After a long delay, the reluctant CÊsar set forwards on his journey to

the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide

extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he

labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from

himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition

of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however,

have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he

was met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of

government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies

of his despair. The persons 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 Hadrianople, he received a mandate,

expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid

retinue should halt in that city, while the CÊsar himself, with only

ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.

In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the

brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude

familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the

attendants that they already considered themselves as his guards, and

might soon be employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal

rashness, and to recollect, with terror and remorse, the conduct by

which he had provoked his fate. The dissimulation which had hitherto

been preserved, was laid aside at Petovio, * in Pannonia. He was

conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with

a select band of soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor

corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In

the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the

ensigns of CÊsar, 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 CÊsar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed

all the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he

was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife, exasperated

the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the

minutes of the examination. The emperor was easily convinced, that his

own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin: the sentence

of death was signed, 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 endeavored

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.

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 Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual

apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily

inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of

his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were

scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted

by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a

stranger. But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the

virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as well

as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who

endeavored to extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he

cautiously suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to

flatter the tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother's

murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the

protection of the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence

of destruction pronounced by their justice against the 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

favor; 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 neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor

thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his

honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a

propensity, or rather passion, for the language, the manners, the

learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an

order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and

the treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the

academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who

studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame

the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not unsuccessful;

and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which

seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the

place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The

gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested and his

situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers,

as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students

might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and

aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a general

prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon

diffused over the Roman world.

Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,

resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was

not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late CÊsar

had left Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by

the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil

discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a

deluge of Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier

of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and

numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy

mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though

without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was

defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian

monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the

presence of the emperor was indispensably required, both in the West

and in the East. For the first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged,

that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of

dominion. Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that

his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still continue to

triumph over every obstacle, he listened with complacency to the

advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence, without offending his

suspicious pride. As she perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt

on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite

characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been

compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. She accustomed her husband

to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious disposition, whose

allegiance and gratitude might be secured by the gift of the purple,

and who was qualified to fill with honor a subordinate station, without

aspiring to dispute the commands, or to shade the glories, of his

sovereign and benefactor. After an obstinate, though secret struggle,

the opposition of the favorite 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 CÊsar, 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. He trembled for

his life, for his fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence

was derived from the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions,

and that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for

that purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached, with

horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth conceal

his indignation, when he found himself accosted with false and servile

respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia, rejoicing in the

success of her benevolent schemes, embraced him with the tenderness of

a sister; and endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to dispel his

terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving

his beard, and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak

of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused,

during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court.

The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to consult

with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they were anxious that

their nomination should be ratified by the consent of the army. On this

solemn occasion, the guards, with the other troops whose stations were

in the neighborhood of Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius

ascended his lofty tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who

entered the same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. In a studied

speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor represented

the various dangers which threatened the prosperity of the republic, the

necessity of naming a CÊsar for the administration of the West, and his

own intention, if it was agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding

with the honors of the purple the promising virtues of the nephew

of Constantine. The approbation of the soldiers was testified by a

respectful murmur; they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and

observed with pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was

tempered by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first

time, to the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his

investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with the tone

of authority which his superior age and station permitted him to assume;

and exhorting the new CÊsar to deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred and

immortal name, the emperor gave his colleague the strongest assurances

of a friendship which should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted

by their separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech

was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their shields

against their knees; while the officers who surrounded the tribunal

expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the merits of the

representative of Constantius.

The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during

the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite

Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears.

The four-and-twenty days which the CÊsar spent at Milan after his

investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to

a splendid but severe captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor

compensate for the loss of freedom. His steps were watched, his

correspondence was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence,

to decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former

domestics, four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his

physician, and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care

of a valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied

the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend. In the room of

these faithful servants, a household was formed, such indeed as became

the dignity of a CÊsar; but it was filled with a crowd of slaves,

destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any attachment for their new

master, to whom, for the most part, they were either unknown or

suspected. His want of experience might require the assistance of a wise

council; but the minute instructions which regulated the service of his

table, and the distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still

under the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of

a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he aspired

to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by the fear of

displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his marriage-bed

were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia herself, who, on this

occasion alone, seems to have been unmindful of the tenderness of her

sex, and the generosity of her character. The memory of his father and

of his brothers reminded Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions

were increased by the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the

summer which preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen

to deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus soon

discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in the Imperial

court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several of the principal

ministers, procured from him some recommendatory letters; and erasing

the whole of the contents, except the signature, filled up the vacant

parchment with matters of high and treasonable import. By the industry

and courage of his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a

great council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence

of the emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly

acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the

calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already provoked the

indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so unjustly accused.

He assumed the purple at his head-quarters of Cologne, and his active

powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a

siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained,

by an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent

services in the East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the

injuries of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join

the standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous friend.

After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the

soldiers who, without any criminal intention, had blindly followed the

example of their leader, immediately returned to their allegiance; and

the flatterers of Constantius celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the

monarch who had extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle.

