125 (return) [ Something of this opposit_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of

ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter renitebatur,

nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum sæpe

exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id

enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]

126 (return) [ More properly by the orthodox part of the council

of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the

division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.

viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority

should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,

the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]

127 (return) [ Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]

But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of

Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal

majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,

till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and

deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the

Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to

subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with

the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of

consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent

bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private

opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of

Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who

affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among

those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and

exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,

Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellæ, Lucifer of Cagliari and

Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.

The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the

empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable

Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine,

and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the

head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission

or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd.

But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to

intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time

ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under

Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his

grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his

sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own

freedom. When he was banished to Beræa in Thrace, he sent back a

large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his

journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark,

that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay

their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius

and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and

confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some

criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a

seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to

extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,

whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps

impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent

triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to

treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,

of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity

itself was so deeply indebted. 129

128 (return) [ The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,

xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837.

Hilar. Fragment l.]

129 (return) [ The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.

vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first

admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst

of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may

be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary.]

The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the

firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken

fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The

ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the

benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious

exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most

inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon

experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous

tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence

of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without

restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their

consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and

independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the

liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction

which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of

the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and

capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he

offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard

of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those

who defended the _consubstantiality_, those who asserted the

_similar substance_, and those who denied the _likeness_ of the

Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those

adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile;

and, according to the difference of their temper, might either

pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose

present sufferings would never be compensated by future

happiness.

130 (return) [ The confessors of the West were successively

banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places

of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the

possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Ætius

was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place

of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a

district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.

Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]

131 (return) [ See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of

Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,

No. 92-102.]

132 (return) [ Cæterum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis

celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,

legationibus quoque plebis Catholicæ ex omnibus fere provinciis

frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.

p. 836, 840.]

The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were

designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius

himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the

Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to

remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which

supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt,

deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute

of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his

secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the

order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was

publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could

restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a

written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and

to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second

city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people

should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms,

the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution

afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute

the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with

the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious

master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to

the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his

episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with

the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated,

that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till

the emperor’s pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By

this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false

and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of

Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege,

or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and

inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria,

between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach

and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of

the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to

shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At

the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of

the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand

soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly

invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a

part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal

devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the

impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every

horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies

of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the

next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the

Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a

successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The

other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;

and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the

insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of

a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may

deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither

provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with

cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged

and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,

under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private

resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.

The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and

discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom

they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and

the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of

rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined

successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The

usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was

placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had

been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important

design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the

tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and

of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which

had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than

ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,

Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a

public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the

deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his

blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the

virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected

bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to

surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares

his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the

seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from

justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious

death which he had so often deserved. 135

133 (return) [ Ample materials for the history of this third

persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See

particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.

673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix

Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of

the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by

Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the

narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]

134 (return) [ Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of

his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced

to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were

honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the

city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.

164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]

135 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian

secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their

fears and esteem of Athanasius.]

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI.

Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and

the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our

attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas

was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on

his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the

approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by

shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling

congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting

one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the

God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The

doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged

among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed

forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms

was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.

136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks

and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly

refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in

safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of

the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he

was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he

was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he

still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager

search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian

guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable

present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt

disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six

years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137

136 (return) [ These minute circumstances are curious, as they

are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly

presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.

See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]

137 (return) [ The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and

Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,

the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed

parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbé de la Bleterie,

Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]

The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole

extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had

endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes

of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and

sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, præfects, tribunes,

whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a

fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was

excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to

the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and

the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should

dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais

were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who

preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their

sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus

received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the

patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest

institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as

the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded

themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,

were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the

dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.

