Empire.--Part II.
Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the administration
of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been injured or oppressed
under the reign of Julian, were invited to support their public
accusations. The silence of mankind attested the spotless integrity of
the prÊfect Sallust; and his own pressing solicitations, that he might
be permitted to retire from the business of the state, were rejected
by Valentinian with the most honorable expressions of friendship and
esteem. But among the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who
had abused his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope
to be protected either by favor or justice. The greater part of the
ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were
removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of
some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and,
notwithstanding the opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the whole
proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been conducted with
a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. The festivity of a new
reign received a short and suspicious interruption from the sudden
illness of the two princes; but as soon as their health was restored,
they left Constantinople in the beginning of the spring. In the castle,
or palace, of Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the
solemn and final division of the Roman empire. Valentinian bestowed on
his brother the rich prÊfecture of the East, from the Lower Danube to
the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his immediate government
the warlike * prÊfectures of Illyricum, Italy, and Gaul, from the
extremity of Greece to the Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart
of Caledonia to the foot of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration
remained on its former basis; but a double supply of generals and
magistrates was required for two councils, and two courts: the division
was made with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation,
and seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or
infantry. When this important business had been amicably transacted,
Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time. The emperor of the
West established his temporary residence at Milan; and the emperor of
the East returned to Constantinople, to assume the dominion of fifty
provinces, of whose language he was totally ignorant.
The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and the
throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a rival whose
affinity to the emperor Julian was his sole merit, and had been his only
crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted from the obscure station of a
tribune, and a notary, to the joint command of the army of Mesopotamia;
the public opinion already named him as the successor of a prince who
was destitute of natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his
friends, or his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at
CarrhÊ, had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple.
He endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the
jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military command;
and retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the ample patrimony
which he possessed in the province of Cappadocia. These useful and
innocent occupations were interrupted by the appearance of an officer
with a band of soldiers, who, in the name of his new sovereigns,
Valentinian and Valens, was despatched to conduct the unfortunate
Procopius either to a perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His
presence of mind procured him a longer respite, and a more splendid
fate. Without presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he requested the
indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and while
the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful entertainment,
he dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the Euxine, from whence he
passed over to the country of Bosphorus. In that sequestered region he
remained many months, exposed to the hardships of exile, of solitude,
and of want; his melancholy temper brooding over his misfortunes, and
his mind agitated by the just apprehension, that, if any accident should
discover his name, the faithless Barbarians would violate, without much
scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of impatience and
despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel, which made sail for
Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the rank of a sovereign, because
he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a subject. At first he
lurked in the villages of Bithynia, continually changing his habitation
and his disguise. By degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his
life and fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch,
and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which he
obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of the people
was infected with a spirit of discontent: they regretted the justice and
the abilities of Sallust, who had been imprudently dismissed from the
prÊfecture of the East. They despised the character of Valens, which
was rude without vigor, and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the
influence of his father-in-law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and
rapacious minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute
that might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The
circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The hostile
measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens in Syria: from
the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in motion; and the capital
was occasionally filled with the soldiers who passed or repassed the
Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of Gaul were persuaded to listen to
the secret proposals of the conspirators; which were recommended by the
promise of a liberal donative; and, as they still revered the memory
of Julian, they easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near the baths
of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple garment, more suitable
to a player than to a monarch, appeared, as if he rose from the dead,
in the midst of Constantinople. The soldiers, who were prepared for his
reception, saluted their trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows
of fidelity. Their numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy
peasants, collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded
by the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the
tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments of his
tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the gloomy silence
of the people; who were either ignorant of the cause, or apprehensive
of the event. But his military strength was superior to any actual
resistance: the malecontents flocked to the standard of rebellion; the
poor were excited by the hopes, and the rich were intimidated by the
fear, of a general pillage; and the obstinate credulity of the multitude
was once more deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The
magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the gates,
and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied; and, in a few
hours, Procopius became the absolute, though precarious, master of the
Imperial city. * The usurper improved this unexpected success with some
degree of courage and dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors
and opinions the most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the
populace by giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors
of distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the cities
of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were gradually
involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic princes consented to
supply the sovereign of Constantinople with the formidable strength of
several thousand auxiliaries. His generals passed the Bosphorus, and
subdued, without an effort, the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of
Bithynia and Asia. After an honorable defence, the city and island of
Cyzicus yielded to his power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and
Herculians embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to
crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new levies,
he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as well as
numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the contest. The son of
Hormisdas, a youth of spirit and ability, condescended to draw his
sword against the lawful emperor of the East; and the Persian prince
was immediately invested with the ancient and extraordinary powers of
a Roman Proconsul. The alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor
Constantius, who intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of
the usurper, added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess
Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in a
litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude in the
arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed through the
ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed into martial fury:
they recollected the glories of the house of Constantine, and they
declared, with loyal acclamation, that they would shed the last drop of
their blood in the defence of the royal infant.
In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful
intelligence of the revolt of the East. * The difficulties of a German
was forced him to confine his immediate care to the safety of his
own dominions; and, as every channel of communication was stopped or
corrupted, he listened, with doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which
were industriously spread, that the defeat and death of Valens had left
Procopius sole master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but
on the news of the rebellion, which he received at CÊsarea, he basely
despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the Imperial
purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and ruin by the
firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon decided in his favor
the event of the civil war. In a season of tranquillity, Sallust
had resigned without a murmur; but as soon as the public safety was
attacked, he ambitiously solicited the preeminence of toil and danger;
and the restoration of that virtuous minister to the prÊfecture of the
East, was the first step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and
satisfied the minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently
supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of the
principal officers, military as well as civil, had been urged, either
by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw themselves from the guilty
scene; or to watch the moment of betraying, and deserting, the cause of
the usurper. Lupicinus advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions
of Syria to the aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and
valor, excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop
a superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the soldiers
who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with a loud voice,
to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and such was the
ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary order was instantly
obeyed. Arbetio, a respectable veteran of the great Constantine, who
had been distinguished by the honors of the consulship, was persuaded to
leave his retirement, and once more to conduct an army into the field.
