while they condemn, the pompous

luxury of the reign of Arcadius. "The emperor," says he, "wears on his

head either a diadem, or a crown of gold, decorated with precious stones

of inestimable value. These ornaments, and his purple garments,

are reserved for his sacred person alone; and his robes of silk are

embroidered with the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massy

gold. Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers,

his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields, their

cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the

substance or the appearance of gold; and the large splendid boss in the

midst of their shield is encircled with smaller bosses, which represent

the shape of the human eye. The two mules that drew the chariot of the

monarch are perfectly white, and shining all over with gold. The

chariot itself, of pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the

spectators, who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the

size of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, that

glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage. The Imperial

pictures are white, on a blue ground; the emperor appears seated on his

throne, with his arms, his horses, and his guards beside him; and his

vanquished enemies in chains at his feet." The successors of Constantine

established their perpetual residence in the royal city, which he had

erected on the verge of Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces

of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they

received, with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate;

while the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages

to defy the hostile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were

bounded by the Adriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of

twenty-five days' navigation, which separated the extreme cold of

Scythia from the torrid zone of Æthiopia, was comprehended within the

limits of the empire of the East. The populous countries of that

empire were the seat of art and learning, of luxury and wealth; and the

inhabitants, who had assumed the language and manners of Greeks, styled

themselves, with some appearance of truth, the most enlightened and

civilized portion of the human species. The form of government was a

pure and simple monarchy; the name of the Roman Republic, which so

long preserved a faint tradition of freedom, was confined to the Latin

provinces; and the princes of Constantinople measured their greatness by

the servile obedience of their people. They were ignorant how much this

passive disposition enervates and degrades every faculty of the mind.

The subjects, who had resigned their will to the absolute commands of

a master, were equally incapable of guarding their lives and fortunes

against the assaults of the Barbarians, or of defending their reason

from the terrors of superstition.

The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so intimately

connected, that the rebellion of the Goths, and the fall of Rufinus,

have already claimed a place in the history of the West. It has already

been observed, that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the

palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he

had accomplished, and whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of

the state bowed to the new favorite; and their tame and obsequious

submission encouraged him to insult the laws, and, what is still more

difficult and dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest

of the predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been

secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the

confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were confined

to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial bed-chamber. They

might direct, in a whisper, the public counsels, and blast, by their

malicious suggestions, the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious

citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of

empire, or to profane the public honors of the state. Eutropius was

the first of his artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a

Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing

senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment, or to repeat

elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on horseback, at the head

of his troops, in the dress and armor of a hero. The disregard of custom

and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor does

Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design by any

superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life

had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of

the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret

contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such

a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of

the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, perhaps, than

hatred, to a public character. The subjects of Arcadius were exasperated

by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, who so

perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject

condition of servitude; that before he entered the Imperial palace, he

had been successively sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had

exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and

at length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. While

these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in

private conversation, the vanity of the favorite was flattered with

the most extraordinary honors. In the senate, in the capital, in the

provinces, the statues of Eutropius were erected, in brass, or marble,

decorated with the symbols of his civil and military virtues, and

inscribed with the pompous title of the third founder of Constantinople.

He was promoted to the rank of patrician, which began to signify in a

popular, and even legal, acceptation, the father of the emperor; and

the last year of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of

a eunuch and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy awakened,

however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was

rejected by the West, as an indelible stain to the annals of the

republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus,

the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate,

sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two

administrations.

The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated by a

more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of the eunuch was

not less insatiate than that of the præfect. As long as he despoiled

the oppressors, who had enriched themselves with the plunder of the

people, Eutropius might gratify his covetous disposition without much

envy or injustice: but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the

wealth which had been acquired by lawful inheritance, or laudable

industry. The usual methods of extortion were practised and improved;

and Claudian has sketched a lively and original picture of the public

auction of the state. "The impotence of the eunuch," says that agreeable

satirist, "has served only to stimulate his avarice: the same hand which

in his servile condition, was exercised in petty thefts, to unlock the

coffers of his master, now grasps the riches of the world; and this

infamous broker of the empire appreciates and divides the Roman

provinces from Mount Hæmus to the Tigris. One man, at the expense of

his villa, is made proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his

wife's jewels; and a third laments that he has exchanged his paternal

estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antechamber of Eutropius,

a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks the respective

prices of the provinces. The different value of Pontus, of Galatia, of

Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia may be obtained for so many

thousand pieces of gold; but the opulence of Phrygia will require a

more considerable sum. The eunuch wishes to obliterate, by the general

disgrace, his personal ignominy; and as he has been sold himself, he is

desirous of selling the rest of mankind. In the eager contention, the

balance, which contains the fate and fortunes of the province, often

trembles on the beam; and till one of the scales is inclined, by a

superior weight, the mind of the impartial judge remains in anxious

suspense. Such," continues the indignant poet, "are the fruits of Roman

valor, of the defeat of Antiochus, and of the triumph of Pompey." This

venal prostitution of public honors secured the impunity of future

crimes; but the riches, which Eutropius derived from confiscation, were

already stained with injustice; since it was decent to accuse, and

to condemn, the proprietors of the wealth, which he was impatient to

confiscate. Some noble blood was shed by the hand of the executioner;

and the most inhospitable extremities of the empire were filled with

innocent and illustrious exiles. Among the generals and consuls of

the East, Abundantius had reason to dread the first effects of the

resentment of Eutropius. He had been guilty of the unpardonable crime of

introducing that abject slave to the palace of Constantinople; and some

degree of praise must be allowed to a powerful and ungrateful favorite,

who was satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. Abundantius was

stripped of his ample fortunes by an Imperial rescript, and banished to

Pityus, on the Euxine, the last frontier of the Roman world; where

he subsisted by the precarious mercy of the Barbarians, till he could

obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, a milder exile at Sidon, in

Phœnicia. The destruction of Timasius required a more serious and

regular mode of attack. That great officer, the master-general of the

armies of Theodosius, had signalized his valor by a decisive victory,

which he obtained over the Goths of Thessaly; but he was too prone,

after the example of his sovereign, to enjoy the luxury of peace, and to

abandon his confidence to wicked and designing flatterers. Timasius had

despised the public clamor, by promoting an infamous dependent to the

command of a cohort; and he deserved to feel the ingratitude of Bargus,

who was secretly instigated by the favorite to accuse his patron of a

treasonable conspiracy. The general was arraigned before the tribunal

of Arcadius himself; and the principal eunuch stood by the side of the

throne to suggest the questions and answers of his sovereign. But as

this form of trial might be deemed partial and arbitrary, the further

inquiry into the crimes of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus and

Procopius; the former of consular rank, the latter still respected as

the father-in-law of the emperor Valens. The appearances of a fair and

legal proceeding were maintained by the blunt honesty of Procopius; and

he yielded with reluctance to the obsequious dexterity of his colleague,

who pronounced a sentence of condemnation against the unfortunate

Timasius. His immense riches were confiscated in the name of the

emperor, and for the benefit of the favorite; and he was doomed to

perpetual exile at Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of the sandy

deserts of Libya. Secluded from all human converse, the master-general

of the Roman armies was lost forever to the world; but the circumstances

of his fate have been related in a various and contradictory manner. It

is insinuated that Eutropius despatched a private order for his secret

execution. It was reported, that, in attempting to escape from Oasis, he

perished in the desert, of thirst and hunger; and that his dead body was

found on the sands of Libya. It has been asserted, with more confidence,

that his son Syagrius, after successfully eluding the pursuit of the

agents and emissaries of the court, collected a band of African robbers;

that he rescued Timasius from the place of his exile; and that both the

father and the son disappeared from the knowledge of mankind. But the

ungrateful Bargus, instead of being suffered to possess the reward of

guilt was soon after circumvented and destroyed, by the more powerful

villany of the minister himself, who retained sense and spirit enough to

abhor the instrument of his own crimes.