139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate

places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the

Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the

well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and

determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants

of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by

a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they

silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and

supported their national character, that tortures could never

wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was

resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for

whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a

uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer

approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious

hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached

the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of

superstition had peopled with dæmons and savage monsters. The

retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of

Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the

monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and

as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate

connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the

diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,

to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to

the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various

adventures might have furnished the subject of a very

entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,

which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the

treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a

still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only

twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for

her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the

story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance

of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty

steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had

been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable

roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge

which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without

imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted

Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his

safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a

servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied

him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his

correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of

suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint

whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a

female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142

During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius

repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the

formal declaration, that he _saw_ the councils of Rimini and

Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present

at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of

personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and

improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a

prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and

Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every

seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible

retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war

against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,

which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed

to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,

which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected

the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and

vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked

prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the

republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his

prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the

rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who

had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in

the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible

hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the

son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who

experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause

of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the

civil power.

13711 (return) [ These princes were called Aeizanas and

Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the

superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no title.

Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)

discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting

inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to

commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over the Bougaitæ, (St.

Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or

Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites,

of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of

Tiamo, of the Bougaites, and of Kaei. It appears that at this

time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the

inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls

himself son of the invincible Mars. Another brother besides

Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to

have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151.

Salt’s Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p.

53.—M.]

138 (return) [ Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus

ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Præfecti, Comites,

exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis

Imperialibus; præmia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum vivum,

si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.

16.]

139 (return) [ Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385.

See Tillemont Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]

140 (return) [ Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,

quæ obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut

nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]

141 (return) [ Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This

and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we

suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he

accidentally or occasionally had used.]

142 (return) [ Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,

p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with

the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so

pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy

of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story

so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical

history.]

143 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,

(tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,

though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]

144 (return) [ The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled

with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.

p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has

introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The

boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published

his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer

sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward

of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]

The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable

bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at

least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject

of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who

were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted

the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually

followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal

chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was

violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary

usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were

suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were

not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical

governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally

separating themselves from his communion. The first of these

methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,

that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology

or sacred hymn, which celebrates the _glory_ of the Trinity, is

susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the

substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be

expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,

particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146

were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and

Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the

Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from

the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were

stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,

And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by

a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the

purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the

throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired

their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox

party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the

presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the

election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The

revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and

the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,

by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their

spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and

alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the

church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman

government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil

society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and

the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation

and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that

his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a

popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and

Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,

and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of

Constantine.

145 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general

of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the

pretended election of Fælix. Three eunuchs represented the Roman

people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the

functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]

146 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.

c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts

concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the

East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who

availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the

popular ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and

travellers, and set them to common airs; “beguiling the ignorant,

by the sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his

doctrines.” Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade

the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed

against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.—M.]

147 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has

examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There

were three heterodox forms: “To the Father _by_ the Son, _and_ in

the Holy Ghost.” “To the Father, _and_ the Son _in_ the Holy

Ghost;” and “To the Father _in_ the Son _and_ the Holy Ghost.”]

148 (return) [ After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of

Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation

which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about

fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,

1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,

the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other’s

_communion_, continued for some time to join in prayer.

Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]

I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and

his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great

people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and

the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had

secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded

apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost

precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was

invested on every side, and the præfect was commanded to seize

the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.

The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,

at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of

the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into

rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into

Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome

bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert

their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Fælix; who, by the

influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and

consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of

two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;

and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the

importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the

last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating

their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the

senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their

husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to

undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less

dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received

with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity

were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:

he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved

pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented

that the two bishops, Liberius and Fælix, should govern in peace

their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were

so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of

those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly

read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of

accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager

vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of

a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and

the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly

exclaimed, “One God, One Christ, One Bishop!” The zeal of the

Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words

alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited

soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to

accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him

to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual

resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the

permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;

the adherents of Fælix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in

the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and

the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed

the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the

proscriptions of Sylla. 149

149 (return) [ See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,

Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.

15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.

413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.

Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]

II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the

reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other

great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful

faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who

ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of

the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being

born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the

East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the

whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the

virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of

that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,

the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By

their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station

to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius

was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a

prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment

to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar

among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the

Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven

from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the

violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and

the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his

rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy

deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount

Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days

without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,

one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151

The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this

ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both

sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The

commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had

been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;

but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose

in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was

consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by

the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he

expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.

