purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
      with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
      conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
      false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
      Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
      embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by
      the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
      him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
      his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
      Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
      amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34

      33 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had signified their
      will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then forbade him to
      resist.]

      34 (return) [ Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
      the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
      and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
      world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]

      The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
      consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
      were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
      consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
      the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
      Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
      tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
      same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied
      speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
      represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
      of the republic, the necessity of naming a Cæsar for the
      administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
      agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
      purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
      approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
      they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
      pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
      by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
      the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
      investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
      the tone of authority which his superior age and station
      permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Cæsar to deserve,
      by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
      his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
      should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
      separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
      was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
      shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who surrounded
      the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the
      merits of the representative of Constantius.

      35 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x.
      14.]

      36 (return) [ Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
      illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
      cum hastis clypei feriuntur, iræ documentum est et doloris... ...
      Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
      reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
      decebat.]

      The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and
      during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of
      his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune
      and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the Cæsar
      spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his
      Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity;
      nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of
      freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence was
      intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
      visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
      four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
      and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
      valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
      studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
      In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
      such indeed as became the dignity of a Cæsar; but it was filled
      with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
      attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
      were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
      require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
      instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
      distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
      the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
      a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
      aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
      the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
      marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39
      herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
      unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
      character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
      Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
      the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
      preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
      deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
      soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
      the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several
      of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory
      letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the
      signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high
      and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his
      friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council
      of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the
      emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
      acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
      calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
      provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
      unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
      Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
      invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a
      general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
      favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
      Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
      similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
      standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
      friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
      assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
      had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
      returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
      celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
      extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40

      37 (return) [ The word _purple_ which Homer had used as a vague
      but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
      very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.]

      38 (return) [ He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
      277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
      table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
      philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
      assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manû suâ
      conscripserat, prælicenter disponens quid in convivio Cæsaris
      impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
      inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]

      39 (return) [ If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
      Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
      will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
      not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
      afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
      obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum præsecto plusquam
      convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
      empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quæsitum
      venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
      immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our physicians
      will determine whether there exists such a poison. For my own
      part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the
      effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
      the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
      followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.]

      The protection of the Rhætian frontier, and the persecution of
      the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen
      months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned
      into the East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to
      the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the
      Æmilian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within
      forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never
      vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal
      procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers
      of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by
      the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and
      cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold,
      and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the
      emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with
      gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to
      pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately
      demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible
      gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been
      introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were
      the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a
      slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards
      his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left.
      He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the
      emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the
      republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The
      streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated
      acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence
      of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and
      Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected
      surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on
      the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient
      palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the
      people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended,
      assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and
      accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had
      been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal
      cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing
      the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the
      seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful
      majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla
      and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
      greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
      of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
      the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
      acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
      magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
      world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
      Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
      they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
      splendor of unsullied beauty.

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

      41 (return) [ For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
      Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
      Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
      composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]

      The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey
      excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans
      some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first
      idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he
      had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed
      the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to
      embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a
      remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the
      invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
      obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
      Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
      confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
      their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
      43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
      Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
      monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one
      obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
      time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
      Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by
      his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of
      the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria.
      The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose,
      and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
      of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness
      was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least
      a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile
      to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed
      about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of
      art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611

      42 (return) [ Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
      the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
      preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
      of Hormisdas is recorded, “that one thing only had _displeased_
      him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere.” If we
      adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (_displicuisse_,
      instead of _placuisse_,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
      vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]

      43 (return) [ When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
      Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
      these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
      probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
      natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
      Egyptian nation. See Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
      iii. p. 69-243.]

      44 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]

      45 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
      Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
      Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
      of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
      obelisk.]

      46 (return) [ See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
      12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargæus on
      Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Grævius’s Roman
      Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
      Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
      square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]

      4611 (return) [ It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
      Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
      it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
      the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
      Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
      before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
      obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
      ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
      Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32.—M]

      The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
      alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
      provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
      loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
      Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
      light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
      of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
      exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
      arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers
      were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent
      monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities
      of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the
      field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the
      preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
      prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
      of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
      penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
      severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
      the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
      sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
      subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
      as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
      was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
      clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
      obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
      crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
      tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
      might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
      Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
      Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
      compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
      their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
      formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
      The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
      released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
      dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
      dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
      friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
      asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
      of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
      of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
      vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
      attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
      Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
      against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
      which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
      inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
      inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
      inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
      Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
      but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
      stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
      their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
      established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
      and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
      surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
      conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
      they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
      cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
      to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
      grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
      victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
      banks of the Danube; the Taifalæ, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
      service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
      Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
      hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
      heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
      revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
      depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
      on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
      this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
      die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
      enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
      and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
      repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
      of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
      still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
      remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
      their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
      honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
      before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
      destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
      exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
      with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
      grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
      Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
      their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
      who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
      a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
      the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
      subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
      Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large
      plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal,
      and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and
      dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the
      air, exclaimed with a loud voice, _Marha! Marha!_ 4711 a word of
      defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They
      rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal
      throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but
      the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed
      him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
      confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous
      surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the
      Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of
      the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were
      reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although
      Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
      entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
      their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
      obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their
      chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved
      that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting
      attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this
      splendid success, received the name of _Sarmaticus_ from the
      acclamations of his victorious army. 48