The public hatred, and the despair of individuals, continually

threatened, or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of Eutropius; as

well as of the numerous adherents, who were attached to his fortune,

and had been promoted by his venal favor. For their mutual defence,

he contrived the safeguard of a law, which violated every principal

of humanity and justice. I. It is enacted, in the name, and by the

authority of Arcadius, that all those who should conspire, either with

subjects or with strangers, against the lives of any of the persons whom

the emperor considers as the members of his own body, shall be punished

with death and confiscation. This species of fictitious and metaphorical

treason is extended to protect, not only the illustrious officers of

the state and army, who were admitted into the sacred consistory,

but likewise the principal domestics of the palace, the senators of

Constantinople, the military commanders, and the civil magistrates of

the provinces; a vague and indefinite list, which, under the successors

of Constantine, included an obscure and numerous train of subordinate

ministers. II. This extreme severity might perhaps be justified, had it

been only directed to secure the representatives of the sovereign from

any actual violence in the execution of their office. But the whole body

of Imperial dependants claimed a privilege, or rather impunity, which

screened them, in the loosest moments of their lives, from the hasty,

perhaps the justifiable, resentment of their fellow-citizens; and, by a

strange perversion of the laws, the same degree of guilt and punishment

was applied to a private quarrel, and to a deliberate conspiracy against

the emperor and the empire. The edicts of Arcadius most positively and

most absurdly declares, that in such cases of treason, thoughts and

actions ought to be punished with equal severity; that the knowledge

of a mischievous intention, unless it be instantly revealed, becomes

equally criminal with the intention itself; and that those rash men,

who shall presume to solicit the pardon of traitors, shall themselves be

branded with public and perpetual infamy. III. "With regard to the sons

of the traitors," (continues the emperor,) "although they ought to share

the punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their

parents, yet, by the special effect of our Imperial lenity, we grant

them their lives; but, at the same time, we declare them incapable

of inheriting, either on the father's or on the mother's side, or of

receiving any gift or legacy, from the testament either of kinsmen or of

strangers. Stigmatized with hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes

of honors or fortune, let them endure the pangs of poverty and contempt,

till they shall consider life as a calamity, and death as a comfort

and relief." In such words, so well adapted to insult the feelings of

mankind, did the emperor, or rather his favorite eunuch, applaud the

moderation of a law, which transferred the same unjust and inhuman

penalties to the children of all those who had seconded, or who had

not disclosed, their fictitious conspiracies. Some of the noblest

regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered to expire; but

this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of ministerial tyranny,

was carefully inserted in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian; and the

same maxims have been revived in modern ages, to protect the electors of

Germany, and the cardinals of the church of Rome.

Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed and

dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the bold

enterprise of Tribigild the Ostrogoth. The colony of that warlike

nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of the most fertile

districts of Phrygia, impatiently compared the slow returns of laborious

husbandry with the successful rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric;

and their leader resented, as a personal affront, his own ungracious

reception in the palace of Constantinople. A soft and wealthy province,

in the heart of the empire, was astonished by the sound of war; and

the faithful vassal who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again

respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a Barbarian.

The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid Marsyas and the

winding Mæander, were consumed with fire; the decayed walls of

the cities crumbled into dust, at the first stroke of an enemy; the

trembling inhabitants escaped from a bloody massacre to the shores of

the Hellespont; and a considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated

by the rebellion of Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the

resistance of the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in

a narrow pass, between the city of Selgæ, a deep morass, and the craggy

cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of their bravest

troops. But the spirit of their chief was not daunted by misfortune; and

his army was continually recruited by swarms of Barbarians and outlaws,

who were desirous of exercising the profession of robbery, under the

more honorable names of war and conquest. The rumors of the success of

Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by

flattery; yet they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital.

Every misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the

future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious conjecture.

Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country, the Romans were

inclined to suppose that he meditated the passage of Mount Taurus, and

the invasion of Syria. If he descended towards the sea, they imputed,

and perhaps suggested, to the Gothic chief, the more dangerous project

of arming a fleet in the harbors of Ionia, and of extending his

depredations along the maritime coast, from the mouth of the Nile to

the port of Constantinople. The approach of danger, and the obstinacy of

Tribigild, who refused all terms of accommodation, compelled Eutropius

to summon a council of war. After claiming for himself the privilege

of a veteran soldier, the eunuch intrusted the guard of Thrace and the

Hellespont to Gainas the Goth, and the command of the Asiatic army

to his favorite, Leo; two generals, who differently, but effectually,

promoted the cause of the rebels. Leo, who, from the bulk of his body,

and the dulness of his mind, was surnamed the Ajax of the East, had

deserted his original trade of a woolcomber, to exercise, with much less

skill and success, the military profession; and his uncertain operations

were capriciously framed and executed, with an ignorance of real

difficulties, and a timorous neglect of every favorable opportunity.

The rashness of the Ostrogoths had drawn them into a disadvantageous

position between the Rivers Melas and Eurymedon, where they were almost

besieged by the peasants of Pamphylia; but the arrival of an Imperial

army, instead of completing their destruction, afforded the means

of safety and victory. Tribigild surprised the unguarded camp of the

Romans, in the darkness of the night; seduced the faith of the greater

part of the Barbarian auxiliaries, and dissipated, without much effort,

the troops, which had been corrupted by the relaxation of discipline,

and the luxury of the capital. The discontent of Gainas, who had so

boldly contrived and executed the death of Rufinus, was irritated by

the fortune of his unworthy successor; he accused his own dishonorable

patience under the servile reign of a eunuch; and the ambitious Goth

was convicted, at least in the public opinion, of secretly fomenting the

revolt of Tribigild, with whom he was connected by a domestic, as well

as by a national alliance. When Gainas passed the Hellespont, to unite

under his standard the remains of the Asiatic troops, he skilfully

adapted his motions to the wishes of the Ostrogoths; abandoning, by his

retreat, the country which they desired to invade; or facilitating,

by his approach, the desertion of the Barbarian auxiliaries. To the

Imperial court he repeatedly magnified the valor, the genius, the

inexhaustible resources of Tribigild; confessed his own inability to

prosecute the war; and extorted the permission of negotiating with

his invincible adversary. The conditions of peace were dictated by

the haughty rebel; and the peremptory demand of the head of Eutropius

revealed the author and the design of this hostile conspiracy.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part II.

The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the partial and

passionate censure of the Christian emperors, violates the dignity,

rather than the truth, of history, by comparing the son of Theodosius

to one of those harmless and simple animals, who scarcely feel that

they are the property of their shepherd. Two passions, however, fear

and conjugal affection, awakened the languid soul of Arcadius: he was

terrified by the threats of a victorious Barbarian; and he yielded

to the tender eloquence of his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of

artificial tears, presenting her infant children to their father,

implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she

imputed to the audacious eunuch. The emperor's hand was directed to sign

the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four years

had bound the prince and the people, was instantly dissolved; and

the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit and fortune of the

favorite, were converted into the clamors of the soldiers and people,

who reproached his crimes, and pressed his immediate execution. In this

hour of distress and despair, his only refuge was in the sanctuary of

the church, whose privileges he had wisely or profanely attempted to

circumscribe; and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom,

enjoyed the triumph of protecting a prostrate minister, whose choice

had raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The

archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might be

distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and

of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic discourse on the

forgiveness of injuries, and the instability of human greatness. The

agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch, who lay grovelling under the

table of the altar, exhibited a solemn and instructive spectacle; and

the orator, who was afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of

Eutropius, labored to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the

fury, of the people. The powers of humanity, of superstition, and of

eloquence, prevailed. The empress Eudoxia was restrained by her own

prejudices, or by those of her subjects, from violating the sanctuary of

the church; and Eutropius was tempted to capitulate, by the milder arts

of persuasion, and by an oath, that his life should be spared. Careless

of the dignity of their sovereign, the new ministers of the palace

immediately published an edict to declare, that his late favorite had

disgraced the names of consul and patrician, to abolish his statues, to

confiscate his wealth, and to inflict a perpetual exile in the Island of

Cyprus. A despicable and decrepit eunuch could no longer alarm the fears

of his enemies; nor was he capable of enjoying what yet remained,

the comforts of peace, of solitude, and of a happy climate. But their

implacable revenge still envied him the last moments of a miserable

life, and Eutropius had no sooner touched the shores of Cyprus, than he

was hastily recalled. The vain hope of eluding, by a change of place,

the obligation of an oath, engaged the empress to transfer the scene of

his trial and execution from Constantinople to the adjacent suburb of

Chalcedon. The consul Aurelian pronounced the sentence; and the motives

of that sentence expose the jurisprudence of a despotic government.

The crimes which Eutropius had committed against the people might

have justified his death; but he was found guilty of harnessing to

his chariot the sacred animals, who, from their breed or color, were

reserved for the use of the emperor alone.