152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Prætorian

præfect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In

the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance

of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private

communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay

ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while

the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their

bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They

soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the

palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side

of the præfect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops

of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced

towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly

rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one

hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of

the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,

obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by

clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least

connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish

and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which

the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a

ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains

into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious

measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole

party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions

immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as

their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians

has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that

the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,

which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who

should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,

would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it

must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of

zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of

passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would

have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.

153

150 (return) [ Cucusus was the last stage of his life and

sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of

Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some

geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by

the course of the Roman road from Cæsarea to Anazarbus. See

Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p.

179, 703.]

151 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in

the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not

only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of

Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges

that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop

of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,

(l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.

presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]

152 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of

this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his

history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first

expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.—M.]

153 (return) [ See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,

27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The

acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an

abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy

of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life

of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to

some commendation.]

Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part

VII.

The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not

always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was

justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the

criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and

religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,

exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and

the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,

and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,

and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of

Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged

worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to

communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with

Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and

of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish

the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from

holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The

execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia

Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and

military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the

cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of

the _Homoiousion_, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the

reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were

administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,

and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism

were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had

been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths

of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the

consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of

tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or

inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The

Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their

firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be

confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was

informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost

entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to

convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this

occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded

a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,

and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual

dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and

religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;

and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman

legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only

with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an

ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the

field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a

concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities

which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the

reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of

those of his eunuchs: “Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and

driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics,

were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In

Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces,

towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed.” 156

154 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21.

The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of

persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who

were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their

charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the

difference between the _Homoousion_ and _Homoiousion_, is almost

invisible to the nicest theological eye.]

155 (return) [ We are ignorant of the precise situation of

Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,

Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use

the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly

translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]

156 (return) [ Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]

While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of

the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar

enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of

_Circumcellions_, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist

party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had

excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous

efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church,

exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first

occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and

corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and

Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast

between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their

pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages

of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been

imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who

were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were

actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their

Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their

bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption

of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of

justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was

sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some

popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,

inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging

the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and

rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their

fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the

criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native

villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on

the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits

of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated

by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of

the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of

captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were

indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and

weighty club, which they termed an _Israelite;_ and the

well-known sound of “Praise be to God,” which they used as their

cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of

Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of

necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,

indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt

the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious

tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and

the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the

Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of

mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a

secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds

to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually

contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition

provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic

priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured

by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The

spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their

defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the

troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they

attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an

advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were

taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same

treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the

desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword,

the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were

multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of

rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the

beginning of the present century, the example of the

Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness,

the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the

fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their

military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce

independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159

157 (return) [ See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)

with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at

the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which Augustin

has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against others,

and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by

Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,

though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those

fanatics.]

158 (return) [ It is amusing enough to observe the language of

opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.

Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an

orthodox synod, “Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui

imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret

unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis _famulos Dei_

Paulum et Macarium.” Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.

“Ecce subito,” (says the Donatist author of the Passion of

Marculus), “de Constantis regif tyrannica domo.. pollutum

Macarianæ persecutionis murmur increpuit, et _duabus bestiis_ ad

Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum

prorsus ac dirum ecclesiæ certamen indictum est; ut populus

Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis

militum gladiis et draconum præsentibus signis, et tubarum

vocibus cogeretur.” Monument. p. 304.]

159 (return) [ The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.

Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.

It requires some attention to discover the religion of the

author.]

Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but

the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very

extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them

in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any

country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with

the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed

it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they

perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of

devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope

of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the

festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design

of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the

insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way

into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to

give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently

stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to

inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if

they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they

refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were

disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on

which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should

cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many

precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of

religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate

enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,

and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial

philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that

inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character

and principles of the Jewish nation.

160 (return) [ The Donatist suicides alleged in their

justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th

chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]

The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted

the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will

confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the

complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had

convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each

other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and

Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of

heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a

nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial

writers of the times, ascribing _all_ virtue to themselves, and

imputing _all_ guilt to their adversaries, have painted the

battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reason will reject

such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will

impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good

and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the

appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in

the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and

fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the

same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the

faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their

passions were excited by similar objects; and they might

alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The

metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not

influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by

the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and

simple maxims of the gospel.

