(337-363 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [337-338 A.D.]]
The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his funeral
to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the vicinity of his
eastern station, could easily prevent the diligence of his brothers,
who resided in their distant governments of Italy and Gaul. As soon as
he had taken possession of the palace of Constantinople, his first care
was to remove the apprehensions of his kinsmen by a solemn oath which he
pledged for their security. His next employment was to find some specious
pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation of an
imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient to the designs
of cruelty, and a manifest forgery was attested by a person of the most
sacred character. From the hands of the bishop of Nicomedia Constantius
received a fatal scroll, affirmed to be the genuine testament of his
father; in which the emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been
poisoned by his brothers, and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and
to consult their own safety, by the punishment of the guilty. Whatever
reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate princes to defend
their life and honour against so incredible an accusation, they were
silenced by the furious clamours of the soldiers, who declared themselves
at once their enemies, their judges, and their executioners. The spirit
and even the forms of legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a
promiscuous massacre, which involved the two uncles of Constantius,
seven of his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most
illustrious, the patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of the late
emperor, and the prefect Ablavius, whose power and riches had inspired
him with some hopes of obtaining the purple. If it were necessary to
aggravate the horrors of this bloody scene, we might add that Constantius
himself had espoused the daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had
bestowed his sister in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. Of so
numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone, the two youngest children
of Julius Constantius, were saved from the hands of the assassins, till
their rage, satiated with slaughter, had in some measure subsided.
The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division of
the provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of the three
brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the cæsars, obtained, with a certain
pre-eminence of rank, the possession of the new capital, which bore
his own name and that of his father. Thrace and the countries of the
East were allotted for the patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was
acknowledged as the lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the western
Illyricum. The armies submitted to their hereditary right, and they
condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate the title
of Augustus. When they first assumed the reins of government, the eldest
of these princes was twenty-one, the second twenty, and the third only
seventeen years of age.
[Sidenote: [338-350 A.D.]]
While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his
brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of Asia,
was left to sustain the weight of the Persian War. At the decease of
Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by Sapor, son of Hormuz or
Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who, after the victory of Galerius,
had humbly confessed the superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor
was in the thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigour
of youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality, had
preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormuz remained pregnant at the
time of her husband’s death; and the uncertainty of the sex, as well as
of the event, excited the ambitious hopes of the princes of the house
of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil war were at length removed by the
positive assurance of the magi that the widow of Hormuz had conceived
and would safely produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition,
the Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation. A
royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in the midst of
the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot which might be supposed to
conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and the prostrate satraps adored
the majesty of their invisible and insensible sovereign.
If any credit can be given to this marvellous tale, which seems however
to be countenanced by the manners of the people and by the extraordinary
duration of his reign, we must admire not only the fortune but the
genius of Sapor. In the soft sequestrated education of a Persian harem,
the royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigour
of his mind and body; and by his personal merit deserved a throne, on
which he had been seated while he was yet unconscious of the duties and
temptations of absolute power. His minority was exposed to the almost
inevitable calamities of domestic discord; his capital was surprised
and plundered by Thair, a powerful king of Yemen, or Arabia; and the
majesty of the royal family was degraded by the captivity of a princess,
the sister of the deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age
of manhood, the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country fell
beneath the first effort of the young warrior, who used his victory with
so judicious a mixture of rigour and clemency that he obtained from the
fears and gratitude of the Arabs the title of _dhoulacnaf_, or protector
of the nation.
The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the virtues of
a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire of revenging the
disgrace of his fathers and of wresting from the hands of the Romans the
five provinces beyond the Tigris. The military fame of Constantine and
the real or apparent strength of his government suspended the attack; and
while the hostile conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment his artful
negotiations amused the patience of the imperial court. The death of
Constantine was the signal of war, and the actual condition of the Syrian
and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians by the prospect of
a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example of the massacres of the
palace diffused a spirit of licentiousness and sedition among the troops
of the East, who were no longer restrained by the habits of obedience
to a veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who from the
interview with his brothers in Pannonia immediately hastened to the
banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored to a sense
of duty; but the season of anarchy had permitted Sapor to form the siege
of Nisibis, and to occupy several of the most important fortresses of
Mesopotamia.
During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces of the
East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian War. The irregular
incursions of the light troops alternately spread terror and devastation
beyond the Tigris and beyond the Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon
to those of Antioch; and this active service was performed by the Arabs
of the desert, who were divided in their interests and affections,
some of their independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor,
whilst others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. The
more grave and important operations of the war were conducted with equal
vigour, and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered each other in nine
bloody fields, in two of which Constantius himself commanded in person.
The event of the day was most commonly averse to the Romans, but in the
battle of Singara their imprudent valour had almost achieved a signal
and decisive victory. The stationary troops of Singara retired on the
approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges and occupied
near the village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which, by the labour of
his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day with a deep ditch and a
lofty rampart. His formidable host, when it was drawn out in order of
battle, covered the banks of the river, the adjacent heights, and the
whole extent of a plain of above twelve miles which separated the two
armies.
Both were alike impatient for a trial of strength; but the barbarians,
after a slight resistance, fled in disorder, unable to resist or desirous
to weary the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat and
thirst, pursued them across the plain and cut in pieces a line of cavalry
clothed in complete armour which had been posted before the gates of the
camp to protect their retreat (348).
