1. OF my fidelity in my former mission you were so well assured
as to require from me no account of it. Indeed the very fact that
I was detained some days in Gaul sufficiently proved that I had made
no promises acceptable to Maximus, nor agreed to any measures which
inclined to what was pleasing to him rather than to the establishment
of peace. And again, had you not approved of my first mission you would
not have committed to me a second. But since as I was on the point
of retiring he laid upon me the necessity of a discussion with him,
I have thought it best to address to you in this letter an account of
my mission, for fear any one should give you an account which mingled
truth with falsehood, before my return could declare to you the truth
in its perfect and sincere characters.
2. The day after I reached Trèves I presented myself at the palace;
a Gaul came out to receive me, who was the Emperor’s Chamberlain, and
one of the royal eunuchs. I requested an audience; he enquired whether
I had your Majesty’s commission: I replied that I had. He said that
I could only be heard in the Consistory. I answered that this was not
usual for Bishops, and at all events that there were matters whereon I
required serious conference with his master. To be brief; he consulted
his master, and brought back the same answer, so that it was plain that
the former had originated with his will. I said that such a course was
inconsistent with the office I bore, but that I would not shrink from
the duty I had undertaken, and that more especially in your service,
and as it really was to support your brotherly affection, I was glad
to humble myself.
3. As soon as he had taken his seat in the Consistory I entered; he
rose to give me the kiss of peace. I stood among the members of the
Consistory; some of them urged me to go up the steps, and he himself
invited me. I replied, ‘Why do you offer a kiss to one whom you do not
acknowledge[141]? for had you acknowledged me you would not have seen
me here.’ ‘You are excited, Bishop,’ said he. ‘It is not anger,’ I said,
‘that I feel, but shame at appearing in a place unsuited to me.’ ‘Yet
on your first mission,’ he said, ‘you entered the Consistory.’ ‘True,’
I replied, ‘but the blame rests on him who summoned, not on me who
entered.’ ‘Why,’ said he, ‘did you then enter?’ ‘Because,’ I replied,
‘I was then suing for peace on behalf of one who was inferior to you,
but I now appear for your equal.’ ‘By whose favour,’ said he, ‘is he my
equal?’ ‘By that of Almighty God, who has maintained Valentinian in the
empire He bestowed on him.’
4. At length he broke out, ‘It is you who have cajoled me, you and
the wretch Bauto, who wished by setting up a boy to acquire sovereignty
for himself, who also brought barbarians upon me; as if I also had
not those whom I could bring, seeing I have so many barbarians in
my service and pay. But had I not been withheld at the time of your
arrival, who could have resisted me and my power?’
Sidenote: Isa. i. 17.
Sidenote: Ps. lxviii. 5.
5. I answered mildly, ‘You need not be excited, for there is no
occasion for excitement; listen rather with patience to the reply which
I have to make. My reason for coming is, that you have declared that on
my first mission you trusted me and were deceived by me. It is a glory
to me to have done this for the safety of an orphan Emperor, for whom
rather than orphans ought we bishops to protect? For it is written,
_Relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow_;
and in another place, _father of the fatherless, and a judge of the
widows_.’
6. But I will not make a boast of my services to Valentinian. To speak
the truth, when did I oppose your legions, and resist your descent upon
Italy? By what works, by what armies, with what forces? Did I block up
against you the passes of the Alps with my body? Would that this were
in my power, then I should not fear this allegation, nor your charges.
By what promises did I beguile you into a consent to peace? Did not
Count Victor, whom you had sent to request peace, meet me within the
frontier of the provinces of Gaul, near the city of Mayence? Wherein
then did Valentinian deceive you, whom you asked to grant you peace
before he himself asked for it? Wherein did Bauto deceive you, who
shewed fidelity to his Emperor? Did he do so by not betraying his own
master?
7. Wherein have I circumvented you? Was it when, on my first arrival,
on your saying that Valentinian ought to have come to you as a son
to a father, I answered that it was not reasonable for a boy with his
widowed mother to cross the Alps in severe winter weather, or without
his mother be exposed under critical circumstances to such a journey?
My business was to bring a message concerning peace, not to make any
promise of his coming: it is certain that I have given no pledge of
that, concerning which I had received no commands, and that I did not
make any promise whatever, for you said, ‘Let us wait to see what
answer Victor will bring back.’ But it is well known that he arrived
at Milan while I was detained here, and that his request was refused.