161 (return) [ Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi

ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]

162 (return) [ Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,

tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]

A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his

own history the honorable epithets of political and

philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for

neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the

empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan

worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his

subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any

public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the

rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous

testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed

to their favorite hero the _merit_ of a general persecution. 164

Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed

in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the

original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of

the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his

conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and

exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman

empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares,

that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial

light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A

report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is

formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns,

as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of

habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating

the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the

Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps,

to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The

partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though

they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by

the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while

Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform

the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the

wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous

penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which

excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of

those who were discontented with their present condition. An

ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been

publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests

of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties

of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of

several temples of Phœnicia; in which every mode of prostitution

was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of

Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some

measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,

of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property

was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,

with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as

objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver

were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,

and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,

at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But

these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman

world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure

the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and

proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert

the established religion. 167

163 (return) [ Histoire Politique et Philosophique des

Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]

164 (return) [ According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.

c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the

country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates (l.

i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the

conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;

which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,

(vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus

_justo_ ordine et _pio_ vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit

citra ullam hominum cædem, paganorum templa claudi.]

165 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.

In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor

pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to

the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer

sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious

worship.]

166 (return) [ See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.

54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be

compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the

demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan

Rome.]

167 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and

Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both

mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in

very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that “he

made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal

worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred

rites were performed there.” Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen

Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]

The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father,

with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine

and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence

was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt

was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition

of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of

the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of

Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have

superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. “It is our

pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be

immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the

power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our

subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be

guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and

after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the

public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors

of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals.” 170

But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this

formidable edict was either composed without being published, or

was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and

the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,

continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during

the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well

as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great

number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and

the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of

festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the

connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the

supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the

temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended

by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of

succeeding princes. “That emperor,” says Symmachus, “suffered the

privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed

the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the

customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites

and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion,

he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of

antiquity.” 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by

solemn decrees, the _divine_ memory of their sovereigns; and

Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those

gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The

title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which

had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were

accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who

were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion

which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172

168 (return) [ Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs

who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ.

p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or

a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout philosopher

takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very

seldom prospered.]

169 (return) [ See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.

Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p.

235.]

170 (return) [ Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis

claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam

delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a

sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi

perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco

decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum

si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.

leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date

of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the

negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.

M. de la Bastie (Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,

with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of

a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in

Scriniis Memoriæ among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards

inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]

171 (return) [ Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]

172 (return) [ The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le

Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mém. de

l’Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious

performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,

of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of

Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical

robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on

that subject are almost silenced.]

The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of _Paganism;_

173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously

prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately

alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The

extirpation of _idolatry_ 174 might have been justified by the

established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects,

which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually

apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds

of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of

authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on

the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed,

before their victorious influence was universally felt. The

religion which had so long and so lately been established in the

Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less

attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom.

The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on

all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a

considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still

engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the

senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was

derived from very different causes, but they met with equal

devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly

provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their

hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the

presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had

delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly

embraced the religion of his ancestors.

173 (return) [ As I have freely anticipated the use of _pagans_

and _paganism_, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of

those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to

the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,

which frequented the same fountain, derived the common

appellation of _pagus_ and _pagans_. (Festus sub voce, and

Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of

the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist.

Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,

which has been corrupted into _peasants_ in the modern languages

of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order

introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (Hume’s Essays,

vol. i. p. 555;) and all the _people_ who were not enlisted in

the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous

epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal.

Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were

the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused his

_sacrament_, or military oath of baptism might deserve the

metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was

introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into

Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and

theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities

of the empire: the old religion, in the time of Prudentius

(advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Præfat.

Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word

_pagans_, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive

origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter and his family has

expired, the vacant title of pagans has been successively applied

to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new world. 7.

The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their

mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest _Unitarians_ were

branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See

Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ, in his works, tom. i.

p. 420; Godefroy’s Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p.

250; and Ducange, Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitat. Glossar.]

174 (return) [ In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were

ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an

apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an _image_,

created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of

_service_ or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the

Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.