While this domestic revolution was transacted, Gainas openly revolted

from his allegiance; united his forces at Thyatira in Lydia, with those

of Tribigild; and still maintained his superior ascendant over the

rebellious leader of the Ostrogoths. The confederate armies advanced,

without resistance, to the straits of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus;

and Arcadius was instructed to prevent the loss of his Asiatic

dominions, by resigning his authority and his person to the faith of the

Barbarians. The church of the holy martyr Euphemia, situate on a lofty

eminence near Chalcedon, was chosen for the place of the interview.

Gainas bowed with reverence at the feet of the emperor, whilst he

required the sacrifice of Aurelian and Saturninus, two ministers of

consular rank; and their naked necks were exposed, by the haughty

rebel, to the edge of the sword, till he condescended to grant them a

precarious and disgraceful respite. The Goths, according to the terms of

the agreement, were immediately transported from Asia into Europe; and

their victorious chief, who accepted the title of master-general of

the Roman armies, soon filled Constantinople with his troops, and

distributed among his dependants the honors and rewards of the empire.

In his early youth, Gainas had passed the Danube as a suppliant and a

fugitive: his elevation had been the work of valor and fortune; and his

indiscreet or perfidious conduct was the cause of his rapid downfall.

Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of the archbishop, he

importunately claimed for his Arian sectaries the possession of a

peculiar church; and the pride of the Catholics was offended by the

public toleration of heresy. Every quarter of Constantinople was filled

with tumult and disorder; and the Barbarians gazed with such ardor on

the rich shops of the jewellers, and the tables of the bankers, which

were covered with gold and silver, that it was judged prudent to

remove those dangerous temptations from their sight. They resented the

injurious precaution; and some alarming attempts were made, during the

night, to attack and destroy with fire the Imperial palace. In this

state of mutual and suspicious hostility, the guards and the people of

Constantinople shut the gates, and rose in arms to prevent or to punish

the conspiracy of the Goths. During the absence of Gainas, his troops

were surprised and oppressed; seven thousand Barbarians perished in this

bloody massacre. In the fury of the pursuit, the Catholics uncovered

the roof, and continued to throw down flaming logs of wood, till they

overwhelmed their adversaries, who had retreated to the church or

conventicle of the Arians. Gainas was either innocent of the design, or

too confident of his success; he was astonished by the intelligence that

the flower of his army had been ingloriously destroyed; that he himself

was declared a public enemy; and that his countryman, Fravitta, a brave

and loyal confederate, had assumed the management of the war by sea and

land. The enterprises of the rebel, against the cities of Thrace, were

encountered by a firm and well-ordered defence; his hungry soldiers were

soon reduced to the grass that grew on the margin of the fortifications;

and Gainas, who vainly regretted the wealth and luxury of Asia, embraced

a desperate resolution of forcing the passage of the Hellespont. He

was destitute of vessels; but the woods of the Chersonesus afforded

materials for rafts, and his intrepid Barbarians did not refuse to trust

themselves to the waves. But Fravitta attentively watched the progress

of their undertaking. As soon as they had gained the middle of the

stream, the Roman galleys, impelled by the full force of oars, of the

current, and of a favorable wind, rushed forwards in compact order,

and with irresistible weight; and the Hellespont was covered with the

fragments of the Gothic shipwreck. After the destruction of his hopes,

and the loss of many thousands of his bravest soldiers, Gainas, who

could no longer aspire to govern or to subdue the Romans, determined

to resume the independence of a savage life. A light and active body

of Barbarian horse, disengaged from their infantry and baggage, might

perform in eight or ten days a march of three hundred miles from the

Hellespont to the Danube; the garrisons of that important frontier had

been gradually annihilated; the river, in the month of December, would

be deeply frozen; and the unbounded prospect of Scythia was opened to

the ambition of Gainas. This design was secretly communicated to the

national troops, who devoted themselves to the fortunes of their

leader; and before the signal of departure was given, a great number

of provincial auxiliaries, whom he suspected of an attachment to their

native country, were perfidiously massacred. The Goths advanced,

by rapid marches, through the plains of Thrace; and they were soon

delivered from the fear of a pursuit, by the vanity of Fravitta,

who, instead of extinguishing the war, hastened to enjoy the popular

applause, and to assume the peaceful honors of the consulship. But a

formidable ally appeared in arms to vindicate the majesty of the empire,

and to guard the peace and liberty of Scythia. The superior forces of

Uldin, king of the Huns, opposed the progress of Gainas; a hostile and

ruined country prohibited his retreat; he disdained to capitulate; and

after repeatedly attempting to cut his way through the ranks of the

enemy, he was slain, with his desperate followers, in the field of

battle. Eleven days after the naval victory of the Hellespont, the

head of Gainas, the inestimable gift of the conqueror, was received at

Constantinople with the most liberal expressions of gratitude; and the

public deliverance was celebrated by festivals and illuminations. The

triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of epic poems; and the monarch,

no longer oppressed by any hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild

and absolute dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who was

sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.

After the death of the indolent Nectarius, the successor of Gregory

Nazianzen, the church of Constantinople was distracted by the ambition

of rival candidates, who were not ashamed to solicit, with gold or

flattery, the suffrage of the people, or of the favorite. On this

occasion Eutropius seems to have deviated from his ordinary maxims; and

his uncorrupted judgment was determined only by the superior merit of a

stranger. In a late journey into the East, he had admired the sermons

of John, a native and presbyter of Antioch, whose name has been

distinguished by the epithet of Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth. A

private order was despatched to the governor of Syria; and as the

people might be unwilling to resign their favorite preacher, he was

transported, with speed and secrecy in a post-chariot, from Antioch to

Constantinople. The unanimous and unsolicited consent of the court, the

clergy, and the people, ratified the choice of the minister; and, both

as a saint and as an orator, the new archbishop surpassed the sanguine

expectations of the public. Born of a noble and opulent family, in the

capital of Syria, Chrysostom had been educated, by the care of a tender

mother, under the tuition of the most skilful masters. He studied the

art of rhetoric in the school of Libanius; and that celebrated sophist,

who soon discovered the talents of his disciple, ingenuously confessed

that John would have deserved to succeed him, had he not been stolen

away by the Christians. His piety soon disposed him to receive the

sacrament of baptism; to renounce the lucrative and honorable profession

of the law; and to bury himself in the adjacent desert, where he

subdued the lusts of the flesh by an austere penance of six years. His

infirmities compelled him to return to the society of mankind; and the

authority of Meletius devoted his talents to the service of the church:

but in the midst of his family, and afterwards on the archiepiscopal

throne, Chrysostom still persevered in the practice of the monastic

virtues. The ample revenues, which his predecessors had consumed in pomp

and luxury, he diligently applied to the establishment of hospitals;

and the multitudes, who were supported by his charity, preferred the

eloquent and edifying discourses of their archbishop to the amusements

of the theatre or the circus. The monuments of that eloquence, which

was admired near twenty years at Antioch and Constantinople, have been

carefully preserved; and the possession of near one thousand sermons,

or homilies has authorized the critics of succeeding times to appreciate

the genuine merit of Chrysostom. They unanimously attribute to the

Christian orator the free command of an elegant and copious language;

the judgment to conceal the advantages which he derived from the

knowledge of rhetoric and philosophy; an inexhaustible fund of metaphors

and similitudes of ideas and images, to vary and illustrate the most

familiar topics; the happy art of engaging the passions in the service

of virtue; and of exposing the folly, as well as the turpitude, of vice,

almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic representation.