Constantius, hurried along in the pursuit, attempted, without effect, to
restrain the ardour of his troops by representing to them the dangers
of the approaching night and the certainty of completing their success
with the return of day. They, depending much more on their own valour
than on the experience or the abilities of their chief, silenced by their
clamours his timid remonstrances; and rushing with fury to the charge,
filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and dispersed themselves
through the tents to recruit their exhausted strength and to enjoy the
rich harvest of their labours. But the prudent Sapor had watched the
moment of victory. His army, of which the greater part securely posted on
the heights had been spectators of the action, advanced in silence and
under the shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the
illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on the disarmed and
licentious crowd. The sincerity of history declares that the Romans were
vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that the flying remnant of the
legions was exposed to the most intolerable hardships.
Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field, though
nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the fame of his valour
and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in the execution of his designs
while the fortified towns of Mesopotamia, and above all the strong and
ancient city of Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. This
large city was situated about two days’ journey from the Tigris, in
the midst of a fertile plain at the foot of Mt. Masius. In the space
of twelve years, Nisibis, which since the time of Lucullus had been
deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three memorable
sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed monarch, after
urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a hundred days, was thrice
repulsed with loss and ignominy.
WAR OF THE BROTHER EMPERORS
[Illustration: A ROMAN EMPEROR]
After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely elapsed
before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to convince mankind
that they were incapable of contenting themselves with the dominions
which they were unqualified to govern. The eldest of those princes soon
complained that he was defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of
their murdered kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt
and merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the
African provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of Macedonia
and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death of Dalmatius.
The want of sincerity which Constantine experienced in a tedious and
fruitless negotiation exasperated the fierceness of his temper; and
he eagerly listened to those favourites who suggested to him that his
honour, as well as his interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the
quarrel. At the head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than
for conquest, he suddenly broke into the dominions of Constans, by way of
the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt the first effects of
his resentment. The measures of Constans, who then resided in Dacia, were
directed with more prudence and ability. On the news of his brother’s
invasion, he detached a select and disciplined body of his Illyrian
troops, proposing to follow them in person with the remainder of his
forces. But the conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural
contest. By the artful appearances of flight Constantine was betrayed
into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the rash
youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and slain. His
body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of the Alsa, obtained
the honours of an imperial sepulchre; but his provinces transferred their
allegiance to the conqueror, who, refusing to admit his elder brother
Constantius to any share in these new acquisitions, maintained the
undisputed possession of more than two-thirds of the Roman Empire (340).
[Sidenote: [350-351 A.D.]]
The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer, and the
revenge of his brother’s death was reserved for the more ignoble hand
of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of the system introduced
by Constantine was displayed in the feeble administration of his sons,
who, by their vices and weakness, soon lost the esteem and affections of
their people. The pride assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success
of his arms, was rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities
and application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of scandal to
the people; and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier, who was himself of
barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the public discontent to assert
the honour of the Roman name. The chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians,
who acknowledged Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most
respectable and important station in the imperial camp. The friendship
of Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a liberal
hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced by the most
specious arguments, that the republic summoned them to break the bonds
of hereditary servitude; and by the choice of an active and vigilant
prince, to reward the same virtues which had raised the ancestors of the
degenerate Constans from a private condition to the throne of the world.
As soon as the conspiracy was in readiness for execution, Marcellinus,
under the pretence of celebrating his son’s birthday, gave a splendid
entertainment to the illustrious and honourable persons of the court of
Gaul, which then resided in the city of Augustodunum. The intemperance
of the feast was protracted till a very late hour of the night; and the
unsuspecting guests were tempted to indulge themselves in a dangerous and
guilty freedom of conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open,
and Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the
apartment invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators instantly
saluted him with the titles of Augustus and emperor. The surprise, the
terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes, and the mutual ignorance
of the rest of the assembly, prompted them to join their voices to the
general acclamation. The guards hastened to take the oath of fidelity,
the gates of the town were shut, and before the dawn of day, Magnentius
became master of the troops and treasure of the city of Augustodunum. By
his secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the
person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his favourite
amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a more private and
criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame allowed him, however, an
instant for flight, though the desertion of his soldiers and subjects
deprived him of the power of resistance. Before he could reach a seaport
in Spain, where he intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena,
at the foot of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief,
regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission by the
murder of the son of Constantine (350).
As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but important
revolution, the example of the court of Autun was imitated by the
provinces of the West. The authority of Magnentius was acknowledged
through the whole extent of the two great prefectures of Gaul and Italy;
and the usurper prepared, by every act of oppression, to collect a
treasure, which might discharge the obligation of an immense donative,
and supply the expenses of a civil war.
CONSTANTIUS AND MAGNENTIUS
[Sidenote: [351-352 A.D.]]
The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply affected the
honour and safety of the imperial house, recalled the arms of Constantius
from the inglorious prosecution of the Persian War. He recommended the
care of the East to his lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus,
whom he raised from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe,
with a mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
indignation.
The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a bridge
of boats five miles in length over the river Drave and the adjacent
morasses, has been always considered as a place of importance in the
wars of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his march towards Mursa, set
fire to the gates, and by a sudden assault had almost scaled the walls
of the town. The vigilance of the garrison extinguished the flames, the
approach of Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of
the siege, and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could
embarrass his motions by forcing a body of troops which had taken post in
an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle round Mursa was a naked
and level plain; on this ground the army of Constantius formed, with
the Drave on their right, while their left, either from the nature of
their disposition or from the superiority of their cavalry, extended far
beyond the right flank of Magnentius. The troops on both sides remained
under arms in anxious expectation during the greater part of the morning;
and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an eloquent
speech, retired into a church at some distance from the field of battle
and committed to his generals the conduct of this decisive day. They
deserved his confidence by the valour and military skill which they
exerted. They wisely began the action upon the left; and, advancing their
whole wing of cavalry in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the
right flank of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity
of their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied by the habits of
discipline, and the barbarians of Germany supported the renown of their
national bravery. The engagement soon became general, was maintained
with various and singular turns of fortune, and scarcely ended with the
darkness of the night. The signal victory which Constantius obtained is
attributed to the arms of his cavalry.