4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of

the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred

and ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of _idolatry_ has

stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which

some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the

polytheists of Greece and Rome.]

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.

Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And

Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.

While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of

eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with

transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of

Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still

dreaded, the arms of the young Cæsar; his soldiers were the

companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the

blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his

elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly

considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As

long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the

palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the

efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with

success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not

exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy

savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the

dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest

despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of

a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the

art of war amidst the groves of the academy. 1 The voice of

malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory;

the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be

painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was

meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable

reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which,

according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the

name of Julian was omitted. “Constantius had made his

dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized his valor in the

foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the victory;

and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_ on

the field of battle,” from which he was at that time distant

about forty days’ journey. 2 So extravagant a fable was

incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of

satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious

that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising

fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive

the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their

mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and

candor. 3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they

acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior

talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that

the virtues of the Cæsar might instantly be converted into the

most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer

their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a

victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the

hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of

Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety

for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own

breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,

the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly

conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.

1 (return) [ Omnes qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi

professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque completa

vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in

odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum

Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam

simiam, et litterionem Græcum: et his congruentia plurima atque

vernacula principi resonantes, audire hæc taliaque gestienti,

virtutes ejus obruere verbis impudentibus conabantur, et segnem

incessentes et timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis

comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. * Note: The

philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius

in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist

Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of

the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai.

Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant. Hist. 66.—M.]

2 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p. 56,

57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters,

which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius

Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of

Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the _wisdom_ of the

emperor, and the _fortune_ of the Cæsar. Yet the historian, soon

afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the

honor of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of

the second Pannonia, and præfect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]

3 (return) [ Callido nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem

laudum titulis peragebant. .. Hæ voces fuerunt ad inflammanda

odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in Actione

Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]

The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the

eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design

which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers. They

resolved to disarm the Cæsar; to recall those faithful troops who

guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war

against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had

vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of

Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter

quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his

hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty

arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the

emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute, and _he_ was

commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that

four entire legions, the Celtæ, and Petulants, the Heruli, and

the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of Julian,

under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in

each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths

should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the

strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march,

and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of

the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. 4 The Cæsar foresaw and

lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the

auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated,

that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public

faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged

for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery

and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the

resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who

considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as

the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who

enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the

general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard

with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and

of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the

climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they

despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the

laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of

Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved;

and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more

immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.

The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of

the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces

were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would

violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and

notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of

a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,

must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in

the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of

Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had

received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people

who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of

rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of

the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his

commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid

interpretation; and the dependent station of the Cæsar scarcely

allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the

perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful

counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the

judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his

representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would

have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The

moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, 5 the general of the

cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of

the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the

assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt

statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this

dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations

of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important

measure, the presence of the præfect was indispensable in the

council of the prince. In the mean while the Cæsar was oppressed

by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial

messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected the

return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt

of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.

Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the

most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of

resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but

which he could not abdicate with safety.

4 (return) [ The minute interval, which may be interposed,

between the _hyeme adultâ_ and the _primo vere_ of Ammianus, (xx.

l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march of

three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as

extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not

have reached Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus

must have been inaccurate, and his language incorrect. * Note:

The late editor of Ammianus attempts to vindicate his author from

the charge of inaccuracy. “It is clear, from the whole course of

the narrative, that Constantius entertained this design of

demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the taking of

Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had transmitted

his orders into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had gone

into Britain with the Herulians and Batavians.” Wagner, note to

Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear that the troops were in

winter quarters (hiemabant) when the orders arrived. Ammianus can

scarcely be acquitted of incorrectness in his language at

least.—M]

5 (return) [ Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his

military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his

affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of

his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt

whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the

Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some

thoughts of passing over into the island.]

After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge,

that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and

that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public

welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into

execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began

their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the several

garrisons moved towards their respective places of assembly. They

advanced with difficulty through the trembling and affrighted

crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by

silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the

soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the

desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of

tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress

afflicted the humanity of the Cæsar; he granted a sufficient

number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the

soldiers, 6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was

constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts,

his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The

grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their

licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent

to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for

the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their

tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which

painted in lively colors the disgrace of the Cæsar, the

oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant

of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed

by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Cæsar

to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently

rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed

that they should not march through Paris, and suggested the

danger and temptation of a last interview.