The pastoral labors of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked, and

gradually united against him, two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy,

who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by

his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered, from the pulpit of St. Sophia,

against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among

the crowd, without wounding, or even marking, the character of any

individual. When he declaimed against the peculiar vices of the rich,

poverty might obtain a transient consolation from his invectives; but

the guilty were still sheltered by their numbers; and the reproach

itself was dignified by some ideas of superiority and enjoyment. But

as the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly diminished to a

point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the favorite eunuchs, the

ladies of the court, the empress Eudoxia herself, had a much larger

share of guilt to divide among a smaller proportion of criminals. The

personal applications of the audience were anticipated, or confirmed, by

the testimony of their own conscience; and the intrepid preacher assumed

the dangerous right of exposing both the offence and the offender to

the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court encouraged

the discontent of the clergy and monks of Constantinople, who were

too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal of their archbishop. He had

condemned, from the pulpit, the domestic females of the clergy of

Constantinople, who, under the name of servants, or sisters, afforded a

perpetual occasion either of sin or of scandal. The silent and solitary

ascetics, who had secluded themselves from the world, were entitled to

the warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he despised and stigmatized,

as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd of degenerate monks,

who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure or profit, so frequently

infested the streets of the capital. To the voice of persuasion, the

archbishop was obliged to add the terrors of authority; and his ardor,

in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, was not always exempt

from passion; nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was

naturally of a choleric disposition. Although he struggled, according

to the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he indulged

himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God and of the church;

and his sentiments were sometimes delivered with too much energy

of countenance and expression. He still maintained, from some

considerations of health or abstinence, his former habits of taking his

repasts alone; and this inhospitable custom, which his enemies imputed

to pride, contributed, at least, to nourish the infirmity of a morose

and unsocial humor. Separated from that familiar intercourse, which

facilitates the knowledge and the despatch of business, he reposed an

unsuspecting confidence in his deacon Serapion; and seldom applied

his speculative knowledge of human nature to the particular character,

either of his dependants, or of his equals. Conscious of the purity

of his intentions, and perhaps of the superiority of his genius, the

archbishop of Constantinople extended the jurisdiction of the Imperial

city, that he might enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labors; and the

conduct which the profane imputed to an ambitious motive, appeared to

Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable duty.

In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed thirteen

bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared that a deep

corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected the whole

episcopal order. If those bishops were innocent, such a rash and unjust

condemnation must excite a well-grounded discontent. If they were

guilty, the numerous associates of their guilt would soon discover

that their own safety depended on the ruin of the archbishop; whom they

studied to represent as the tyrant of the Eastern church.

This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, archbishop of

Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed the fruits of

rapine in monuments of ostentation. His national dislike to the rising

greatness of a city which degraded him from the second to the third rank

in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal dispute with

Chrysostom himself. By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus

landed at Constantinople with a stout body of Egyptian mariners, to

encounter the populace; and a train of dependent bishops, to secure,

by their voices, the majority of a synod. The synod was convened in

the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, where Rufinus had erected

a stately church and monastery; and their proceedings were continued

during fourteen days, or sessions. A bishop and a deacon accused the

archbishop of Constantinople; but the frivolous or improbable nature of

the forty-seven articles which they presented against him, may justly

be considered as a fair and unexceptional panegyric. Four successive

summons were signified to Chrysostom; but he still refused to trust

either his person or his reputation in the hands of his implacable

enemies, who, prudently declining the examination of any particular

charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience, and hastily pronounced

a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak immediately addressed the

emperor to ratify and execute their judgment, and charitably insinuated,

that the penalties of treason might be inflicted on the audacious

preacher, who had reviled, under the name of Jezebel, the empress

Eudoxia herself. The archbishop was rudely arrested, and conducted

through the city, by one of the Imperial messengers, who landed him,

after a short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine; from whence,

before the expiration of two days, he was gloriously recalled.

The first astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and passive:

they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus

escaped, but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners was

slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople. A seasonable

earthquake justified the interposition of Heaven; the torrent of

sedition rolled forwards to the gates of the palace; and the empress,

agitated by fear or remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius,

and confessed that the public safety could be purchased only by the

restoration of Chrysostom. The Bosphorus was covered with innumerable

vessels; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely illuminated; and

the acclamations of a victorious people accompanied, from the port to

the cathedral, the triumph of the archbishop; who, too easily, consented

to resume the exercise of his functions, before his sentence had been

legally reversed by the authority of an ecclesiastical synod. Ignorant,

or careless, of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or

perhaps his resentment; declaimed with peculiar asperity against female

vices; and condemned the profane honors which were addressed, almost

in the precincts of St. Sophia, to the statue of the empress. His

imprudence tempted his enemies to inflame the haughty spirit of Eudoxia,

by reporting, or perhaps inventing, the famous exordium of a sermon,

"Herodias is again furious; Herodias again dances; she once more

requires the head of John;" an insolent allusion, which, as a woman and

a sovereign, it was impossible for her to forgive. The short interval of

a perfidious truce was employed to concert more effectual measures

for the disgrace and ruin of the archbishop. A numerous council of

the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance by the advice of

Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining the justice, of

the former sentence; and a detachment of Barbarian troops was introduced

into the city, to suppress the emotions of the people. On the vigil of

Easter, the solemn administration of baptism was rudely interrupted

by the soldiers, who alarmed the modesty of the naked catechumens,

and violated, by their presence, the awful mysteries of the Christian

worship. Arsacius occupied the church of St. Sophia, and the

archiepiscopal throne. The Catholics retreated to the baths of

Constantine, and afterwards to the fields; where they were still pursued

and insulted by the guards, the bishops, and the magistrates. The

fatal day of the second and final exile of Chrysostom was marked by the

conflagration of the cathedral, of the senate-house, and of the adjacent

buildings; and this calamity was imputed, without proof, but not without

probability, to the despair of a persecuted faction.

Cicero might claim some merit, if his voluntary banishment preserved

the peace of the republic; but the submission of Chrysostom was the

indispensable duty of a Christian and a subject. Instead of listening to

his humble prayer, that he might be permitted to reside at Cyzicus, or

Nicomedia, the inflexible empress assigned for his exile the remote

and desolate town of Cucusus, among the ridges of Mount Taurus, in the

Lesser Armenia. A secret hope was entertained, that the archbishop might

perish in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in the heat

of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was continually

threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians, and the more

implacable fury of the monks. Yet Chrysostom arrived in safety at the

place of his confinement; and the three years which he spent at Cucusus,

and the neighboring town of Arabissus, were the last and most glorious

of his life. His character was consecrated by absence and persecution;

the faults of his administration were no longer remembered; but every

tongue repeated the praises of his genius and virtue: and the respectful

attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the

mountains of Taurus. From that solitude the archbishop, whose active

mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent

correspondence with the most distant provinces; exhorted the separate

congregation of his faithful adherents to persevere in their allegiance;

urged the destruction of the temples of Phœnicia, and the extirpation

of heresy in the Isle of Cyprus; extended his pastoral care to the

missions of Persia and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with

the Roman pontiff and the emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed, from

a partial synod, to the supreme tribunal of a free and general council.

The mind of the illustrious exile was still independent; but his captive

body was exposed to the revenge of the oppressors, who continued to

abuse the name and authority of Arcadius. An order was despatched for

the instant removal of Chrysostom to the extreme desert of Pityus: and

his guards so faithfully obeyed their cruel instructions, that, before

he reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in Pontus,

in the sixtieth year of his age. The succeeding generation acknowledged

his innocence and merit. The archbishops of the East, who might blush

that their predecessors had been the enemies of Chrysostom, were

gradually disposed, by the firmness of the Roman pontiff, to restore the

honors of that venerable name. At the pious solicitation of the clergy

and people of Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death,

were transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. The

emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon; and,

falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the name of his guilty

parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the injured saint.

Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part III.

Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained, whether any stain of

hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his successor.

Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who indulged her passions,

and despised her husband; Count John enjoyed, at least, the familiar

confidence of the empress; and the public named him as the real father

of Theodosius the younger. The birth of a son was accepted, however,

by the pious husband, as an event the most fortunate and honorable to

himself, to his family, and to the Eastern world: and the royal infant,

by an unprecedented favor, was invested with the titles of Cæsar and

Augustus. In less than four years afterwards, Eudoxia, in the bloom

of youth, was destroyed by the consequences of a miscarriage; and this

untimely death confounded the prophecy of a holy bishop, who, amidst the

universal joy, had ventured to foretell, that she should behold the long

and auspicious reign of her glorious son. The Catholics applauded the

justice of Heaven, which avenged the persecution of St. Chrysostom; and

perhaps the emperor was the only person who sincerely bewailed the

loss of the haughty and rapacious Eudoxia. Such a domestic misfortune

afflicted him more deeply than the public calamities of the East;

the licentious excursions, from Pontus to Palestine, of the Isaurian

robbers, whose impunity accused the weakness of the government; and the

earthquakes, the conflagrations, the famine, and the flights of locusts,

which the popular discontent was equally disposed to attribute to the

incapacity of the monarch. At length, in the thirty-first year of his

age, after a reign (if we may abuse that word) of thirteen years,

three months, and fifteen days, Arcadius expired in the palace of

Constantinople. It is impossible to delineate his character; since, in

a period very copiously furnished with historical materials, it has not

been possible to remark one action that properly belongs to the son of

the great Theodosius.