The protection of the RhÊtian frontier, and the persecution of the

Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen months

after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned into the

East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to the ancient

capital. He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the ∆milian and Flaminian

ways, and as soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the

march of a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the

appearance of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was composed

of all the ministers of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he

was encompassed by the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his

guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with

gold, and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the

emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold

and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to pass under the

gates of the cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible, and,

as it might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the

Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial

palace; and such were the habits of patience which they had inculcated,

that during a slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand

towards his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the

left. He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the

emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the republic, and

the consular images of the noble families. The streets were lined with

an innumerable multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed their

joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the sacred

person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself expressed, with

some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the human race should thus

suddenly be collected on the same spot. The son of Constantine was

lodged in the ancient palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate,

harangued the people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often

ascended, assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and

accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been

prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His

short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments of art

and power which were scattered over the seven hills and the interjacent

valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent

of the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the

Pantheon, the massy greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant

architecture of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and,

above all, the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;

acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to magnify,

had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the world. The

traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient Rome, may conceive

some imperfect idea of the sentiments which they must have inspired when

they reared their heads in the splendor of unsullied beauty.

[See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]

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. In a remote but polished age, which seems to have

preceded the invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these

obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and Heliopolis,

by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just confidence that the

simplicity of their form, and the hardness of their substance, would

resist the injuries of time and violence. Several of these extraordinary

columns had been transported to Rome by Augustus and his successors,

as the most durable monuments of their power and victory; but there

remained one obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a

long time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by

Constantine to adorn his new city; and, after being removed by his

order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of the Sun

at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria. The death of

Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose, and this obelisk was

destined by his son to the ancient capital of the empire. A vessel of

uncommon strength and capaciousness was provided to convey this enormous

weight of granite, at least a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from

the banks of the Nile to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius

was landed about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts

of art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome.

The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the alarming

intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian provinces. The

distractions of civil war, and the irreparable loss which the Roman

legions had sustained in the battle of 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 frontiers

were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent monarch was

at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities of his dominions,

the flower of the 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. The generous courtesy which was shown to the first among their

chieftains who implored the clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more

timid, or the more obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial

camp was crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant

tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who might

have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the Carpathian

Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the Barbarians beyond the

Danube, he distinguished, with specious compassion, the Sarmatian

exiles, who had been expelled from their native country by the rebellion

of their slaves, and who formed a very considerable accession to the

power of the Quadi. The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system

of policy, released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating

dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the dignity of a

nation united under the government of a king, the friend and ally of the

republic. He declared his resolution of asserting the justice of their

cause, and of securing the peace of the provinces by the extirpation,

or at least the banishment, of the Limigantes, whose manners were still

infected with the vices of their servile origin. The execution of this

design was attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of

the Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube, against

the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands which lay between

those rivers, and were often covered by their inundations, formed

an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the inhabitants, who were

acquainted with its secret paths and inaccessible fortresses. On the

approach of Constantius, the Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers,

of fraud, and of arms; but he sternly rejected their supplications,

defeated their rude stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness

the efforts of their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,

established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss and the

Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of surprising the

emperor during the security of an amicable conference. They soon became

the victims of the perfidy which they meditated. Encompassed on every

side, trampled down by the cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of

the legions, they disdained to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted

countenance, still grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After

this victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite

banks of the Danube; the TaifalÊ, a Gothic tribe engaged in the service

of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the Teyss; and

their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by hope and revenge,

penetrated through the hilly country, into the heart of their

ancient possessions. A general conflagration revealed the huts of the

Barbarians, which were seated in the depth of the wilderness; and the

soldier fought with confidence on marshy ground, which it was dangerous

for him to tread. In this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were

resolved to die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,

enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed; and the

suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children, repaired to the

Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth of the conqueror.

After celebrating his own clemency, which was still inclined to pardon

their repeated crimes, and to spare the remnant of a guilty nation,

Constantius assigned for the place of their exile a remote country,

where they might enjoy a safe and honorable repose. The Limigantes

obeyed with reluctance; but before they could reach, at least before

they could occupy, their destined habitations, they returned to the

banks of the Danube, exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and

requesting, with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would

grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the Roman

provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of their incurable

perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers, who were ready to

represent the honor and advantage of accepting a colony of soldiers,

at a time when it was much easier to obtain the pecuniary contributions

than the military service of the subjects of the empire. The Limigantes

were permitted to pass the Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the

multitude in a large plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded

the tribunal, and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of

mildness and dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe

into the air, exclaimed with a loud voice, Marha! Marha! * a word of

defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They rushed with

fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal throne and golden

couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but the faithful defence of

his guards, who died at his feet, allowed him a moment to mount a fleet

horse, and to escape from the confusion. The disgrace which had been

incurred by a treacherous surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers

and discipline of the Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the

extinction of the name and nation of the 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. He had remarked the lofty stature and obsequious demeanor of

Zizais, one of the noblest of their chiefs. He conferred on him the

title of King; and Zizais proved that he was not unworthy to reign, by a

sincere and lasting attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who,

after this splendid success, received the name of Sarmaticus from the

acclamations of his victorious army.