6 (return) [ He granted them the permission of the _cursus

clavularis_, or _clabularis_. These post-wagons are often

mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred

pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]

As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the Cæsar

went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been

erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After

distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or

merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in

a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated

their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept,

with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful

and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of

Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The

soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an

indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and

venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a

short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal

officers were entertained by the Cæsar, who professed, in the

warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to

reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his

victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and

perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore

them from their beloved general and their native country. The

only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly

agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly

moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of

complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were

inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops

were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight,

the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in

their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; 7

and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and

irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious

suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,

secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was

in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents

of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose

zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace,

seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,

guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,

placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him

as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the

propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of

preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence.

Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals,

he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his

indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their

immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would

immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to

obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but

even the revocation of the orders which had excited their

resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,

chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the

clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into

impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible Cæsar

sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their

reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he had been

repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to

reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the

unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar,

which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; 8 the

ceremony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and

the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired

into the most secret recesses of his apartment. 10

7 (return) [ Most probably the palace of the baths,

(_Thermarum_,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in

the _Rue de la Harpe_. The buildings covered a considerable space

of the modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under

the Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain

des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient

palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins,

whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love.

Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis; Multiplici latebra

scelerum tersura ruborem. .... pereuntis sæpe pudoris Celatura

nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.

(These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a

poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St.

Alban’s, about the year 1190. See Warton’s History of English

Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such _thefts_ might be less

pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the

Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground.

Bonamy, Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]

8 (return) [ Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to

the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the

inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which

the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a

diadem. ----An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces

of the former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to

about five pounds ten shillings of our money.]

10 (return) [ For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may

appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad

S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.

Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.

269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152,

153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more

respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we _might_

neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.]

The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out

his innocence must appear extremely doubtful 11 in the eyes of

those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions

of princes. His lively and active mind was susceptible of the

various impressions of hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge,

of duty and of ambition, of the love of fame, and of the fear of

reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate the respective

weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the

principles of action which might escape the observation, while

they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The

discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his

enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of

passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under

the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most

consummate artifice without necessity, and probably without

success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the

Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities, that till

the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was

utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; 12 and it may

seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of

a philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius

was the enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods,

might prompt him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the

auspicious moment of his reign, which was predestined to restore

the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had received the

intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short

slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen

the genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his

door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit

and ambition. 13 Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his

prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a

clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of

heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary

maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our inquiry.

Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so

crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly

corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.

11 (return) [ Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful

expression, “consensu militum.” (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose

ignorance night excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the

apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, Orat.

iii. p. 67.]

12 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284. The _devout_

Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to

respect the _devout_ protestations of a Pagan.]

13 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on

the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential

letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p.

384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave

credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant

striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind

of the Cæsar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of

his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent

dream.]

To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his

enemies, 14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which

were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which

employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although

he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had

assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the

calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior

forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from

the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns

of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field

of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the

cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He

recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings,

applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked

their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had

obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of

the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce

any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil

possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he

composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious

and moderate epistle, 15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his

master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two

ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe

the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with

the modest appellation of Cæsar; but Julian solicits in a

peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the

title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own

election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and

violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent.

He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages

to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his

army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from

his choice a Prætorian præfect of approved discretion and

fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other

civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and

the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes

the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the

arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by the discord

of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and honorable

treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the house of

Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he

already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long

exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was

still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The

soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not

stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a

fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected

to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant

offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of

merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and

the clamors of the soldiers. 16

14 (return) [ The difficult situation of the prince of a

rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.)

But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than

Julian.]

15 (return) [ To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,

private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian

had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never

existed.]

16 (return) [ See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian.

ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat.

Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]

The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the

most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held

in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by

the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction

of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and

robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a general pardon

from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the restraints

of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred

to the person and government of Constantius. 17 As soon as the

season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he

appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the

Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the

perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that

they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided

empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise,

consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon

as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had

considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the

Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications

along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar

attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands

of the Alemanni, passed through Besançon, 18 which had severely

suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna

for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and

strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian

entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often

vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of

his name. Vadomair 19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he

esteemed or feared and while the subtle Barbarian affected to

observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms

threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The

policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the

Alemanni by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of

a friend, had incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman

governors, was seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent

away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were

recovered from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on

the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,

renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been

already made by four preceding expeditions. 20

17 (return) [ Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange

disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions

of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons;

and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an

army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume’s Essays,

tom. i. p. 426, 427.]

18 (return) [ Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short

description of Vesontio, or Besançon; a rocky peninsula almost

encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city, filled with

temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging, however,

from its ruins.]

19 (return) [ Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was

promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of

Phœnicia. He still retained the same artful character, (Ammian.

xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor

in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]

20 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p.

155.]

Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.

The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with

the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their

passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the

tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they

were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Cæsarea in

Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence

of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from

the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion

of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters

were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were

dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures,

the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of

his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled

the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by

the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several

times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. 21 The empress

Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm,

and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian;

and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a

prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions,

and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign

invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private

enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and

thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might

entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their

offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Cæsar

should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus,

which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to

his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he

should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of

those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that

he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which

were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the

Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually

consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of

three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as

Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served

only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly

resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil

war. He gave a public and military audience to the quæstor

Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the

attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most

flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of

Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he

acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal

was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of “Julian

Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the

people, of the republic which you have saved,” thundered at once

from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador

of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in

which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he

had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated

with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his

infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.

“An orphan!” interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by

indulging his passions: “does the assassin of my family reproach

me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those

injuries which I have long studied to forget.” The assembly was

dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been

protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with

an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most

vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of

resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the

dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be

considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some

weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the

Epiphany, 22 made a public declaration that he committed the care

of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced

the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. 23

21 (return) [ Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near

those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the _Via

Nomentana_. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak

apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of

poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother’s

jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at

Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. Mark’s Library, p. 117-127.)

Elpidius, the Prætorian præfect of the East, to whose evidence

the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as

_effeminate_ and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is

praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]

22 (return) [ Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,

Christiani _Epiphania_ dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam,

solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras

observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not

inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps

Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the

nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant

as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn

festival to the 25th of December, the _Brumalia_, or winter

solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the

sun. See Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, l. xx. c.

4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii. p.

690-700.]

23 (return) [ The public and secret negotiations between

Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from

Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,

(Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l.

iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21,

22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used

some valuable materials.]

The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate

resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his

adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the

monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces

of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them collected

on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the

foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two

armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted

of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, 24

was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the

enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were

still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly

guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the

important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people

of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines

of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil

war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the

soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general,

and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation

of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their

fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited

discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the

same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he

summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that

they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or

Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,

clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their

throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the

service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul

and the conqueror of the Germans. 25 This solemn engagement,

which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was

singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office

of Prætorian præfect. That faithful minister, alone and

unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of

an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen

an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his

hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the

prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the præfect with his

Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his

followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than

was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy. 26 The high office of

Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul,

which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of

taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the

friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues

which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. 27

24 (return) [ Three hundred myriads, or three millions of

_medimni_, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which

contained six Roman _modii_. Julian explains, like a soldier and

a statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and

advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286,

287.)]

25 (return) [ See his oration, and the behavior of the troops, in

Ammian. xxi. 5.]

26 (return) [ He sternly refused his hand to the suppliant

præfect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,

with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and

almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.

278.)]

27 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed

the law which he publicly imposed on himself. Neque civilis

quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam præter merita

suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence

did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D.

363) he honored the consulship.]