The historian Procopius has indeed illuminated the mind of the dying

emperor with a ray of human prudence, or celestial wisdom. Arcadius

considered, with anxious foresight, the helpless condition of his son

Theodosius, who was no more than seven years of age, the dangerous

factions of a minority, and the aspiring spirit of Jezdegerd, the

Persian monarch. Instead of tempting the allegiance of an ambitious

subject, by the participation of supreme power, he boldly appealed

to the magnanimity of a king; and placed, by a solemn testament,

the sceptre of the East in the hands of Jezdegerd himself. The royal

guardian accepted and discharged this honorable trust with unexampled

fidelity; and the infancy of Theodosius was protected by the arms and

councils of Persia. Such is the singular narrative of Procopius; and his

veracity is not disputed by Agathias, while he presumes to dissent from

his judgment, and to arraign the wisdom of a Christian emperor, who, so

rashly, though so fortunately, committed his son and his dominions to

the unknown faith of a stranger, a rival, and a heathen. At the distance

of one hundred and fifty years, this political question might be debated

in the court of Justinian; but a prudent historian will refuse to

examine the propriety, till he has ascertained the truth, of the

testament of Arcadius. As it stands without a parallel in the history

of the world, we may justly require, that it should be attested by the

positive and unanimous evidence of contemporaries. The strange novelty

of the event, which excites our distrust, must have attracted their

notice; and their universal silence annihilates the vain tradition of

the succeeding age.

The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be transferred

from private property to public dominion, would have adjudged to the

emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew, till he had attained,

at least, the fourteenth year of his age. But the weakness of Honorius,

and the calamities of his reign, disqualified him from prosecuting

this natural claim; and such was the absolute separation of the two

monarchies, both in interest and affection, that Constantinople would

have obeyed, with less reluctance, the orders of the Persian, than those

of the Italian, court. Under a prince whose weakness is disguised by the

external signs of manhood and discretion, the most worthless favorites

may secretly dispute the empire of the palace; and dictate to submissive

provinces the commands of a master, whom they direct and despise. But

the ministers of a child, who is incapable of arming them with the

sanction of the royal name, must acquire and exercise an independent

authority. The great officers of the state and army, who had been

appointed before the death of Arcadius, formed an aristocracy, which

might have inspired them with the idea of a free republic; and the

government of the Eastern empire was fortunately assumed by the præfect

Anthemius, who obtained, by his superior abilities, a lasting ascendant

over the minds of his equals. The safety of the young emperor proved the

merit and integrity of Anthemius; and his prudent firmness sustained the

force and reputation of an infant reign. Uldin, with a formidable host

of Barbarians, was encamped in the heart of Thrace; he proudly rejected

all terms of accommodation; and, pointing to the rising sun, declared

to the Roman ambassadors, that the course of that planet should

alone terminate the conquest of the Huns. But the desertion of his

confederates, who were privately convinced of the justice and liberality

of the Imperial ministers, obliged Uldin to repass the Danube: the tribe

of the Scyrri, which composed his rear-guard, was almost extirpated; and

many thousand captives were dispersed to cultivate, with servile labor,

the fields of Asia. In the midst of the public triumph, Constantinople

was protected by a strong enclosure of new and more extensive walls;

the same vigilant care was applied to restore the fortifications of the

Illyrian cities; and a plan was judiciously conceived, which, in the

space of seven years, would have secured the command of the Danube, by

establishing on that river a perpetual fleet of two hundred and fifty

armed vessels.

But the Romans had so long been accustomed to the authority of a

monarch, that the first, even among the females, of the Imperial family,

who displayed any courage or capacity, was permitted to ascend the

vacant throne of Theodosius. His sister Pulcheria, who was only two

years older than himself, received, at the age of sixteen, the title of

Augusta; and though her favor might be sometimes clouded by caprice or

intrigue, she continued to govern the Eastern empire near forty years;

during the long minority of her brother, and after his death, in her

own name, and in the name of Marcian, her nominal husband. From a motive

either of prudence or religion, she embraced a life of celibacy; and

notwithstanding some aspersions on the chastity of Pulcheria, this

resolution, which she communicated to her sisters Arcadia and Marina,

was celebrated by the Christian world, as the sublime effort of heroic

piety. In the presence of the clergy and people, the three daughters of

Arcadius dedicated their virginity to God; and the obligation of their

solemn vow was inscribed on a tablet of gold and gems; which they

publicly offered in the great church of Constantinople. Their palace was

converted into a monastery; and all males, except the guides of their

conscience, the saints who had forgotten the distinction of sexes,

were scrupulously excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria, her two

sisters, and a chosen train of favorite damsels, formed a religious

community: they denounced the vanity of dress; interrupted, by frequent

fasts, their simple and frugal diet; allotted a portion of their time to

works of embroidery; and devoted several hours of the day and night to

the exercises of prayer and psalmody. The piety of a Christian virgin

was adorned by the zeal and liberality of an empress. Ecclesiastical

history describes the splendid churches, which were built at the

expense of Pulcheria, in all the provinces of the East; her charitable

foundations for the benefit of strangers and the poor; the ample

donations which she assigned for the perpetual maintenance of monastic

societies; and the active severity with which she labored to suppress

the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. Such virtues were

supposed to deserve the peculiar favor of the Deity: and the relics of

martyrs, as well as the knowledge of future events, were communicated

in visions and revelations to the Imperial saint. Yet the devotion

of Pulcheria never diverted her indefatigable attention from temporal

affairs; and she alone, among all the descendants of the great

Theodosius, appears to have inherited any share of his manly spirit and

abilities. The elegant and familiar use which she had acquired, both

of the Greek and Latin languages, was readily applied to the various

occasions of speaking or writing, on public business: her deliberations

were maturely weighed; her actions were prompt and decisive; and, while

she moved, without noise or ostentation, the wheel of government, she

discreetly attributed to the genius of the emperor the long tranquillity

of his reign. In the last years of his peaceful life, Europe was indeed

afflicted by the arms of war; but the more extensive provinces of Asia

still continued to enjoy a profound and permanent repose. Theodosius the

younger was never reduced to the disgraceful necessity of encountering

and punishing a rebellious subject: and since we cannot applaud the

vigor, some praise may be due to the mildness and prosperity, of the

administration of Pulcheria.

The Roman world was deeply interested in the education of its master. A

regular course of study and exercise was judiciously instituted; of the

military exercises of riding, and shooting with the bow; of the liberal

studies of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy: the most skilful masters

of the East ambitiously solicited the attention of their royal pupil;

and several noble youths were introduced into the palace, to animate his

diligence by the emulation of friendship. Pulcheria alone discharged the

important task of instructing her brother in the arts of government;

but her precepts may countenance some suspicions of the extent of her

capacity, or of the purity of her intentions. She taught him to maintain

a grave and majestic deportment; to walk, to hold his robes, to seat

himself on his throne, in a manner worthy of a great prince; to abstain

from laughter; to listen with condescension; to return suitable answers;

to assume, by turns, a serious or a placid countenance: in a word, to

represent with grace and dignity the external figure of a Roman emperor.

But Theodosius was never excited to support the weight and glory of an

illustrious name: and, instead of aspiring to support his ancestors,

he degenerated (if we may presume to measure the degrees of incapacity)

below the weakness of his father and his uncle. Arcadius and Honorius

had been assisted by the guardian care of a parent, whose lessons were

enforced by his authority and example. But the unfortunate prince, who

is born in the purple, must remain a stranger to the voice of truth;

and the son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy

encompassed only by a servile train of women and eunuchs. The ample

leisure which he acquired by neglecting the essential duties of his high

office, was filled by idle amusements and unprofitable studies. Hunting

was the only active pursuit that could tempt him beyond the limits of

the palace; but he most assiduously labored, sometimes by the light of a

midnight lamp, in the mechanic occupations of painting and carving;

and the elegance with which he transcribed religious books entitled the

Roman emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or a fair writer.

Separated from the world by an impenetrable veil, Theodosius trusted the

persons whom he loved; he loved those who were accustomed to amuse and

flatter his indolence; and as he never perused the papers that were

presented for the royal signature, the acts of injustice the most

repugnant to his character were frequently perpetrated in his name. The

emperor himself was chaste, temperate, liberal, and merciful; but these

qualities, which can only deserve the name of virtues when they

are supported by courage and regulated by discretion, were seldom

beneficial, and they sometimes proved mischievous, to mankind. His mind,

enervated by a royal education, was oppressed and degraded by abject

superstition: he fasted, he sung psalms, he blindly accepted the

miracles and doctrines with which his faith was continually nourished.