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.--Part III.

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 PrÊtorian prÊfect

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

honorably 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. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,

(such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,) expressed his

satisfaction that his brother, Constantius CÊsar, had been taught

wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of Darius Hystaspes, Sapor

asserted, that the River Strymon, in Macedonia, was the true and ancient

boundary of his empire; declaring, however, that as an evidence of his

moderation, he would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and

Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his ancestors. He

alleged, that, without the restitution of these disputed countries, it

was impossible to establish any treaty on a solid and permanent basis;

and he arrogantly threatened, that if his ambassador returned in vain,

he was prepared to take the field in the spring, and to support the

justice of his cause by the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who

was endowed with the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far

as was consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.

Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the Imperial

council, and he was dismissed with the following answer: "Constantius

had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his ministers, who had

acted without any specific orders from the throne: he was not, however,

averse to an equal and honorable treaty; but it was highly indecent,

as well as absurd, to propose to the sole and victorious emperor of

the Roman world, the same conditions of peace which he had indignantly

rejected at the time when his power was contracted within the narrow

limits of the East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should

recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in battle,

they had almost always been successful in the event of the war." A few

days after the departure of Narses, three ambassadors were sent to the

court of Sapor, who was already returned from the Scythian expedition to

his ordinary residence of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist,

had been selected for this important commission; and Constantius, who

was secretly anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some

hopes that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity

of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, would persuade the Persian

monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the progress of their

negotiation was opposed and defeated by the hostile arts of Antoninus,

a Roman subject of Syria, who had fled from oppression, and was

admitted into the councils of Sapor, and even to the royal table, where,

according to the custom of the Persians, the most important business was

frequently discussed. The dexterous fugitive promoted his interest by

the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He incessantly urged the

ambition of his new master to embrace the favorable opportunity when

the bravest of the Palatine troops were employed with the emperor in a

distant war on the Danube. He pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and

defenceless provinces of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia,

now fortified by the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians.

The ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second embassy,

of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict confinement, and

threatened either with death or exile.

The military historian, 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 splendor of his purple.

On his left hand, the place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates,

king of the Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and

renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his right

hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent tribes from

the shores of the Caspian. * The satraps and generals were distributed

according to their several ranks, and the whole army, besides the

numerous train of Oriental luxury, consisted of more than one hundred

thousand effective men, inured to fatigue, and selected from the bravest

nations of Asia. The Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the

councils of Sapor, had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the

summer in tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to

the Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble and

wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner advanced

into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered that every

precaution had been used which could retard their progress, or defeat

their design. The inhabitants, with their cattle, were secured in places

of strength, the green forage throughout the country was set on fire,

the fords of the rivers were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines

were planted on the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters

of the Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary

passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. 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 balistÊ. The

funeral of the prince of the Chionites was celebrated according to the

rites of the country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by

the solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should serve

as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate the memory, of

his son.

The ancient city of Amid or Amida, which sometimes assumes the

provincial appellation of Diarbekir, is advantageously situate in a

fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial channels of the

Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream bends in a semicircular

form round the eastern part of the city. The emperor Constantius

had recently conferred on Amida the honor of his own name, and the

additional fortifications of strong walls and lofty towers. It was

provided with an arsenal of military engines, and the ordinary garrison

had been reenforced to the amount of seven legions, when the place

was invested by the arms of Sapor. His first and most sanguine hopes

depended on the success of a general assault. To the several nations

which followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned;

the south to the VertÊ; the north to the Albanians; the east to

the Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the

Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front with

a formidable line of Indian elephants. The Persians, on every side,

supported their efforts, and animated their courage; and the monarch

himself, careless of his rank and safety, displayed, in the prosecution

of the siege, the ardor of a youthful soldier. After an obstinate

combat, the Barbarians were repulsed; they incessantly returned to the

charge; they were again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two

rebel legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized

their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart of the

Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated assaults, Amida

was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who indicated to the

Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase, scooped out of the rock

that hangs over the stream of the Tigris. Seventy chosen archers of the

royal guard ascended in silence to the third story of a lofty tower,

which commanded the precipice; they elevated on high the Persian

banner, the signal of confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the

besieged; and if this devoted band could have maintained their post a

few minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been purchased

by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried, without success,

the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had recourse to the slower

but more certain operations of a regular siege, in the conduct of which

he was instructed by the skill of the Roman deserters. The trenches

were opened at a convenient distance, and the troops destined for that

service advanced under the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill

up the ditch, and undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers

were at the same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till

the soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile weapons,

could engage almost on level ground with the troops who defended the

rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could suggest, or courage

could execute, was employed in the defence of Amida, and the works of

Sapor were more than once destroyed by the fire of the Romans. But the

resources of a besieged city may be exhausted. The Persians repaired

their losses, and pushed their approaches; a large preach was made by

the battering-ram, and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword

and by disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the

citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to escape

through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors in a

promiscuous massacre.