His cuirassiers are described as so many massy statues of steel,
glittering with their scaly armour, and breaking with their ponderous
lances the firm array of the Gallic legions. As soon as the legions
gave way, the lighter and more active squadrons of the second line rode
sword in hand into the intervals, and completed the disorder. In the
meanwhile the huge bodies of the Germans were exposed, almost naked,
to the dexterity of the oriental archers; and whole troops of those
barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate themselves
into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. The number of the slain was
computed at fifty-four thousand men and the slaughter of the conquerors
was more considerable than that of the vanquished, a circumstance which
proves the obstinacy of the contest, and justifies the observation of an
ancient writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal
battle of Mursa by the loss of a veteran army sufficient to defend the
frontiers or to add new triumphs to the glory of Rome. Notwithstanding
the invectives of a servile orator, there is not the least reason to
believe that the tyrant deserted his own standard in the beginning of
the engagement. He seems to have displayed the virtues of a general and
of a soldier till the day was irrecoverably lost and his camp in the
possession of the enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and,
throwing away the imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from
the pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid flight
from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian Alps.
The detachments, however, which were ordered either to press or to
intercept the flight of Magnentius, conducted themselves with the usual
imprudence of success; and allowed him, in the plains of Ticinium, an
opportunity of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair, by
the carnage of a useless victory.
The pride of Magnentius was reduced by repeated misfortunes to sue, and
to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a senator, in whose
abilities he confided, and afterwards several bishops, whose holy
character might obtain a more favourable audience, with the offer of
resigning the purple, and the promise of devoting the remainder of his
life to the service of the emperor. But Constantius, though he granted
fair terms of pardon and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard
of rebellion, avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just
punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to overwhelm
on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An imperial fleet
acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain, confirmed the wavering
faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a considerable force, which
passed the Pyrenees, and advanced towards Lyons, the last and fatal
station of Magnentius. The temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined
to clemency, was urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression
which could extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. Their
patience was at length exhausted; and Trèves, the seat of prætorian
government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her gates against
Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to the rank either of cæsar
or of augustus. From Trèves, Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens,
where he was soon surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious
arts of Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome.
In the meantime, the imperial troops forced the passages of the Cottian
Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus, irrevocably fixed the
title of rebels on the party of Magnentius.
He was unable to bring another army in the field, the fidelity of his
guards was corrupted, and when he appeared in public to animate them
by his exhortations, he was saluted with the unanimous shout of “Long
live the emperor Constantius!” The tyrant, who perceived that they were
preparing to deserve pardon and rewards by the sacrifice of the most
obnoxious criminal, prevented their design by falling on his sword--a
death more easy and more honourable than he could hope to obtain from
the hands of an enemy, whose revenge would have been coloured with the
specious pretence of justice and fraternal piety. The example of suicide
was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the news of his
brother’s death. The author of the conspiracy, Marcellinus, had long
since disappeared in the battle of Mursa, and the public tranquillity
was confirmed by the execution of the surviving leaders of a guilty and
unsuccessful faction.
A severe inquisition was extended over all who, either from choice or
from compulsion, had been involved in the cause of rebellion. Paul,
surnamed Catena, from his superior skill in the judicial exercise of
tyranny, was sent to explore the latent remains of the conspiracy in the
remote province of Britain. The honest indignation expressed by Martin,
vice-prefect of the island, was interpreted as an evidence of his own
guilt; and the governor was urged to the necessity of turning against his
breast the sword with which he had been provoked to wound the imperial
minister. The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile
and confiscation, to death and torture; and, as the timid are always
cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy.
CONSTANTIUS SOLE EMPEROR
[Sidenote: [337-353 A.D.]]
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the victory
of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal
merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted
his ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the
reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the
ancient production of oriental jealousy and despotism, were introduced
into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. Their progress
was rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been
abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, were gradually
admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors
themselves. Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva,
cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the
prudence of Constantine, they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate
sons, and insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction,
of the secret councils of Constantius.
The aversion and contempt which mankind has so uniformly entertained for
that imperfect species appears to have degraded their character, and to
have rendered them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of
conceiving any generous sentiment or of performing any worthy action.
But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery and intrigue; and
they alternately governed the mind of Constantius by his fears, his
indolence, and his vanity. Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the
fair appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to
intercept the complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense
treasures by the sale of justice and of honours; to disgrace the most
important dignities, by the promotion of those who had purchased at
their hands the power of oppression, and to gratify their resentment
against the few independent spirits who arrogantly refused to solicit
the protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was
the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with
such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an
impartial historian, possessed some credit with his haughty favourite.
By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the
long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honour of the house of
Constantine.
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from
the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter
about six years of age; and as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly
constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and
dependent life from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible
that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed,
by all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. Different cities
of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and
education; but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the
emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the
strong castle of Macellum, near Cæsarea.