      47 (return) [ The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
      related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]

      4711 (return) [ Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War.
      Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
      regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
      Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
      vanity, and some truth]

      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.

      While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance
      of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against
      the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate
      frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war, and a
      precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius,
      the Prætorian præfect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by
      the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
      Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
      negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. 49 4911 These overtures of
      peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
      Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
      resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
      inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
      invested with that character, was honorably received in his
      passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
      after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
      unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
      sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,
      (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
      expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Cæsar,
      had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
      Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
      Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
      declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
      would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
      Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
      ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
      disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
      a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
      if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
      field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
      the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with
      the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was
      consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.
      50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the
      Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer:
      “Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
      ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
      throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
      treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
      to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
      conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
      when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
      East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
      recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
      battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
      the war.” A few days after the departure of Narses, three
      ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
      returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
      of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
      for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
      anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
      that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
      of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, 51 would persuade
      the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the
      progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
      hostile arts of Antoninus, 52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
      fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
      Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
      custom of the Persians, the most important business was
      frequently discussed. 53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
      interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
      incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
      favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
      were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
      pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
      of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
      the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
      ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
      embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
      confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.

      49 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 9.]

      4911 (return) [ In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii.
      177.—M.]

      50 (return) [ Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
      Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
      silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
      ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
      has informed us of his behavior.]

      51 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
      sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
      synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
      Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
      Ædesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
      ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
      persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]

      52 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
      behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
      very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
      traitor with some compassion and esteem.]

      53 (return) [ This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
      serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
      the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
      have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
      triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
      p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]

      The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe
      the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a
      bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the
      plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with
      men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front,
      conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the
      place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
      Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and
      renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his
      right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent
      tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and
      generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and
      the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury,
      consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured
      to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
      Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor,
      had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in
      tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the
      Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble
      and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner
      advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered
      that every precaution had been used which could retard their
      progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their
      cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage
      throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers
      were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
      the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the
      Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
      passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing
      his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer
      circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
      Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
      accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
      strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida,
      he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not
      awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious
      insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
      convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened
      with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him
      not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification
      of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards
      the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant
      surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
      accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
      were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a
      beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a
      javelin, shot from one of the balistæ. The funeral of the prince
      of the Chionites was celebrated according to the rites of the
      country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the
      solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should
      serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate
      the memory, of his son.

      54 (return) [ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]

      5411 (return) [ These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who
      inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of
      the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
      terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
      same people, called by the ancients Legæ, by the Armenians Gheg,
      or Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
      Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
      after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
      of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
      285.—M.]

      The ancient city of Amid or Amida, 55 which sometimes assumes the
      provincial appellation of Diarbekir, 56 is advantageously situate
      in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial
      channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream
      bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city.
      The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor
      of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
      walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of
      military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced
      to the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by
      the arms of Sapor. 57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended
      on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which
      followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned; the
      south to the Vertæ; the north to the Albanians; the east to the
      Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
      Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
      with a formidable line of Indian elephants. 58 The Persians, on
      every side, supported their efforts, and animated their courage;
      and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety,
      displayed, in the prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a
      youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were
      repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were
      again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel
      legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized
      their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart
      of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated
      assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
      indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase,
      scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris.
      Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to
      the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice;
      they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of
      confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and
      if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few
      minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been
      purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried,
      without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had
      recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
      siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of
      the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient
      distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under
      the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and
      undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the
      same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the
      soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile
      weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
      defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could
      suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defence of
      Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by
      the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may
      be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed
      their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram,
      and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by
      disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
      citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to
      escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
      in a promiscuous massacre.

      55 (return) [ For the description of Amida, see D’Herbelot,
      Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 108.
      Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
      Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
      p. 301. Voyages d’Otter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr,
      tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a learned and
      accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which illustrates the
      operations of the siege.]