The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his

troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of

a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as

far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer

accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to

fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided

his army. 28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was

directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to

advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A

similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and

Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways,

through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The

instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and

precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,

which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily

be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against

the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;

to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude

examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of

their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their

sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had

reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected

three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their

leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head

of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of

the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the

Danube; 29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to

the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor,

surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and

morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his

direct course, 30 without reflecting whether he traversed the

territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length

emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he

designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted

stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, 31 as it lay

at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to

satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army;

and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The

labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant

diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind,

carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; 32

and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, 3211 only

nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any

certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In

the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian

was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted

the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit

of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations,

which were placed along the river, without indulging the

temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The

banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators,

who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the

event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a

young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head

of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the

rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of

Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports,

which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow

and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops,

when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom

Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with

some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life

or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the

presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and

dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his

faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than

he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his

conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to

expose his person in the midst of his enemies. “Reserve for your

master Constantius these timid remonstrances,” replied Julian,

with a smile of contempt: “when I gave you my purple to kiss, I

received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant.” Conscious

that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness

only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of

three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most

populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long

suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of

the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding

lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged

sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the

public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but,

early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy

the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus; which,

almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople,

separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent

towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the

latter. 33 The defence of this important post was intrusted to

the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian

division, successfully executed the plan of the march and

junction which their master had so ably conceived. 34

28 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same practice, and

the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful

generals.]

29 (return) [ This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,

which, is the time of Cæsar, stretched away from the country of

the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See

Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]

30 (return) [ Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279,

with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires

the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply

to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally

designed for another apostate:—

—So eagerly the fiend, O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough,

dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]

31 (return) [ In that interval the _Notitia_ places two or three

fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the

Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or

cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect.

lviii. edit. Labb.]

32 (return) [ Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this

interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7,

8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred largesses,

describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,

challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]

3211 (return) [ Banostar. _Mannert_.—M.]

33 (return) [ The description of Ammianus, which might be

supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the precise

situation of the _Angustiæ Succorum_, or passes of _Succi_. M.

d’Anville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed

them between Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am

obliged to mention the _only_ error which I have discovered in

the maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]

34 (return) [ Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere,

Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series of the

narrative.]

The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the

inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate

effect of his arms. 35 The præfectures of Italy and Illyricum

were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that

important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as

those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of

Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his

temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of

the Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two

consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first

magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who,

conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a

philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and

in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from

his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the

principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own

conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and

solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the

one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the

Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the

reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well

as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not

only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle

to the senate and people of Athens 37 seems to have been dictated

by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his

actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own

times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,

in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus.

His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted

to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the

forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by

Tertullus, præfect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read;

and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were

admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the

innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against

the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and

the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed,

“Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune.” 38 An

artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might

be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude

of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act

of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings

of Constantius.

35 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 9, 10. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54,

p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]

36 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively

asserts, that he intercepted the letters of Constantius to the

Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he read them

on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)

expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si _famæ

solius_ admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an

intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes

an intimate correspondence between them. “disciplinam non

habet.”]

37 (return) [ Zosimus mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the

Corinthians, and the Lacedæmonians. The substance was probably

the same, though the address was properly varied. The epistle to

the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has afforded

much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the Abbé de

la Bleterie, (Pref. a l’Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is

one of the best manifestoes to be found in any language.]

38 (return) [ _Auctori tuo reverentiam rogamus_. Ammian. xxi. 10.

It is amusing enough to observe the secret conflicts of the

senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i. 85.]

The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was

speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor,

had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the

anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius

professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving

chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in

any other light than that of a hunting party. 39 In the camp of

Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army;

slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Cæsar; and

ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed

to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the

fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of

onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military

applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of

Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that _his_ city

might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. 40 A

chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure,

if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the

horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared

against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war;

and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans

with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary

Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the

subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian

was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been

productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the

submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were

stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity

of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and

it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state

of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important

scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the

confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and

the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the

instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to

erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable

city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the

mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By

his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and

the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted

with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the

yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill

and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example

of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of

Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers

of the armies of the East. 41

39 (return) [ Tanquam venaticiam prædam caperet: hoc enim ad

Jeniendum suorum metum subinde prædicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]

40 (return) [ See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi.

13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his

pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his wish of

diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his

friends, (xxii. 14.)]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 22 / 79 章

125 (return) [ Something of this opposition is mentioned by