The treatment which they experienced during a six years’ confinement
was partly such as they could hope from a careful guardian, and partly
such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant. Their prison was an
ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation
was pleasant, the building stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued
their studies and practised their exercises under the tuition of the
most skilful masters, and the numerous household appointed to attend, or
rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine was not unworthy the dignity
of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves that they were
deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society
of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their
melancholy hours in the company of slaves, devoted to the commands of a
tyrant, who had already injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation.
At length, however, the emergencies of the state compelled the emperor,
or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus, in the twenty-fifth year of his
age, with the title of Cæsar, and to cement this political connection by
his marriage with the princess Constantina.
After a formal interview, in which the two princes mutually engaged
their faith never to undertake anything to the prejudice of each other,
they repaired without delay to their respective stations. Constantius
continued his march towards the west, and Gallus fixed his residence at
Antioch, from whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the
five great dioceses of the eastern prefecture. In this fortunate change
the new cæsar was not unmindful of his brother Julian, who obtained the
honours of his rank, the appearances of liberty, and the restitution of
an ample patrimony.
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian
himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his
brother, are obliged to confess that the cæsar was incapable of reigning.
Transported from a prison to a throne, he possessed neither genius, nor
application, nor docility, to compensate for the want of knowledge and
experience. A temper naturally morose and violent, instead of being
corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what
he had endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy;
and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who
approached his person, or were subject to his power.
Constantina, his wife, has been described, not as a woman, but as one
of the infernal furies, tormented with an insatiate thirst for human
blood. Instead of employing her influence to insinuate the mild counsels
of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her
husband; and as she retained the vanity, though she had renounced the
gentleness, of her sex, a pearl necklace was esteemed an equivalent price
for the murder of an innocent and virtuous nobleman.[59] The cruelty of
Gallus was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular
or military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of law,
and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of Antioch,
and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies and informers;
and the cæsar himself, concealed in a plebeian habit, very frequently
condescended to assume that odious character. Every apartment of the
palace was adorned with the instruments of death and torture, and a
general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria. The
prince of the East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear,
and how little he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his
resentment, the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his
own courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing, by their
secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of Constantius.
But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his only support, the
affection of the people; whilst he furnished the malice of his enemies
with the arms of truth, and afforded the emperor the fairest pretence of
exacting the forfeit of his purple, and of his life.
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world,
Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration
to which his choice had subjected the East; and the discovery of some
assassins secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was
employed to convince the public that the emperor and the cæsar were
united by the same interest and pursued by the same enemies. But when
the victory was decided in favour of Constantius, his dependent colleague
became less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct
was severely and suspiciously examined; and it was privately resolved,
either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from
the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German
war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in
a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with
the connivance, and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly
resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult
on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank,
Domitian, the oriental prefect, and Montius, quæstor of the palace, were
empowered by a special commission to visit and reform the state of the
East. They were instructed to behave towards Gallus with moderation and
respect, and, by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply
with the invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the
prefect disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin,
as well as that of his enemy.
[Illustration: ROMAN KNIVES
(In the British Museum)]
On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian passed disdainfully before the gates
of the palace, and alleging a slight pretence of indisposition, continued
several days in sullen retirement to prepare an inflammatory memorial
which he transmitted to the imperial court. Yielding at length to the
pressing solicitations of Gallus, the prefect condescended to take his
seat in council, but his first step was to signify a concise and haughty
mandate, importing that the cæsar should immediately repair to Italy,
and threatening that he himself would punish his delay or hesitation by
suspending the usual allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter
of Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject, expressed
their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to the custody of a
guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms of accommodation. They
were rendered impracticable by the imprudent behaviour of Montius, a
statesman, whose art and experience were frequently betrayed by the
levity of his disposition. The quæstor reproached Gallus in haughty
language, that a prince who was scarcely authorised to remove a municipal
magistrate should presume to imprison a prætorian prefect; convoked
a meeting of the civil and military officers; and required them, in
the name of their sovereign, to defend the person and dignity of his
representatives.
By this rash declaration of war, Gallus was provoked to embrace the
most desperate councils. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms,
assembled the populace of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care
of his safety and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They
rudely seized the prefect and the quæstor, and tying their legs together
with ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted
a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims, and at
last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of
the Orontes.
THE FATE OF GALLUS
[Sidenote: [354 A.D.]]
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus,
it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence
with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of
an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the
title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defence the troops and
treasures of the East, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected
tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a
court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces
of Asia. But as it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his
capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practised with
success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled
with professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the cæsar to
discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his colleague from
a part of the public cares, and to assist the West by his presence, his
counsels, and his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had
reason to fear and to distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities
of flight and of resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances
of the tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier,
disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the credit
of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of that princess
completed the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous
passions.
After a long delay, the reluctant cæsar set forward on his journey to
the imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianopolis, he traversed the wide
extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he
laboured to conceal his apprehension from the world, and perhaps from
himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition
of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however,
have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he
was met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of
government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of
his despair. The persons despatched to secure the provinces which he left
behind, passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain; and the
troops, whose station lay along the public road, were studiously removed
on his approach, lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for
the service of a civil war. After Gallus had been permitted to repose
himself a few days at Hadrianopolis, he received a mandate, expressed in
the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should
halt in that city, while the cæsar himself, with only ten post-carriages,
should hasten to the imperial residence at Mediolanum. In this rapid
journey, the profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague
of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude familiarity; and Gallus,
discovering in the countenances of the attendants, that they already
considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his
executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect
with terror and remorse the conduct by which he had provoked his fate.