Theodosius devoutly worshipped the dead and living saints of the

Catholic church; and he once refused to eat, till an insolent monk, who

had cast an excommunication on his sovereign, condescended to heal the

spiritual wound which he had inflicted.

The story of a fair and virtuous maiden, exalted from a private

condition to the Imperial throne, might be deemed an incredible romance,

if such a romance had not been verified in the marriage of Theodosius.

The celebrated Athenais was educated by her father Leontius in the

religion and sciences of the Greeks; and so advantageous was the opinion

which the Athenian philosopher entertained of his contemporaries,

that he divided his patrimony between his two sons, bequeathing to his

daughter a small legacy of one hundred pieces of gold, in the lively

confidence that her beauty and merit would be a sufficient portion. The

jealousy and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek

a refuge at Constantinople; and, with some hopes, either of justice

or favor, to throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria. That sagacious

princess listened to her eloquent complaint; and secretly destined the

daughter of the philosopher Leontius for the future wife of the emperor

of the East, who had now attained the twentieth year of his age. She

easily excited the curiosity of her brother, by an interesting picture

of the charms of Athenais; large eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a fair

complexion, golden locks, a slender person, a graceful demeanor,

an understanding improved by study, and a virtue tried by distress.

Theodosius, concealed behind a curtain in the apartment of his

sister, was permitted to behold the Athenian virgin: the modest youth

immediately declared his pure and honorable love; and the royal

nuptials were celebrated amidst the acclamations of the capital and the

provinces. Athenais, who was easily persuaded to renounce the errors of

Paganism, received at her baptism the Christian name of Eudocia; but

the cautious Pulcheria withheld the title of Augusta, till the wife of

Theodosius had approved her fruitfulness by the birth of a daughter,

who espoused, fifteen years afterwards, the emperor of the West. The

brothers of Eudocia obeyed, with some anxiety, her Imperial summons; but

as she could easily forgive their unfortunate unkindness, she indulged

the tenderness, or perhaps the vanity, of a sister, by promoting them

to the rank of consuls and præfects. In the luxury of the palace,

she still cultivated those ingenuous arts which had contributed to her

greatness; and wisely dedicated her talents to the honor of religion,

and of her husband. Eudocia composed a poetical paraphrase of the first

eight books of the Old Testament, and of the prophecies of Daniel and

Zechariah; a cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life and

miracles of Christ, the legend of St. Cyprian, and a panegyric on the

Persian victories of Theodosius; and her writings, which were applauded

by a servile and superstitious age, have not been disdained by the

candor of impartial criticism. The fondness of the emperor was not

abated by time and possession; and Eudocia, after the marriage of her

daughter, was permitted to discharge her grateful vows by a solemn

pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her ostentatious progress through the East may

seem inconsistent with the spirit of Christian humility; she pronounced,

from a throne of gold and gems, an eloquent oration to the senate of

Antioch, declared her royal intention of enlarging the walls of the

city, bestowed a donative of two hundred pounds of gold to restore

the public baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the

gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious foundations

exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and though the public

treasure might be impoverished by this excessive liberality, she enjoyed

the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with the

chains of St. Peter, the right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted

picture of the Virgin, painted by St. Luke. But this pilgrimage was

the fatal term of the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and

unmindful, perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously

aspired to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was

distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last decided, by

the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius. The execution of

Paulinus, master of the offices, and the disgrace of Cyrus, Prætorian

præfect of the East, convinced the public that the favor of Eudocia

was insufficient to protect her most faithful friends; and the uncommon

beauty of Paulinus encouraged the secret rumor, that his guilt was

that of a successful lover. As soon as the empress perceived that

the affection of Theodosius was irretrievably lost, she requested

the permission of retiring to the distant solitude of Jerusalem. She

obtained her request; but the jealousy of Theodosius, or the vindictive

spirit of Pulcheria, pursued her in her last retreat; and Saturninus,

count of the domestics, was directed to punish with death two

ecclesiastics, her most favored servants. Eudocia instantly revenged

them by the assassination of the count; the furious passions which she

indulged on this suspicious occasion, seemed to justify the severity of

Theodosius; and the empress, ignominiously stripped of the honors of

her rank, was disgraced, perhaps unjustly, in the eyes of the world.

The remainder of the life of Eudocia, about sixteen years, was spent in

exile and devotion; and the approach of age, the death of Theodosius,

the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was led a captive from Rome

to Carthage, and the society of the Holy Monks of Palestine, insensibly

confirmed the religious temper of her mind. After a full experience of

the vicissitudes of human life, the daughter of the philosopher Leontius

expired, at Jerusalem, in the sixty-seventh year of her age; protesting,

with her dying breath, that she had never transgressed the bounds of

innocence and friendship.

The gentle mind of Theodosius was never inflamed by the ambition of

conquest, or military renown; and the slight alarm of a Persian war

scarcely interrupted the tranquillity of the East. The motives of this

war were just and honorable. In the last year of the reign of Jezdegerd,

the supposed guardian of Theodosius, a bishop, who aspired to the crown

of martyrdom, destroyed one of the fire-temples of Susa. His zeal

and obstinacy were revenged on his brethren: the Magi excited a cruel

persecution; and the intolerant zeal of Jezdegerd was imitated by his

son Varanes, or Bahram, who soon afterwards ascended the throne. Some

Christian fugitives, who escaped to the Roman frontier, were sternly

demanded, and generously refused; and the refusal, aggravated by

commercial disputes, soon kindled a war between the rival monarchies.

The mountains of Armenia, and the plains of Mesopotamia, were filled

with hostile armies; but the operations of two successive campaigns were

not productive of any decisive or memorable events. Some engagements

were fought, some towns were besieged, with various and doubtful

success: and if the Romans failed in their attempt to recover the

long-lost possession of Nisibis, the Persians were repulsed from the

walls of a Mesopotamian city, by the valor of a martial bishop, who

pointed his thundering engine in the name of St. Thomas the Apostle.

Yet the splendid victories which the incredible speed of the messenger

Palladius repeatedly announced to the palace of Constantinople, were

celebrated with festivals and panegyrics. From these panegyrics the

historians of the age might borrow their extraordinary, and, perhaps,

fabulous tales; of the proud challenge of a Persian hero, who was

entangled by the net, and despatched by the sword, of Areobindus the

Goth; of the ten thousand Immortals, who were slain in the attack of

the Roman camp; and of the hundred thousand Arabs, or Saracens, who

were impelled by a panic terror to throw themselves headlong into

the Euphrates. Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the

charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified

the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion. Boldly declaring,

that vases of gold and silver are useless to a God who neither eats

nor drinks, the generous prelate sold the plate of the church of Amida;

employed the price in the redemption of seven thousand Persian captives;

supplied their wants with affectionate liberality; and dismissed them

to their native country, to inform their king of the true spirit of the

religion which he persecuted. The practice of benevolence in the midst

of war must always tend to assuage the animosity of contending

nations; and I wish to persuade myself, that Acacius contributed to the

restoration of peace. In the conference which was held on the limits of

the two empires, the Roman ambassadors degraded the personal character

of their sovereign, by a vain attempt to magnify the extent of his

power; when they seriously advised the Persians to prevent, by a timely

accommodation, the wrath of a monarch, who was yet ignorant of this

distant war. A truce of one hundred years was solemnly ratified;

and although the revolutions of Armenia might threaten the public

tranquillity, the essential conditions of this treaty were respected

near fourscore years by the successors of Constantine and Artaxerxes.