But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces. As soon as

the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor was at leisure to

reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city, he had lost the flower of

his troops, and the most favorable season for conquest. Thirty thousand

of his veterans had fallen under the walls of Amida, during the

continuance of a siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the

disappointed monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and

secret mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of

his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which they had

encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the aged king of the

Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away with horror from a scene

of action where he had been deprived of the hope of his family and

nation. The strength as well as the spirit of the army with which

Sapor took the field in the ensuing spring was no longer equal to the

unbounded views of his ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of

the East, he was obliged to content himself with the reduction of two

fortified cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; the one situate in

the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula, surrounded

almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of the Tigris. Five

Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which they had been reduced

in the age of Constantine, were made prisoners, and sent into remote

captivity on the extreme confines of Persia. After dismantling the walls

of Singara, the conqueror abandoned that solitary and sequestered place;

but he carefully restored the fortifications of 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 honor

and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms of Sapor

incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise against Virtha,

or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally esteemed till the age of

Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of the independent Arabs.

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 councils, Ursicinus was again despatched to the

frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the labors of a war,

the honors of which had been transferred to his unworthy rival. Sabinian

fixed his indolent station under the walls of Edessa; and while he

amused himself with the idle parade of military exercise, and moved

to the sound of flutes in the Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was

abandoned to the boldness and diligence of the former general of

the East. But whenever Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of

operations; when he proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to

wheel round the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the

enemy, to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve

the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged, that he

was restrained by his positive orders from endangering the safety of

the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest defenders, who had

escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in the Roman camp by the hand

of the executioner: and Ursicinus himself, after supporting the disgrace

of a partial inquiry, was punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the

loss of his military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth

of the prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured

lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were suffered to

prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy task to defend

his eastern dominions from the invasion of a foreign enemy. When he had

subdued or pacified the Barbarians of the Danube, Constantius proceeded

by slow marches into the East; and after he had wept over the smoking

ruins of Amida, he formed, with 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 valor of the garrison,

till the approach of the rainy season obliged the emperor to raise the

siege, and ingloriously to retreat into his winter quarters at Antioch.

The pride of Constantius, and the ingenuity of his courtiers, were at

a loss to discover any materials for 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 simple and concise narrative of his exploits.

In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to the

Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still acknowledged

the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of Franks and Alemanni 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 should

be able to subdue. But the emperor, who for a temporary service had

thus imprudently provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon

discovered and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable

allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil. Regardless

of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion, these undisciplined

robbers treated as their natural enemies all the subjects of the

empire, who possessed any property which they were desirous of acquiring

Forty-five flourishing cities, Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires,

Strasburgh, &c., besides a far greater number of towns and villages,

were pillaged, and for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of

Germany, still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the

confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of prisons

and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations on the banks of

rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, they secured themselves

against the danger of a surprise, by a rude and hasty fortification of

large trees, which were felled and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni

were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the

Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive

district of Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of

Toxandria, and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of

their Gallic monarchy. From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine, the

conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the west of that

river, over a country peopled by colonies of their own name and nation:

and the scene of their devastations was three times more extensive than

that of their conquests. At a still greater distance the open towns of

Gaul were deserted, and the inhabitants of the fortified cities,

who trusted to their strength and vigilance, were obliged to content

themselves with such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant

land within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,

destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled at the

approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.--Part IV.

Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was

appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather, as he

expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial greatness.

The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which he had been more

conversant with books than with arms, with the dead than with the

living, left him in profound ignorance of the practical arts of war and

government; and when he awkwardly repeated some military exercise which

it was necessary for him to learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, "O Plato,

Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet even this speculative

philosophy, which men of business are too apt to despise, had filled the

mind of Julian with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples;

had animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the

contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the schools,

are still more essential in the severe discipline of a camp. The simple

wants of nature regulated the measure of his food and sleep. Rejecting

with disdain the delicacies provided for his table, he satisfied his

appetite with the coarse and common fare which was allotted to the

meanest soldiers. During the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered

a fire in his bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he

frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread on the

floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his rounds, or to steal

a few moments for the prosecution of his favorite studies. The precepts

of eloquence, which he had hitherto practised on fancied topics of

declamation, were more usefully applied to excite or to assuage the

passions of an armed multitude: and although Julian, from his early

habits of conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted

with the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent

knowledge of the Latin tongue. Since Julian was not originally designed

for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is probable that the

civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not engaged any considerable

share of his attention: but he derived from his philosophic studies an

inflexible regard for justice, tempered by a disposition to clemency;

the knowledge of the general principles of equity and evidence, and

the faculty of patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious

questions which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of

policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various accidents

of circumstance and character, and the unpractised student will often

be perplexed in the application of the most perfect theory. But in the

acquisition of this important science, Julian was assisted by the active

vigor of his own genius, as well as by the wisdom and experience of

Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon conceived a sincere attachment

for a prince so worthy of his friendship; and whose incorruptible

integrity was adorned by the talent of insinuating the harshest truths

without wounding the delicacy of a royal ear.

Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was sent

into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty 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 CÊsar was informed of the siege and deliverance of Autun.