It was only about peace that we felt a common zeal, not about the
Emperor’s arrival; whose coming ought not to have been required. I
was present when Victor returned. How then did I meet Valentinian? The
emissaries who were sent a second time into Gaul to say that he would
not come, found me at Valence in Gaul. The soldiers of either party,
sent to guard the mountain passes, I met on my return. What armies of
yours did I then recall? what eagles did I turn back from Italy? what
barbarians did Count Bauto send against you?
8. And what wonder if Bauto, whose native country lies beyond the Rhine,
had done so, when you yourself threaten the Roman Empire with barbarian
allies, and with troops from beyond the military frontier, whose
commissariat was supplied by the taxes of the provinces? But consider
what a difference there is between your threats and the mildness of
the young Emperor Valentinian. You insisted on making an incursion into
Italy accompanied by armies of barbarians, Valentinian turned back the
Huns and Alans on their approach to Italy through the territory of the
Germans. What need for displeasure is there if Bauto set the barbarians
at variance with each other? While you were employing the Roman forces,
while he was presenting himself to oppose you on both sides, the
Juthungi[142] in the very heart of the Roman Empire were laying Rhætia
waste, and so the Huns were called in against the Juthungi. And yet
when he was attacking the country of the Alemanni on your frontier, and
was already threatening the provinces of Gaul with the near approach of
danger, he was obliged to relinquish his triumphs, lest you should be
alarmed. Compare the acts of the two; you caused the invasion of Rhætia,
Valentinian by his gold has regained peace for you.
9. Look too at the man[143] who now stands at your right hand, whom
Valentinian, when he had the opportunity of avenging his grief, sent
back to you loaded with honours. He had him in his own territory,
and yet restrained his hand: even when he received the tidings of his
brother’s death, he restrained his natural feelings, and abstained from
retaliation, where the relationship was the same, though the rank was
not. Compare therefore, yourself being judge, the two actions. He sent
back your brother alive; do you restore to him his brother at least now
that he is dead. Why do you refuse to him his relation’s remains, when
he refused not to you those who would assist you against him?
10. But you allege that you are alarmed lest the grief of the troops
should be renewed by the return of these remains. Will they then defend
after death one whom they deserted in life? Why do you fear him now
he is dead, whom, when you might have saved him, you slew? ‘It was my
enemy’ you say, ‘that I have slain.’ It was not he that was your enemy,
but you that were his. He is no longer conscious of my advocacy, do you
consider the case yourself[144]. If any one were to think of setting
up a claim to the empire in these parts against you, I ask whether you
would deem yourself to be his enemy, or him to be yours? If I mistake
not, it is the part of an usurper to excite war, of an Emperor to
defend his rights. Will you then withhold even the body of him whom
you ought not to have slain? Let Valentinian have at least the remains
of his brother as a pledge of your peaceful intentions. How moreover
will[145] you assert that you did not command him to be slain, when you
forbid him to be buried? Will it be believed that you did not grudge
him life, when you even grudge him burial?
11. But to return to myself. I find that you complain of the followers
of Valentinian betaking themselves to the Emperor Theodosius rather
than to yourself. But what could you expect, when you called for
punishment on the fugitives, and put to death those who were taken,
Theodosius on the other hand loaded them with gifts and honours. ‘Whom,’
said he, ‘have I slain?’ ‘Vallio,’ I replied. ‘And what a man, what
a soldier! Was it then a just cause of death, that he maintained his
fidelity to his Emperor?’ ‘I gave no orders,’ said he, ‘for his death.’
‘We have heard,’ I replied, ‘that the order was given for him to be put
to death.’ ‘Nay,’ said he, ‘had he not laid violent hands on himself
I had ordered him to be taken to Cabillonum[146] and there burnt alive.’
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and that was why it was believed that you had put
him to death. And who could suppose that he would himself be spared,
when a valiant warrior, a faithful soldier, a valuable comrade was thus
slain?’ At that time, on taking my leave, he said he was willing to
treat.
12. But afterwards on finding that I would not communicate with the
Bishops who communicated with him, or who sought the death of any one,
even though they were heretics[147], he grew angry and bade me depart
without delay. And I, although many thought I should be waylaid, set
forth gladly, grieving only that the aged Bishop Hyginus, now almost
at his last gasp, was being carried into exile. And when I appealed to
his guards against their suffering the old man to be driven out without
a curtain or a pillow to rest upon, I was driven forth myself.
13. Such is the account of my mission. Farewell, your Majesty, and be
well on your guard against a man who conceals war under the cloak of
peace.