Since the Roman and Parthian standards first encountered on the banks of

the Euphrates, the kingdom of Armenia was alternately oppressed by

its formidable protectors; and in the course of this History, several

events, which inclined the balance of peace and war, have been already

related. A disgraceful treaty had resigned Armenia to the ambition of

Sapor; and the scale of Persia appeared to preponderate. But the royal

race of Arsaces impatiently submitted to the house of Sassan; the

turbulent nobles asserted, or betrayed, their hereditary independence;

and the nation was still attached to the Christian princes of

Constantinople. In the beginning of the fifth century, Armenia was

divided by the progress of war and faction; and the unnatural division

precipitated the downfall of that ancient monarchy. Chosroes, the

Persian vassal, reigned over the Eastern and most extensive portion of

the country; while the Western province acknowledged the jurisdiction of

Arsaces, and the supremacy of the emperor Arcadius. After the death

of Arsaces, the Romans suppressed the regal government, and imposed

on their allies the condition of subjects. The military command

was delegated to the count of the Armenian frontier; the city of

Theodosiopolis was built and fortified in a strong situation, on a

fertile and lofty ground, near the sources of the Euphrates; and the

dependent territories were ruled by five satraps, whose dignity was

marked by a peculiar habit of gold and purple. The less fortunate

nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and envied the honors of

their equals, were provoked to negotiate their peace and pardon at the

Persian court; and returning, with their followers, to the palace of

Artaxata, acknowledged Chosroes for their lawful sovereign. About thirty

years afterwards, Artasires, the nephew and successor of Chosroes, fell

under the displeasure of the haughty and capricious nobles of Armenia;

and they unanimously desired a Persian governor in the room of an

unworthy king. The answer of the archbishop Isaac, whose sanction they

earnestly solicited, is expressive of the character of a superstitious

people. He deplored the manifest and inexcusable vices of Artasires; and

declared, that he should not hesitate to accuse him before the tribunal

of a Christian emperor, who would punish, without destroying, the

sinner. "Our king," continued Isaac, "is too much addicted to licentious

pleasures, but he has been purified in the holy waters of baptism. He is

a lover of women, but he does not adore the fire or the elements. He may

deserve the reproach of lewdness, but he is an undoubted Catholic;

and his faith is pure, though his manners are flagitious. I will never

consent to abandon my sheep to the rage of devouring wolves; and you

would soon repent your rash exchange of the infirmities of a believer,

for the specious virtues of a heathen." Exasperated by the firmness of

Isaac, the factious nobles accused both the king and the archbishop

as the secret adherents of the emperor; and absurdly rejoiced in the

sentence of condemnation, which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly

pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were degraded

from the royal dignity, which they had possessed above five hundred and

sixty years; and the dominions of the unfortunate Artasires, under the

new and significant appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the

form of a province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman

government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an amicable,

though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of Armenia: and a

territorial acquisition, which Augustus might have despised, reflected

some lustre on the declining empire of the younger Theodosius.

Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part I.

Death Of Honorius.—Valentinian III.—Emperor Of The East.—

Administration Of His Mother Placidia—Ætius And Boniface.—

Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.

During a long and disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years, Honorius,

emperor of the West, was separated from the friendship of his

brother, and afterwards of his nephew, who reigned over the East; and

Constantinople beheld, with apparent indifference and secret joy, the

calamities of Rome. The strange adventures of Placidia gradually renewed

and cemented the alliance of the two empires. The daughter of the great

Theodosius had been the captive, and the queen, of the Goths; she lost

an affectionate husband; she was dragged in chains by his insulting

assassin; she tasted the pleasure of revenge, and was exchanged, in the

treaty of peace, for six hundred thousand measures of wheat. After her

return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new persecution in

the bosom of her family. She was averse to a marriage, which had been

stipulated without her consent; and the brave Constantius, as a noble

reward for the tyrants whom he had vanquished, received, from the hand

of Honorius himself, the struggling and the reluctant hand of the widow

of Adolphus. But her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials:

nor did Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian

the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over the mind

of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose time had hitherto

been divided between social pleasure and military service, was taught

new lessons of avarice and ambition: he extorted the title of Augustus:

and the servant of Honorius was associated to the empire of the West.

The death of Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of

diminishing, seemed to increase the power of Placidia; and the indecent

familiarity of her brother, which might be no more than the symptoms of

a childish affection, were universally attributed to incestuous love.

On a sudden, by some base intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this

excessive fondness was converted into an irreconcilable quarrel: the

debates of the emperor and his sister were not long confined within the

walls of the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen,

the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous tumults,

which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary retreat of

Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at Constantinople,

soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the festival of the

Persian victories. They were treated with kindness and magnificence;

but as the statues of the emperor Constantius had been rejected by the

Eastern court, the title of Augusta could not decently be allowed to

his widow. Within a few months after the arrival of Placidia, a swift

messenger announced the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy;

but the important secret was not divulged, till the necessary orders had

been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the sea-coast

of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople remained shut

during seven days; and the loss of a foreign prince, who could neither

be esteemed nor regretted, was celebrated with loud and affected

demonstrations of the public grief.

While the ministers of Constantinople deliberated, the vacant throne

of Honorius was usurped by the ambition of a stranger. The name of the

rebel was John; he filled the confidential office of Primicerius, or

principal secretary, and history has attributed to his character more

virtues, than can easily be reconciled with the violation of the most

sacred duty. Elated by the submission of Italy, and the hope of an

alliance with the Huns, John presumed to insult, by an embassy, the

majesty of the Eastern emperor; but when he understood that his agents

had been banished, imprisoned, and at length chased away with deserved

ignominy, John prepared to assert, by arms, the injustice of his claims.

In such a cause, the grandson of the great Theodosius should have

marched in person: but the young emperor was easily diverted, by his

physicians, from so rash and hazardous a design; and the conduct of the

Italian expedition was prudently intrusted to Ardaburius, and his son

Aspar, who had already signalized their valor against the Persians. It

was resolved, that Ardaburius should embark with the infantry; whilst

Aspar, at the head of the cavalry, conducted Placidia and her son

Valentinian along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. The march of the

cavalry was performed with such active diligence, that they surprised,

without resistance, the important city of Aquileia: when the hopes of

Aspar were unexpectedly confounded by the intelligence, that a storm

had dispersed the Imperial fleet; and that his father, with only two

galleys, was taken and carried a prisoner into the port of Ravenna. Yet

this incident, unfortunate as it might seem, facilitated the conquest

of Italy. Ardaburius employed, or abused, the courteous freedom which

he was permitted to enjoy, to revive among the troops a sense of loyalty

and gratitude; and as soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution,

he invited, by private messages, and pressed the approach of, Aspar. A

shepherd, whom the popular credulity transformed into an angel, guided

the eastern cavalry by a secret, and, it was thought, an impassable

road, through the morasses of the Po: the gates of Ravenna, after

a short struggle, were thrown open; and the defenceless tyrant was

delivered to the mercy, or rather to the cruelty, of the conquerors. His

right hand was first cut off; and, after he had been exposed, mounted

on an ass, to the public derision, John was beheaded in the circus

of Aquileia. The emperor Theodosius, when he received the news of the

victory, interrupted the horse-races; and singing, as he marched through

the streets, a suitable psalm, conducted his people from the Hippodrome

to the church, where he spent the remainder of the day in grateful

devotion.

In a monarchy, which, according to various precedents, might be

considered as elective, or hereditary, or patrimonial, it was impossible

that the intricate claims of female and collateral succession should

be clearly defined; and Theodosius, by the right of consanguinity or

conquest, might have reigned the sole legitimate emperor of the

Romans. For a moment, perhaps, his eyes were dazzled by the prospect

of unbounded sway; but his indolent temper gradually acquiesced in the

dictates of sound policy. He contented himself with the possession of

the East; and wisely relinquished the laborious task of waging a distant

and doubtful war against the Barbarians beyond the Alps; or of securing

the obedience of the Italians and Africans, whose minds were alienated

by the irreconcilable difference of language and interest. Instead of

listening to the voice of ambition, Theodosius resolved to imitate the

moderation of his grandfather, and to seat his cousin Valentinian on the

throne of the West. The royal infant was distinguished at Constantinople

by the title of Nobilissimus: he was promoted, before his departure from

Thessalonica, to the rank and dignity of Cæsar; and after the conquest

of Italy, the patrician Helion, by the authority of Theodosius, and in

the presence of the senate, saluted Valentinian the Third by the name

of Augustus, and solemnly invested him with the diadem and the Imperial

purple. By the agreement of the three females who governed the Roman

world, the son of Placidia was betrothed to Eudoxia, the daughter of

Theodosius and Athenais; and as soon as the lover and his bride had

attained the age of puberty, this honorable alliance was faithfully

accomplished. At the same time, as a compensation, perhaps, for the

expenses of the war, the Western Illyricum was detached from the Italian

dominions, and yielded to the throne of Constantinople. The emperor of

the East acquired the useful dominion of the rich and maritime province

of Dalmatia, and the dangerous sovereignty of Pannonia and Noricum,

which had been filled and ravaged above twenty years by a promiscuous

crowd of Huns, Ostrogoths, Vandals, and Bavarians. Theodosius and

Valentinian continued to respect the obligations of their public and

domestic alliance; but the unity of the Roman government was finally

dissolved. By a positive declaration, the validity of all future laws

was limited to the dominions of their peculiar author; unless he should

think proper to communicate them, subscribed with his own hand, for the

approbation of his independent colleague.