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 Autun, through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian

embraced with ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing 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, who

were masters of the field, he arrived with honor and safety at the camp

near Rheims, where the Roman troops had been ordered to assemble.

The aspect of their young prince revived the drooping spirits of the

soldiers, and they marched from Rheims in search of the enemy, with

a confidence which had almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni,

familiarized 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, 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 CÊsar 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 imbittered 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 honor 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 CÊsar 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 color 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 which he had been permitted to

form, boldly penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments,

and carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, 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 Milan with an army of thirty thousand men, and

passing the mountains, prepared to throw a bridge over the Rhine, in the

neighborhood of Basil. It was reasonable to expect that the Alemanni,

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 CÊsar, 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 honor.

As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the Alemanni

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 ardor 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 CÊsar, with a feeble army of thirteen thousand men, occupied a post

about one-and-twenty miles from their camp of Strasburgh. With this

inadequate force, Julian resolved to seek and 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 Alemanni. 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

clamors of the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he

exhorted them to justify by their valor 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 CÊsar, 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 honor, 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 two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable battle of

Strasburgh, so glorious to the CÊsar, and so salutary to the afflicted

provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the Alemanni 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 Alemanni, 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 honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could

not long survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile.

After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni 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 valor, 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 honor

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 Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six hundred Franks, who

had thrown themselves into two castles on the Meuse. In the midst of

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 CÊsar immediately 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 of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of his convoys from

Aquitain. 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 imbittered by a sense

of 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 CÊsar 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.

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. CÊsar 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

Strasburgh, 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 Meyn, 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 CÊsar 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 Alemanni, who had

been present at the battle of Strasburgh. They promised to restore all

the Roman captives who yet remained alive; and as the CÊsar 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 Alemanni, 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 CÊsar

repassed the Rhine, after terminating a war, the success of which has

been compared to the ancient glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.

As soon as the valor 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 Mentz and the mouth of the Rhine, are particularly

mentioned, as having been rebuilt and fortified by the 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 had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries

themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,

contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the Roman

soldiers. It was incumbent on the CÊsar 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 from thence, 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 rigor

of the law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.

Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an 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 intrusted to Florentius, prÊtorian prÊfect 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

behavior. The CÊsar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for the

levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the prÊfect

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. We may enjoy the pleasure of reading the

sentiments of Julian, as he expresses them with warmth and freedom in

a letter to one of his most intimate friends. After stating his own

conduct, he proceeds in the following terms: "Was it possible for the

disciple of Plato and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could

I abandon the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called

upon to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling

robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death, and

deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I pronounce

his sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself neglected a duty far

more sacred and far more important? God has placed me in this elevated

post; his providence will guard and support me. Should I be condemned to

suffer, I shall derive comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright

conscience. Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like

Sallust! If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit

without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short opportunity

of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity of evil." The

precarious and dependent situation of Julian displayed his virtues and

concealed his defects. The young hero who supported, in Gaul, the throne

of Constantius, was not permitted to reform the vices of the government;

but he had courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people.

Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the Romans,

or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among their savage

enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes of securing the

public tranquillity, either by the peace or conquest of Germany. Yet

the victories of Julian suspended, for a short time, the inroads of the

Barbarians, and delayed the ruin of the Western Empire.

His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had been so

long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian war, and domestic

tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived with the hopes of

enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, again flourished

under the protection of the laws; and the curi, or civil corporations,

were again filled with useful and respectable members: the youth were

no longer apprehensive of marriage; and married persons were no longer

apprehensive of posterity: the public and private festivals were

celebrated with customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse

of the provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. A mind like

that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which he was the

author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction and complacency, the

city of Paris; the seat of his winter residence, and the object even

of his partial affection. That splendid capital, which now embraces an

ample territory on either side of the Seine, was originally confined to

the small island in the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants

derived a supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot

of the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden bridges. A

forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but on the south,

the ground, which now bears the name of the University, was insensibly

covered with houses, and adorned with a palace and amphitheatre, baths,

an aqueduct, and a field of Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops.

The severity of the climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the

ocean; and with some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine

and fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,

the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that floated

down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the blocks of

white marble which were extracted from the quarries of Phrygia. The

licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to the memory of

Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved Lutetia; where

the amusements of the theatre were unknown or despised. He indignantly

contrasted the effeminate Syrians with the brave and honest simplicity

of the Gauls, and almost forgave the intemperance, which was the only

stain of the Celtic character. If Julian could now revisit the capital

of France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable

of understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he might

excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose martial

spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of luxury; and he

must applaud the perfection of that inestimable art, which softens and

refines and embellishes the intercourse of social life.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part I.

The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of

Constantine.--Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The

Christian Or Catholic Church.

The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of

those important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively

curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and

the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of Europe;

but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the impression

which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and the

ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an

indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests

of the present generation.