In the heat of action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray
hairs and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by
the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them no
longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible tyrant; but
to follow their old commander, who had so often led them to honor and
victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira and Nacolia, the unfortunate
Procopius was deserted by his troops, who were seduced by the
instructions and example of their perfidious officers. After wandering
some time among the woods and mountains of Phrygia, he was betrayed
by his desponding followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and
immediately beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the conqueror,
under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and indignation of
mankind.
Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and
rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, which, under the
reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and
Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal symptom, either of the displeasure
of Heaven, or of the depravity of mankind. Let us not hesitate to
indulge a liberal pride, that, in the present age, the enlightened part
of Europe has abolished a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in
every climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious
opinions. The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world, admitted with
equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the reality of that infernal
art, which was able to control the eternal order of the planets, and
the voluntary operations of the human mind. They dreaded the mysterious
power of spells and incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites;
which could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul,
blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant dÊmons the
secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest inconsistency,
that this preternatural dominion of the air, of earth, and of hell, was
exercised, from the vilest motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled
hags and itinerant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury
and contempt. The arts of magic were equally condemned by the public
opinion, and by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the
most imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually
proscribed, and continually practised. An imaginary cause as capable of
producing the most serious and mischievous effects. The dark predictions
of the death of an emperor, or the success of a conspiracy, were
calculated only to stimulate the hopes of ambition, and to dissolve the
ties of fidelity; and the intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by
the actual crimes of treason and sacrilege. Such vain terrors disturbed
the peace of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless
flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a powerful and
pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the person whom it was
maliciously designed to represent. From the infusion of those herbs,
which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it was an easy
step to the use of more substantial poison; and the folly of mankind
sometimes became the instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious
crimes. As soon as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers
of Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to another
charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic guilt; a charge
of a softer and less malignant nature, for which the pious, though
excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently decreed the punishment
of death. This deadly and incoherent mixture of treason and magic,
of poison and adultery, afforded infinite gradations of guilt and
innocence, of excuse and aggravation, which in these proceedings appear
to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges.
They easily discovered that the degree of their industry and discernment
was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to the number of
executions that were furnished from the respective tribunals. It was not
without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence of acquittal;
but they eagerly admitted such evidence as was stained with perjury, or
procured by torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the
most respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer,
whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity; but the wretched
victim, who discovered his real or pretended accomplices, were seldom
permitted to receive the price of his infamy. From the extremity of
Italy and Asia, the young, and the aged, were dragged in chains to the
tribunals of Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers,
expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were
appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the flight,
or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The wealthiest families
were ruined by fines and confiscations; the most innocent citizens
trembled for their safety; and we may form some notion of the magnitude
of the evil, from the extravagant assertion of an ancient writer,
that, in the obnoxious provinces, the prisoners, the exiles, and the
fugitives, formed the greatest part of the inhabitants.
When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious
Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first CÊsars, the art
of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites in our breast
the most lively sensations of terror, of admiration, and of pity. The
coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody
figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is
no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent
greatness and of actual misery, we should turn with horror from the
frequent executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the
reign of the two brothers. Valens was of a timid, and Valentinian of a
choleric, disposition. An anxious regard to his personal safety was the
ruling principle of the administration of Valens. In the condition of a
subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe, the hand of the oppressor;
and when he ascended the throne, he reasonably expected, that the
same fears, which had subdued his own mind, would secure the patient
submission of his people. The favorites of Valens obtained, by the
privilege of rapine and confiscation, the wealth which his economy would
have refused. They urged, with persuasive eloquence, that, in all cases
of treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power supposes
the intention, of mischief; that the intention is not less criminal than
the act; and that a subject no longer deserves to live, if his life
may threaten the safety, or disturb the repose, of his sovereign. The
judgment of Valentinian was sometimes deceived, and his confidence
abused; but he would have silenced the informers with a contemptuous
smile, had they presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger.
They praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of
justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a
weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with his
equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious life,
Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with impunity: if
his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was applauded; and the proudest
and most powerful generals were apprehensive of provoking the resentment
of a fearless soldier. After he became master of the world, he
unfortunately forgot, that where no resistance can be made, no courage
can be exerted; and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and
magnanimity, he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time
when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household, or of
his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences--a hasty word, a
casual omission, an involuntary delay--were chastised by a sentence of
immediate death. The expressions which issued the most readily from the
mouth of the emperor of the West were, "Strike off his head;" "Burn him
alive;" "Let him be beaten with clubs till he expires;" and his most
favored ministers soon understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute,
or suspend, the execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The repeated
gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind of Valentinian
against pity and remorse; and the sallies of passion were confirmed
by the habits of cruelty. He could behold with calm satisfaction the
convulsive agonies of torture and death; he reserved his friendship for
those faithful servants whose temper was the most congenial to his own.
The merit of Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome,
was rewarded with the royal approbation, and the prÊfecture of Gaul.
Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations of
Innocence, and Mica Aurea, could alone deserve to share the favor of
Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were always placed near the
bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the
grateful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding limbs
of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage. Their diet and
exercises were carefully inspected by the Roman emperor; and when
Innocence had earned her discharge, by a long course of meritorious
service, the faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her
native woods.