Valentinian, when he received the title of Augustus, was no more than

six years of age; and his long minority was intrusted to the guardian

care of a mother, who might assert a female claim to the succession

of the Western empire. Placidia envied, but she could not equal, the

reputation and virtues of the wife and sister of Theodosius, the elegant

genius of Eudocia, the wise and successful policy of Pulcheria. The

mother of Valentinian was jealous of the power which she was incapable

of exercising; she reigned twenty-five years, in the name of her son;

and the character of that unworthy emperor gradually countenanced

the suspicion that Placidia had enervated his youth by a dissolute

education, and studiously diverted his attention from every manly and

honorable pursuit. Amidst the decay of military spirit, her armies were

commanded by two generals, Ætius and Boniface, who may be deservedly

named as the last of the Romans. Their union might have supported a

sinking empire; their discord was the fatal and immediate cause of the

loss of Africa. The invasion and defeat of Attila have immortalized the

fame of Ætius; and though time has thrown a shade over the exploits

of his rival, the defence of Marseilles, and the deliverance of Africa,

attest the military talents of Count Boniface. In the field of battle,

in partial encounters, in single combats, he was still the terror of

the Barbarians: the clergy, and particularly his friend Augustin, were

edified by the Christian piety which had once tempted him to retire from

the world; the people applauded his spotless integrity; the army dreaded

his equal and inexorable justice, which may be displayed in a very

singular example. A peasant, who complained of the criminal intimacy

between his wife and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his

tribunal the following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently

informed himself of the time and place of the assignation, mounted his

horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the guilty couple,

punished the soldier with instant death, and silenced the complaints of

the husband by presenting him, the next morning, with the head of the

adulterer. The abilities of Ætius and Boniface might have been usefully

employed against the public enemies, in separate and important commands;

but the experience of their past conduct should have decided the real

favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy season

of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained her cause

with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of Africa had

essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion. The same rebellion

had been supported by the zeal and activity of Ætius, who brought an

army of sixty thousand Huns from the Danube to the confines of Italy,

for the service of the usurper. The untimely death of John compelled him

to accept an advantageous treaty; but he still continued, the subject

and the soldier of Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a

treasonable, correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose retreat had

been purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal promises. But Ætius

possessed an advantage of singular moment in a female reign; he was

present: he besieged, with artful and assiduous flattery, the palace

of Ravenna; disguised his dark designs with the mask of loyalty and

friendship; and at length deceived both his mistress and his absent

rival, by a subtle conspiracy, which a weak woman and a brave man

could not easily suspect. He had secretly persuaded Placidia to recall

Boniface from the government of Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to

disobey the Imperial summons: to the one, he represented the order as

a sentence of death; to the other, he stated the refusal as a signal

of revolt; and when the credulous and unsuspectful count had armed the

province in his defence, Ætius applauded his sagacity in foreseeing the

rebellion, which his own perfidy had excited. A temperate inquiry into

the real motives of Boniface would have restored a faithful servant to

his duty and to the republic; but the arts of Ætius still continued

to betray and to inflame, and the count was urged, by persecution, to

embrace the most desperate counsels. The success with which he eluded or

repelled the first attacks, could not inspire a vain confidence, that

at the head of some loose, disorderly Africans, he should be able to

withstand the regular forces of the West, commanded by a rival, whose

military character it was impossible for him to despise. After some

hesitation, the last struggles of prudence and loyalty, Boniface

despatched a trusty friend to the court, or rather to the camp, of

Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the proposal of a strict alliance,

and the offer of an advantageous and perpetual settlement.

After the retreat of the Goths, the authority of Honorius had obtained

a precarious establishment in Spain; except only in the province of

Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had fortified their camps,

in mutual discord and hostile independence. The Vandals prevailed; and

their adversaries were besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon

and Oviedo, till the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather

provoked, the victorious Barbarians to remove the scene of the war to

the plains of Baetica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon acquired

a more effectual opposition; and the master-general Castinus marched

against them with a numerous army of Romans and Goths. Vanquished in

battle by an inferior army, Castinus fled with dishonor to Tarragona;

and this memorable defeat, which has been represented as the punishment,

was most probably the effect, of his rash presumption. Seville and

Carthagena became the reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious

conquerors; and the vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena

might easily transport them to the Isles of Majorca and Minorca, where

the Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed their

families and their fortunes. The experience of navigation, and perhaps

the prospect of Africa, encouraged the Vandals to accept the invitation

which they received from Count Boniface; and the death of Gonderic

served only to forward and animate the bold enterprise. In the room of a

prince not conspicuous for any superior powers of the mind or body, they

acquired his bastard brother, the terrible Genseric; a name, which, in

the destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with the

names of Alaric and Attila. The king of the Vandals is described to

have been of a middle stature, with a lameness in one leg, which he had

contracted by an accidental fall from his horse. His slow and cautious

speech seldom declared the deep purposes of his soul; he disdained

to imitate the luxury of the vanquished; but he indulged the sterner

passions of anger and revenge. The ambition of Genseric was without

bounds and without scruples; and the warrior could dexterously employ

the dark engines of policy to solicit the allies who might be useful

to his success, or to scatter among his enemies the seeds of hatred and

contention. Almost in the moment of his departure he was informed

that Hermanric, king of the Suevi, had presumed to ravage the Spanish

territories, which he was resolved to abandon. Impatient of the insult,

Genseric pursued the hasty retreat of the Suevi as far as Merida;

precipitated the king and his army into the River Anas, and calmly

returned to the sea-shore to embark his victorious troops. The vessels

which transported the Vandals over the modern Straits of Gibraltar, a

channel only twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards,

who anxiously wished their departure; and by the African general, who

had implored their formidable assistance.

Our fancy, so long accustomed to exaggerate and multiply the martial

swarms of Barbarians that seemed to issue from the North, will perhaps

be surprised by the account of the army which Genseric mustered on the

coast of Mauritania. The Vandals, who in twenty years had penetrated

from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were united under the command of their

warlike king; and he reigned with equal authority over the Alani, who

had passed, within the term of human life, from the cold of Scythia

to the excessive heat of an African climate. The hopes of the bold

enterprise had excited many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and

many desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by the

same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various multitude

amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and though Genseric

artfully magnified his apparent strength, by appointing eighty

chiliarchs, or commanders of thousands, the fallacious increase of old

men, of children, and of slaves, would scarcely have swelled his army

to the number of four-score thousand persons. But his own dexterity,

and the discontents of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the

accession of numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which

border on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with

a fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been

exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman

arms. The wandering Moors, as they gradually ventured to approach the

seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have viewed with terror and

astonishment the dress, the armor, the martial pride and discipline

of the unknown strangers who had landed on their coast; and the fair

complexions of the blue-eyed warriors of Germany formed a very singular

contrast with the swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the

neighborhood of the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in

some measure been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance

of their respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future

consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a crowd

of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount Atlas,

to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had injuriously

expelled them from the native sovereignty of the land.

The persecution of the Donatists was an event not less favorable to

the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he landed in Africa, a

public conference was held at Carthage, by the order of the magistrate.

The Catholics were satisfied, that, after the invincible reasons which

they had alleged, the obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable

and voluntary; and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the

most rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his

patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, with many thousands of

the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches, stripped of their

ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the islands, and proscribed by

the laws, if they presumed to conceal themselves in the provinces of

Africa. Their numerous congregations, both in cities and in the

country, were deprived of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise

of religious worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two

hundred pounds of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the

distinction of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting at

a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five times,

without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future punishment

was referred to the discretion of the Imperial court. By these

severities, which obtained the warmest approbation of St. Augustin,

great numbers of Donatists were reconciled to the Catholic Church; but

the fanatics, who still persevered in their opposition, were provoked to

madness and despair; the distracted country was filled with tumult and

bloodshed; the armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their

rage against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the calendar

of martyrs received on both sides a considerable augmentation. Under

these circumstances, Genseric, a Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox

communion, showed himself to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer,

from whom they might reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and

oppressive edicts of the Roman emperors. The conquest of Africa was

facilitated by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic

faction; the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of

which the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism

of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the triumph

of Christianity, contributed to the loss of the most important province

of the West.