The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at
Petovio in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where
the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither
be moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his
illustrious victim.
In the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of
cæsar, and hurried away to Pola in Istria, a sequestered prison which
had been so recently polluted with royal blood. The horror which he felt
was soon increased by the appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch
Eusebius, who, with the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded
to interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The cæsar
sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal
actions, and all the treasonable designs, with which he was charged; and
by imputing them to the advice of his wife, exasperated the indignation
of Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the
examination.
The emperor was convinced that his own safety was incompatible with the
life of his cousin; the sentence of death was signed, despatched, and
executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his
back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. Those who are
inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon
relented, and endeavoured to recall the bloody mandate; but that the
second messenger intrusted with the reprieve was detained by the eunuchs,
who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of
reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of the East.
CONSTANTIUS AND JULIAN
[Sidenote: [354-356 A.D.]]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous
posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth
involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy
country of Ionia he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court
of Mediolanum, where he languished above seven months in continual
apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily
inflicted, almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his
persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinised
with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies
whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. But
in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of
firmness and discretion. He defended his honour, as well as his life,
against the ensnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavoured to
extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously
suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the
tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother’s murder. Julian most
devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the
gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of destruction
pronounced by their justice against the impious house of Constantine.
As the most effectual instrument of their providence, he gratefully
acknowledges the steady and generous friendship of the empress Eusebia,
a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained
over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced in some measure the
powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
Julian was admitted into the imperial presence; he pleaded his cause
with a decent freedom, he was heard with favour; and, notwithstanding
the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger
of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in
the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded by
the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the
neighbourhood of Mediolanum, till the emperor thought proper to assign
the city of Athens for the place of his honourable exile.
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,
resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was
not unmindful of the care of his fortune. After an obstinate, though
secret struggle, the opposition of the favourite eunuchs submitted to
the ascendency of the empress; and it was resolved that Julian, after
celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of Constantius, should be
appointed, with the title of Cæsar, to reign over the countries beyond
the Alps.
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied
by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people
of Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was
reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement.
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult with
the senate in the choice of a colleague, but they were anxious that
their nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this
solemn occasion, the guards, with the other troops whose stations were
in the neighbourhood of Mediolanum, appeared under arms; and Constantius
ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who
entered the same day on the twenty-fifth year of his age. In a studied
speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor represented
the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the
necessity of naming a cæsar for the administration of the West, and his
own intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the
honours of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine.
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during
the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favourite
Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears.
The twenty-four days which the cæsar spent at Mediolanum after his
investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to
a splendid but severe captivity; nor could the acquisition of honour
compensate for the loss of freedom.
The protection of the Rhætian frontier, and the persecution of the
western church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months after
the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the East, he
indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital.
The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey excited
him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans some memorial
of his own gratitude and munificence. His first idea was to imitate the
equestrian and colossal statue which he had seen in the forum of Trajan;
but when he had maturely weighed the difficulties of the execution, he
chose rather to embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk.
THE QUADIAN AND SARMATIAN WARS
The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming
intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The
distractions of civil war, and the irreparable loss which the Roman
legions had sustained in the battle of Mursa, exposed those countries,
almost without defence, to the light cavalry of the barbarians; and
particularly to the inroads of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation,
who seem to have exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and
military arts of their Sarmatian allies. The garrisons of the frontier
were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent monarch was
at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of his dominions,
the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the field in person, and
to employ a whole campaign, with the preceding autumn and the ensuing
spring, in the serious prosecution of the war. The emperor passed
the Danube on a bridge of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered
his march, penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on the Roman
province. The dismayed barbarians were soon reduced to sue for peace;
they offered the restitution of his captive subjects, as an atonement for
the past, and the noblest hostages as a pledge of their future conduct.
While Constantius gave laws to the barbarians beyond the Danube, he
distinguished with specious compassion the Sarmatian exiles, who had been
expelled from their native country by the rebellion of their slaves,
and who formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy, released
the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating dependence, and
restored them, by a separate treaty, to the dignity of a nation united
under the government of a king, the friend and ally of the republic. He
declared his resolution of asserting the justice of their cause, and of
securing the peace of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the
banishment, of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
vices of their servile origin; and the final combat was only terminated
by the extinction of the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free
Sarmatians were reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats;
and although Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence their
future conduct.
SAPOR’S INVASION OF MESOPOTAMIA
[Sidenote: [355-356 A.D.]]
While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance of three
thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against the barbarians of
the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate frontier experienced the
vicissitudes of a languid war, and a precarious truce. Two of the eastern
ministers of Constantius, the prætorian prefect Musonian, whose abilities
were disgraced by the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret negotiation
with the satrap Tamsapor. These overtures of peace, translated into the
servile and flattering language of Asia, were transmitted to the camp
of the Great King; who resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms
which he was inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
invested with that character, was honourably received in his passage
through Antioch and Constantinople; he reached Sirmium after a long
journey, and at his first audience, respectfully unfolded the silken veil
which covered the haughty epistle of his sovereign. A few days after the
departure of Narses, three ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor,
who was already returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary
residence of Ctesiphon. The ambassadors of Rome retired without success,
and a second embassy of a still more honourable rank was detained in
strict confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.