In the consideration of a subject which may be examined with

impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference, a difficulty

immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that of ascertaining

the real and precise date of the conversion of Constantine. The eloquent

Lactantius, in the midst of his court, seems impatient to proclaim to

the world the glorious example of the sovereign of Gaul; who, in the

first moments of his reign, acknowledged and adored the majesty of

the true and only God. The learned Eusebius has ascribed the faith of

Constantine to the miraculous sign which was displayed in the heavens

whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian expedition. The historian

Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the emperor had imbrued his hands in

the blood of his eldest son, before he publicly renounced the gods of

Rome and of his ancestors. The perplexity produced by these discordant

authorities is derived from the behavior of Constantine himself.

According to the strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of

the Christian emperors was unworthy of that name, till the moment of his

death; since it was only during his last illness that he received, as a

catechumen, the imposition of hands, and was afterwards admitted, by

the initiatory rites of baptism, into the number of the faithful. The

Christianity of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and

qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the

slow and almost imperceptible gradations by which the monarch declared

himself the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the church.

It was an arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his

education, to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand

that the truth of his revelation was incompatible with the worship of

the gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own

mind, instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous change of

a national religion; and he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as

far as he could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the

whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed with

a gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general direction

was sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental

circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the

caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the

intentions of their master in the various language which was best

adapted to their respective principles; and he artfully balanced the

hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two

edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday,

and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. While

this important revolution yet remained in suspense, the Christians and

the Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with the same anxiety,

but with very opposite sentiments. The former were prompted by every

motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate the marks of his

favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till their just

apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment, attempted to

conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods of Rome could

no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their votaries. The same

passions and prejudices have engaged the partial writers of the times to

connect the public profession of Christianity with the most glorious or

the most ignominious Êra of the reign of Constantine.

Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses

or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years

of age in the practice of the established religion; and the same conduct

which in the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear, could be

ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of Gaul.

His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the medals

which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the figures and

attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and his filial

piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn apotheosis of his

father Constantius. But the devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly

directed to the genius of the Sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman

mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of

the God of Light and Poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the

brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant

accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young

hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of

Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe, that

the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty

of their tutelar deity; and that, either walking or in a vision, he was

blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The

Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of

Constantine; and the Pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted

god would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his

ungrateful favorite.

As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the

provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the

authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to

the gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the

assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator

of the savage cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman

soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. In the

East and in the West, he had seen the different effects of severity

and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the

example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended to

his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son of

Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of persecution,

and granted the free exercise of their religious ceremonies to all those

who had already professed themselves members of the church. They were

soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as on the justice of

their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere reverence for the

name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians.

About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a solemn

and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated edict

of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the personal

interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the ascendant

of genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague,

Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed the fury of

Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the edict of

Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the Roman world.

The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the

civil and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly

deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,

which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without

dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction

was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers

had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from

the Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future

tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged

and equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted

by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The

two emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and

absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the

religion which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has

addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his

own use. They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every

exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict

obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was designed

to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of religious

liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which have

induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane intention of

consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and the pious hope,

that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and propitiate the Deity,

whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully acknowledge the many signal

proofs which they have received of the divine favor; and they trust that

the same Providence will forever continue to protect the prosperity of

the prince and people. From these vague and indefinite expressions of

piety, three suppositions may be deduced, of a different, but not of an

incompatible nature. The mind of Constantine might fluctuate between the

Pagan and the Christian religions. According to the loose and complying

notions of Polytheism, he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as

one of the many deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or

perhaps he might embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that,

notwithstanding the variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the

sects, and all the nations of mankind, are united in the worship of the

common Father and Creator of the universe.

But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of

temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative

truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be

referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of

the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel

would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever

latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever

indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his

interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil

obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is

imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot always

restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that they

condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they prohibit.

The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid the powers of

education and of opinion. But every principle which had once maintained

the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since extinguished

in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still exercised her

temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of virtue derived very

feeble support from the influence of the Pagan superstition. Under these

discouraging circumstances, a prudent magistrate might observe with

pleasure the progress of a religion which diffused among the people a

pure, benevolent, and universal system of ethics, adapted to every duty

and every condition of life; recommended as the will and reason of

the supreme Deity, and enforced by the sanction of eternal rewards or

punishments. The experience of Greek and Roman history could not inform

the world how far the system of national manners might be reformed and

improved by the precepts of a divine revelation; and Constantine might

listen with some confidence to the flattering, and indeed reasonable,

assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent apologist seemed firmly to

expect, and almost ventured to promise, that the establishment of

Christianity would restore the innocence and felicity of the primitive

age; that the worship of the true God would extinguish war and

dissension among those who mutually considered themselves as the

children of a common parent; that every impure desire, every angry or

selfish passion, would be restrained by the knowledge of the gospel; and

that the magistrates might sheath the sword of justice among a people

who would be universally actuated by the sentiments of truth and piety,

of equity and moderation, of harmony and universal love.

The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of

authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of

an absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic

virtues. The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil

government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees

of Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre

by treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of

vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the

abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their

oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and

society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among

wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the

defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they

were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing

the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory life.

Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had

preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of the

three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent

of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they

experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either to

meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw themselves

into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. The Protestants

of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with such intrepid

courage their civil and religious freedom, have been insulted by the

invidious comparison between the conduct of the primitive and of the

reformed Christians. Perhaps, instead of censure, some applause may be

due to the superior sense and spirit of our ancestors, who had convinced

themselves that religion cannot abolish the unalienable rights of human

nature. Perhaps the patience of the primitive church may be ascribed to

its weakness, as well as to its virtue. A sect of unwarlike plebeians,

without leaders, without arms, without fortifications, must have

encountered inevitable destruction in a rash and fruitless resistance

to the master of the Roman legions. But the Christians, when they

deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited the favor of

Constantine, could allege, with truth and confidence, that they held

the principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of

three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable to their

principles. They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be

established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their subjects,

embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to obey.

In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered

as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the nations

of the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious examples of

the more immediate interposition of the Deity in the government of his

chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were committed to the hands of

Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the Maccabees; the virtues

of those heroes were the motive or the effect of the divine favor, the

success of their arms was destined to achieve the deliverance or the

triumph of the church. If the judges of IsrÊl were occasional and

temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the royal unction

of their great ancestor an hereditary and indefeasible right, which

could not be forfeited by their own vices, nor recalled by the caprice

of their subjects. The same extraordinary providence, which was no

longer confined to the Jewish people, might elect Constantine and

his family as the protectors of the Christian world; and the devout

Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the future glories of his

long and universal reign. Galerius and Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius,

were the rivals who shared with the favorite of heaven the provinces of

the empire. The tragic deaths of Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the

resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine expectations, of the Christians.

The success of Constantine against Maxentius and Licinius removed the

two formidable competitors who still opposed the triumph of the second

David, and his cause might seem to claim the peculiar interposition of

Providence. The character of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple

and human nature; and though the Christians might enjoy his precarious

favor, they were exposed, with the rest of his subjects, to the effects

of his wanton and capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon

betrayed the reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and

humane regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial

synods was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were

ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger,

of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still

more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement. While

the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was involved

in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of celestial

light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The piety of

Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the justice

of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of the

Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the Lord of

Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of toleration; and

as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested Constantine with the

sole dominion of the Roman world, he immediately, by circular letters,

exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without delay, the example of

their sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth of Christianity.

Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.--Part II.

The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately connected

with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of the

Christians two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted the

accomplishment of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty exhausted

in his favor every resource of human industry; and they confidently

expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by some

divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed to

interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with the

Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of his

ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians still

bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the empire; but

among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters with the

indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious party

might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a principle of

conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. The example of

his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to reward the merit

of the Christians; and in the distribution of public offices, he had the

advantage of strengthening his government, by the choice of ministers

or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a just and unreserved

confidence. By the influence of these dignified missionaries, the

proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in the court and army;

the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of the legions, were of

a careless temper, which acquiesced without resistance in the religion

of their commander; and when they passed the Alps, it may fairly be

presumed, that a great number of the soldiers had already consecrated

their swords to the service of Christ and of Constantine. The habits of

mankind and the interests of religion gradually abated the horror of war

and bloodshed, which had so long prevailed among the Christians; and

in the councils which were assembled under the gracious protection of

Constantine, the authority of the bishops was seasonably employed to

ratify the obligation of the military oath, and to inflict the penalty

of excommunication on those soldiers who threw away their arms during

the peace of the church. While Constantine, in his own dominions,

increased the number and zeal of his faithful adherents, he could depend

on the support of a powerful faction in those provinces which were still

possessed or usurped by his rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused

among the Christian subjects of Maxentius and Licinius; and the

resentment, which the latter did not attempt to conceal, served only

to engage them still more deeply in the interest of his competitor. The

regular correspondence which connected the bishops of the most distant

provinces, enabled them freely to communicate their wishes and their

designs, and to transmit without danger any useful intelligence, or any

pious contributions, which might promote the service of Constantine, who

publicly declared that he had taken up arms for the deliverance of the

church.

The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the emperor

himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their conscience.

They marched to battle with the full assurance, that the same God, who

had formerly opened a passage to the IsrÊlites through the waters of

Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the sound of the

trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and power in

the victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical history

is prepared to affirm, that their expectations were justified by the

conspicuous miracle to which the conversion of the first Christian

emperor has been almost unanimously ascribed. The real or imaginary

cause of so important an event, deserves and demands the attention of

posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just estimate of the famous

vision of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of the standard,

the dream, and the celestial sign; by separating the historical, the

natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary story, which, in

the composition of a specious argument, have been artfully confounded in

one splendid and brittle mass.