The military historian, Ammianus, who was himself despatched to observe
the army of the Persians as they were preparing to construct a bridge
of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the plain of Assyria,
as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with men, with horses, and
with arms. Sapor appeared in the front, conspicuous by the splendour of
his purple. The Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils
of Sapor, had prudently advised that instead of wasting the summer in
tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the Euphrates,
and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble and wealthy
metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced into the
plains of Mesopotamia than they discovered that every precaution had been
used which could retard their progress or defeat their design. Their
skilful guide, changing his plan of operations, then conducted the army
by a longer circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head
of the Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the strength
of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida, he resolved to
try whether the majesty of his presence would not awe the garrison
into immediate submission. The sacrilegious insult of a random dart,
which glanced against the royal tiara, convinced him of his error; and
the indignant monarch listened with impatience to the advice of his
ministers, who conjured him not to sacrifice the success of his ambition
to the gratification of his resentment. The following day Grumbates
advanced towards the gates with a select body of troops, and required
the instant surrender of the city as the only atonement which could
be accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a beautiful and
valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a javelin shot from one
of the ballistæ.
The ancient city of Amid, or Amida, was provided with an arsenal of
military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reinforced to
the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by the arms
of Sapor. In one of the fiercest of his repeated assaults, Amida was
betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who indicated to the barbarians
a secret and neglected staircase scooped out of the rock that hangs over
the stream of the Tigris. The soldiers, the citizens, their wives, their
children, all who had not time to escape through the opposite gate, were
involved by the conquerors in a promiscuous massacre.
But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces. As soon
as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor was at leisure
to reflect that to chastise a disobedient city, he had lost the flower
of his troops, and the most favourable season for conquest. Thirty
thousand of his veterans had fallen under the walls of Amida, during
the continuance of a siege which lasted seventy-three days; and the
disappointed monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and
secret mortification. Instead of aspiring in the ensuing spring to
the conquest of the East, he was obliged to content himself with the
reduction of two fortified cities of Mesopotamia, Singara, and Bezabde.
Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which they had been reduced
in the age of Constantine, were made prisoners, and sent into remote
captivity on the extreme confines of Persia. After dismantling the walls
of Singara, the conqueror abandoned that solitary and sequestered place;
but he carefully restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in
that important post a garrison or colony of veterans, amply supplied with
every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of honour and
fidelity.
The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required, and would
have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate general; and it
seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the actual province of the
brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the confidence of the soldiers and
people. In the hour of danger, Ursicinus was removed from his station
by the intrigues of the eunuchs; and the military command of the
East was bestowed, by the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and
subtle veteran, who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring
the experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
jealous and inconstant counsels, Ursicinus was again despatched to the
frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labours of a war,
the honours of which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian
fixed his indolent station under the walls of Edessa, and whenever
Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations to relieve the
distress of Amida, the timid and envious commander alleged that he was
restrained by his positive orders from endangering the safety of the
troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest defenders, who had escaped
the sword of the barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand of the
executioner; and Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace of
a partial inquiry, was punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the
loss of his military rank. After Constantius had subdued or pacified
the barbarians of the Danube, he proceeded by slow marches into the
East; and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed
with a powerful army the siege of Bezabde. The walls were shaken by the
reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the battering-rams; the town
was reduced to the last extremity; but it was still defended by the
patient and intrepid valour of the garrison, till the approach of the
rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the siege, and ingloriously to
retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch. The pride of Constantius,
and the ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian War; while the glory
of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had intrusted the
provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in the concise narrative
of his exploits.
JULIAN IN GAUL
[Sidenote: [356-357 A.D.]]
In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the
barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged
the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alamanni were
invited to cross the Rhine by presents and promises, by the hopes of
spoil, and by a perpetual grant of all the territories which they might
subdue.
Julian had been sent to Gaul immediately after he had received the purple
at Mediolanum, with a feeble retinue of 360 soldiers. At Vienna, where he
passed a painful and anxious winter in the hands of those ministers to
whom Constantius had intrusted the direction of his conduct, the cæsar
was informed of the siege and deliverance of Augustodunum. That large and
ancient city, protected only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison,
was saved by the generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their
arms for the defence of their country. In his march from Augustodunum,
through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with ardour
the earliest opportunity of signalising his courage. At the head of a
small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred the shorter but
the more dangerous of two roads; and sometimes eluding, and sometimes
resisting, the attacks of the barbarians, he arrived with honour and
safety at the Roman camp near Rheims. The aspect of their young prince
revived the drooping spirit of the soldiers, and they marched from Rheims
in search of the enemy with a confidence which had almost proved fatal
to them. The Alamanni, familiarised to the knowledge of the country,
secretly collected their scattered forces, and seizing the opportunity of
a dark and rainy day, poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of
the Romans. Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions
were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience, that caution and
vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war. In a second
and more successful action, he recovered and established his military
fame; but as the agility of the barbarians saved them from the pursuit,
his victory was neither bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to
the banks of the Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne,[60] convinced
himself of the difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach
of winter, discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own
success. The power of the enemy was yet unbroken, and the cæsar had no
sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own quarters at Sens, in
the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded and besieged by a numerous
host of Germans. Reduced in this extremity to the resources of his own
mind, he displayed a prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the
deficiencies of the place and garrison; and the barbarians, at the end of
thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage.