I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves and

strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes of a Roman citizen;

and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were closely united

with the idea of the cross. The piety, rather than the humanity, of

Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment which the

Savior of mankind had condescended to suffer; but the emperor had

already learned to despise the prejudices of his education, and of

his people, before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own statue,

bearing a cross in its right hand; with an inscription which referred

the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the virtue

of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage. The same

symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the cross

glittered on their helmet, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven

into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the person

of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by richer materials and

more exquisite workmanship. But the principal standard which displayed

the triumph of the cross was styled the Labarum, an obscure, though

celebrated name, which has been vainly derived from almost all the

languages of the world. It is described as a long pike intersected by

a transversal beam. The silken veil, which hung down from the beam,

was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and

his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold which

enclosed the mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of

the cross, and the initial letters, of the name of Christ. The safety

of the labarum was intrusted to fifty guards, of approved valor and

fidelity; their station was marked by honors and emoluments; and some

fortunate accidents soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the

guards of the labarum were engaged in the execution of their office,

they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In

the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this

consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle,

animated the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible enthusiasm, and

scattered terror and dismay through the ranks of the adverse legions.

The Christian emperors, who respected the example of Constantine,

displayed in all their military expeditions the standard of the cross;

but when the degenerate successors of Theodosius had ceased to appear

in person at the head of their armies, the labarum was deposited as a

venerable but useless relic in the palace of Constantinople. Its honors

are still preserved on the medals of the Flavian family. Their grateful

devotion has placed the monogram of Christ in the midst of the ensigns

of Rome. The solemn epithets of, safety of the republic, glory of

the army, restoration of public happiness, are equally applied to the

religious and military trophies; and there is still extant a medal

of the emperor Constantius, where the standard of the labarum is

accompanied with these memorable words, By This Sign Thou Shalt Conquer.

II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of the

primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of

the cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all

the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against

every species of spiritual or temporal evil. The authority of the

church might alone have had sufficient weight to justify the devotion of

Constantine, who in the same prudent and gradual progress acknowledged

the truth, and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But the testimony of

a contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has avenged the cause of

religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a more awful and sublime

character. He affirms, with the most perfect confidence, that in the

night which preceded the last battle against Maxentius, Constantine was

admonished in a dream * to inscribe the shields of his soldiers with the

celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram of the name of Christ; that

he executed the commands of Heaven, and that his valor and obedience

were rewarded by the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some

considerations might perhaps incline a sceptical mind to suspect the

judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, either from

zeal or interest, was devoted to the cause of the prevailing faction.

He appears to have published his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia

about three years after the Roman victory; but the interval of a

thousand miles, and a thousand days, will allow an ample latitude for

the invention of declaimers, the credulity of party, and the tacit

approbation of the emperor himself who might listen without indignation

to a marvellous tale, which exalted his fame, and promoted his designs.

In favor of Licinius, who still dissembled his animosity to the

Christians, the same author has provided a similar vision, of a form of

prayer, which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the whole

army before they engaged the legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent

repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue,

the reason of mankind; but if the dream of Constantine is separately

considered, it may be naturally explained either by the policy or the

enthusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day,

which must decide the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and

interrupted slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known

symbol of his religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active

fancy of a prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly

implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a

consummate statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military

stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had

employed with such art and effect. The prÊternatural origin of dreams

was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a considerable

part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place their confidence

in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The secret vision of

Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and the intrepid

hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view with careless

despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of Rome. The senate

and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an odious tyrant,

acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed the powers

of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by the

protection of the Gods. The triumphal arch, which was erected about

three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous language, that

by the greatness of his own mind, and by an instinct or impulse of the

Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman republic. The Pagan orator,

who had seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of the

conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce

with the Supreme Being, who delegated the care of mortals to his

subordinate deities; and thus assigns a very plausible reason why the

subjects of Constantine should not presume to embrace the new religion

of their sovereign.

III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and

omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical

history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators have

sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers

has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or

appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course

of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of the

Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes given

shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but uncommon

meteors of the air. Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most celebrated

orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt the glory of

Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius describes an

army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the sky: he marks their

beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the stream of light

which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience in suffering

themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and their

declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the assistance of

the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the Pagan orator

appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he was then

speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions would now

obtain credit from this recent and public event. The Christian fable of

Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six years, might arise from the

original dream, is cast in a much more correct and elegant mould. In one

of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to have seen with his own

eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed above the meridian sun and

inscribed with the following words: By This Conquer. This amazing object

in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the emperor himself,

who was yet undetermined in the choice of a religion: but his

astonishment was converted into faith by the vision of the ensuing

night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying the same

celestial sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame a similar

standard, and to march, with an assurance of victory, against Maxentius

and all his enemies. The learned bishop of CÊsarea appears to be

sensible, that the recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote would

excite some surprise and distrust among the most pious of his readers.

Yet, instead of ascertaining the precise circumstances of time and

place, which always serve to detect falsehood or establish truth;

instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so many living

witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous miracle;

Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very singular testimony; that

of the deceased Constantine, who, many years after the event, in the

freedom of conversation, had related to him this extraordinary incident

of his own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The

prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect the

veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that in a

fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any meaner

authority. This motive of credibility could not survive the power of

the Flavian family; and the celestial sign, which the Infidels might

afterwards deride, was disregarded by the Christians of the age which

immediately followed the conversion of Constantine. But the Catholic

church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a prodigy which

favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the cross. The

vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in the legend of

superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism presumed

to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the first

Christian emperor.