The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword for
this signal deliverance, was embittered by the reflection that he was
abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to destruction, by those who
were bound to assist him by every tie of honour and fidelity. Marcellus,
master-general of the cavalry in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the
jealous orders of the court, beheld with supine indifference the distress
of Julian, and had restrained the troops under his command from marching
to the relief of Sens. If the cæsar had dissembled in silence so
dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been exposed to
the contempt of the world; and if an action so criminal had been suffered
to pass with impunity, the emperor would have confirmed the suspicions
which received a very specious colour from his past conduct towards
the princes of the Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled and gently
dismissed from his office. In his room Severus was appointed general of
the cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and fidelity,
who could advise with respect and execute with zeal and who submitted,
without reluctance, to the supreme command which Julian, by the interest
of his patroness Eusebia, at length obtained over the armies of Gaul.
A very judicious plan of operations was adopted for the approaching
campaign. Julian himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran
bands and of some new levies, boldly penetrated into the centre of the
German cantonments and carefully re-established the fortifications
of Saverne[61] in an advantageous post, which would either check the
incursions or intercept the retreat of the enemy. At the same time
Barbatio, general of the infantry, advanced from Mediolanum with an army
of thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw a
bridge over the Rhine near Basilia. It was reasonable to expect that
the Alamanni, pressed on either side by the Roman arms, would soon be
forced to evacuate the provinces of Gaul, and to hasten to the defence
of their native country. But the hopes of the campaign were defeated by
the incapacity, or the envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio,
who acted as if he had been the enemy of the cæsar, and the secret ally
of the barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates of his
camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the treasonable act of
burning a number of boats, and a superfluous stock of provisions, which
would have been of the most essential service to the army of Gaul, was
an evidence of his hostile and criminal intentions. The Germans despised
an enemy who appeared destitute either of power or of inclination to
offend them; and the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of
the expected support, and left him to extricate himself from a hazardous
situation, where he could neither remain with safety, nor retire with
honour.
JULIAN REPULSES THE ALAMANNI AND THE FRANKS
[Sidenote: [357-358 A.D.]]
As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the Alamanni
prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to dispute the
possession of that country, which they claimed as their own by the
right of conquest and of treaties. They employed three days and as
many nights, in transporting over the Rhine their military powers.
The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the ponderous javelin which he had
victoriously wielded against the brother of Magnentius, led the van of
the barbarians, and moderated by his experience the martial ardour which
his example inspired. He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and by
thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of Germany.
The confidence derived from the view of their own strength was increased
by the intelligence which they received from a deserter, that the cæsar,
with a feeble army of thirteen thousand men, occupied a post about
one-and-twenty miles from their camp of Strasburg.
With this inadequate force, Julian resolved to encounter the barbarian
host; and the chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious
and uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties of
the Alamanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two columns, the
cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and the day was so far
spent when they appeared in sight of the enemy, that Julian was desirous
of deferring the battle till the next morning, and of allowing his troops
to recruit their exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of
sleep and food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance to the clamours
of the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
them to justify by their valour the eager impatience, which, in case of
a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets of rashness and
presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military shout was heard through
the field, and the two armies rushed with equal fury to the charge. The
cæsar, who conducted in person his right wing, depended on the dexterity
of his archers and the weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were
instantly broken by an irregular mixture of light horse and of light
infantry, and he had the mortification of beholding the flight of six
hundred of his most renowned cuirassiers. The fugitives were stopped and
rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of his own
safety, threw himself before them, and, urging every motive of shame and
honour, led them back against the victorious enemy. The conflict between
the two lines of infantry was obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed
the superiority of strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline
and temper; and as the barbarians, who served under the standard of the
empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their strenuous
efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length determined the event of
the day.
The Romans lost four tribunes and 243 soldiers in this memorable battle
of Strasburg, which was so glorious to the cæsar and so salutary to the
afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Alamanni were slain in
the field, without including those who were drowned in the Rhine, or
transfixed with darts while they attempted to swim across the river.
Chnodomar himself was surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of
his brave companions who had devoted themselves to follow in life or
death the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous pity
for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the abject
humiliation of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the vanquished king
of the Alamanni, as a grateful spectacle to the cities of Gaul, he
respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor this splendid trophy of his
victory. Chnodomar experienced an honourable treatment, but the impatient
barbarian could not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his
exile.
After Julian had repulsed the Alamanni from the provinces of the
upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were seated
nearer to the ocean on the confines of Gaul and Germany; and who, from
their numbers, and still more from their intrepid valour, had ever
been esteemed the most formidable of the barbarians. Although they
were strongly actuated by the allurements of rapine, they professed
a disinterested love of war, which they considered as the supreme
honour and felicity of human nature; and their minds and bodies were so
completely hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to them
as the flowers of spring. In the month of December which followed the
battle of Strasburg, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who
had thrown themselves into two castles on the Mosa. In that severe season
they sustained, with inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days;
till at length, exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of
the enemy in breaking the ice of the river left them no hopes of escape,
the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense with the ancient
law, which commanded them to conquer or to die.
The cæsar at once sent his captives to the court of Constantius, who,
accepting them as a valuable present, rejoiced in the opportunity of
adding so many heroes to the choicest troops of his domestic guards. The
obstinate resistance of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the
difficulties of the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring,
against the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised
and astonished the active barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to provide
themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly pitched his camp
near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him in his winter quarters
at Paris, expecting the slow arrival of his convoys from Aquitania.
Without allowing the Franks to unite or deliberate, he skilfully spread
his legions from Cologne to the ocean; and by the terror as well as by
the success of his arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore
the clemency and to obey the commands of their conqueror. The Chamavians
submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the Rhine,
but the Salians were permitted to possess their new establishment of
Toxandria as the subjects and auxiliaries of the Roman Empire. The treaty
was ratified by solemn oaths, and perpetual inspectors were appointed
to reside among the Franks with the authority of enforcing the strict
observance of the conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough
in itself and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the tragedy.
When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son of their king as
the only hostage on whom he could rely. A mournful silence, interrupted
by tears and groans, declared the sad perplexity of the barbarians; and
their aged chief lamented in pathetic language that his private loss was
now embittered by a sense of the public calamity. While the Chamavians
lay prostrate at the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they
believed to have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes;
and as soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the cæsar
addressed the assembly in the following terms: “Behold the son, the
prince whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God and the Romans
have restored him to you. I shall still preserve and educate the youth,
rather as a monument of my own virtue than as a pledge of your sincerity.
Should you presume to violate the faith which you have sworn, the arms
of the republic will avenge the perfidy not on the innocent but on the
guilty.” The barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the
warmest sentiments of gratitude and admiration.
EXPEDITION BEYOND THE RHINE
[Illustration: A GERMAN ARCHER]
[Sidenote: [358-359 A.D.]]
It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of Gaul from
the barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the glory of the first
and most illustrious of the emperors, after whose example he composed
his own commentaries of the Gallic War. Cæsar has related with conscious
pride the manner in which he twice passed the Rhine. Julian could boast
that before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman
eagles beyond that great river in three successful expeditions. The
consternation of the Germans after the battle of Strasburg encouraged
him to the first attempt, and the reluctance of the troops soon yielded
to the persuasive eloquence of a leader who shared the fatigues and
dangers which he imposed on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages
on either side of the Mœnus (Main), which were plentifully stored with
corn and cattle, felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal
houses, constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed
by the flames; and the cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles, till his
progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest, undermined by
subterraneous passages, which threatened, with secret snares and ambush,
every step of the assailants.
The ground was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing
an ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce of
ten months to the submissive barbarians. At the expiration of the truce
Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine to humble the pride
of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of the Alamanni, who had been
present at the battle of Strasburg. They promised to restore all the
Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the cæsar had procured an
exact account from the cities and villages of Gaul of the inhabitants
whom they had lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him with a
degree of readiness and accuracy which almost established the belief of
his supernatural knowledge.
His third expedition was still more splendid and important than the
two former. The Germans had collected their military powers and moved
along the opposite banks of the river with a design of destroying the
bridge and of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious
plan of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred
light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small boats, to
fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some distance from the
posts of the enemy. They executed their orders with so much boldness
and celerity that they had almost surprised the barbarian chiefs, who
returned in the fearless confidence of intoxication from one of their
nocturnal festivals. Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale
of slaughter and devastation, it is sufficient to observe that Julian
dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest kings of
the Alamanni, three of whom were permitted to view the severe discipline
and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by twenty thousand captives,
whom he had rescued from the chains of the barbarians, the cæsar repassed
the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has been
compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.
JULIAN AS CIVIC RULER
[Sidenote: [359-360 A.D.]]
As soon as the valour and conduct of Julian had secured an interval
of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to his humane
and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had suffered from
the inroads of the barbarians, he diligently repaired; and seven
important posts, between Mogontiacum and the mouth of the Rhine, are
mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by order of Julian. The
vanquished Germans had submitted to the just but humiliating condition
of preparing and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal
of Julian urged the prosecution of the work, and such was the spirit
which he diffused among the troops that the auxiliaries themselves,
waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue, contended in the
most servile labours with the diligence of the Roman soldiers. It was
incumbent on the cæsar to provide for the subsistence, as well as for
the safety, of the inhabitants and of the garrisons. The desertion of
the former, and the mutiny of the latter, must have been the fatal and
inevitable consequences of famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul
had been interrupted by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests
of the continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty
of the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the forest
of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of Britain; and,
returning laden with corn, sailed up the Rhine, and distributed their
cargoes to the several towns and fortresses along the banks of the river.
The arms of Julian had restored a free and secure navigation, which
Constantius had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and
of a tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted with a
lavish and trembling hand to the barbarians. The dexterity, as well as
the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe trial, when he took the field
with a discontented army which had already served two campaigns without
receiving any regular pay or any extraordinary donative.
A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was the
ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the administration
of Julian. He devoted the leisure of his winter quarters to the offices
of civil government; and affected to assume, with more pleasure, the
character of a magistrate, than that of a general. Before he took the
field, he devolved on the provincial governors most of the public and
private causes which had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his
return, he carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigour
of the law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, and indiscreet and
intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained with calmness and dignity
the warmth of an advocate who prosecuted, for extortion, the president
of the Narbonnese province. “Who will ever be found guilty,” exclaimed
the vehement Delphidius, “if it be enough to deny?” “And who,” replied
Julian, “will ever be innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?”
In the general administration of peace and war the interest of the
sovereign is commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius
would have thought himself deeply injured if the virtues of Julian had
defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from an
oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested with the
ensigns of royalty might sometimes presume to correct the rapacious
insolence of his inferior agents; to expose their corrupt arts, and to
introduce an equal and easier mode of collection. But the management of
the finances was more safely entrusted to Florentius, prætorian prefect
of Gaul, an effeminate tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse; and the
haughty minister complained of the most decent and gentle opposition,
while Julian himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his
own behaviour. The cæsar had rejected with abhorrence a mandate for the
levy of an extraordinary tax, a new superindiction, which the prefect had
offered for his signature; and the faithful picture of the public misery,
by which he had been obliged to justify his refusal, offended the court
of Constantius.