      56 (return) [ Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
      the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
      and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
      _Kara_ is derived from the _blackness_ of the stone which
      composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ——In my Mém. Hist.
      sur l’Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved
      this city, still called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city
      of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous Tigranocerta, of
      which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege
      of Amida, see St. Martin’s Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium,
      nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
      becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
      describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non
      nimium amplæ.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who
      took refuge from the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St.
      Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely doubtful.
      Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to
      amount only to—M.]

      57 (return) [ The operations of the siege of Amida are very
      minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
      honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
      the city was stormed by the Persians.]

      58 (return) [ Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
      known to require any description. The Segestans [_Sacastenè. St.
      Martin._] inhabited a large and level country, which still
      preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
      Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and D’Herbelot,
      Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
      victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
      fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
      ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vertæ and
      Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the latter)
      towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. ——Klaproth
      considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and
      quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in support of his opinion.
      They are the Ossetæ, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
      Hist. de l’Asie, p. 179, 180.—M. ——The Vertæ are still unknown.
      It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These
      people were already known; and we find from Armenian authors that
      they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were
      often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced
      differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us
      from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177.—M.]

      But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.

      As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
      was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
      he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
      season for conquest. 59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
      fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
      siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
      monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
      mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
      his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
      they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
      aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
      with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
      the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
      spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
      spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
      ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was
      obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
      cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; 60 the one situate in
      the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,
      surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of
      the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
      they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made
      prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines
      of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror
      abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully
      restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in that
      important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply supplied
      with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
      honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms
      of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise
      against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally
      esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of
      the independent Arabs. 61 6111

      59 (return) [ Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
      three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
      with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
      invaded Mesopotamia; “Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;” a
      circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
      refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer’s Observations
      on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. Shaw’s Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2.
      The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
      Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
      Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
      3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
      days, the autumn was far advanced. “Autumno præcipiti hædorumque
      improbo sidere exorto.” To reconcile these apparent
      contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
      some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
      seasons.]

      60 (return) [ The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
      xx. 6, 7. ——The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
      the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
      blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.—M.]

      61 (return) [ For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
      D’Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
      or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
      biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
      which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
      robbers.]

      6111 (return) [ St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
      south. “The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
      might be applied to many places.”]

      The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and
      would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
      general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
      actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
      confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62
      Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
      eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
      the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
      who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
      experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
      jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
      to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
      labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
      unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
      walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
      of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
      Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
      and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
      Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
      proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
      the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
      to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
      the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
      that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
      the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
      defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
      the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
      himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
      punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
      military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
      prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
      lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
      suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
      task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
      foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
      the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
      and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
      with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken
      by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
      battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
      it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
      garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
      emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
      winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the
      ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
      materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
      the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
      intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
      the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.

      62 (return) [ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
      the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
      which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
      suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]

      63 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
      Antiochiæ redit in Syriam ærumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et
      atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is _thus_ that James Gronovius has
      restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
      alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
      sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
      light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsiæ,
      1773.) * Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
      suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.—M.]

      In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to
      the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still
      acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of
      Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents
      and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of
      all the territories which they should be able to subdue. 64 But
      the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently
      provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered
      and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
      allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil.
      Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion,
      these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
      the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they
      were desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities,
      Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c., besides
      a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and
      for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of Germany,
      still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
      confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
      prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations
      on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse,
      they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a
      rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled
      and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the
      modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the
      island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
      Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, 65
      and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their
      Gallic monarchy. 66 From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine,
      the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
      west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their
      own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations was
      three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a
      still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and
      the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
      strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
      such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
      within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
      destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
      at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

      64 (return) [ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
      Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
      iv.)]

      65 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
      from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
      histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and
      morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
      conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar.
      p. 558.]

      66 (return) [ The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
      obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
      before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
      sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
      uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
      years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet
      was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and
      seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more
      celebrated competitor, the Abbé le Bœuf, an antiquarian, whose
      name was happily expressive of his talents.]

      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.

      Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was
      appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather,
      as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial
      greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which
      he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the
      dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the
      practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly
      repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to
      learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, “O Plato, Plato, what a task for
      a philosopher!” Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men
      of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian
      with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples; had
      animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the
      contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the
      schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline of a
      camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his
      food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided
      for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and
      common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During
      the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his
      bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he
      frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread
      on the floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his
      rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his
      favorite studies. 67 The precepts of eloquence, which he had
      hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more
      usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed
      multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of
      conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted with
      the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent
      knowledge of the Latin tongue. 68 Since Julian was not originally
      designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is
      probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not
      engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived
      from his philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice,
      tempered by a disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the
      general principles of equity and evidence, and the faculty of
      patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious questions
      which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
      policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various
      accidents of circumstance and character, and the unpractised
      student will often be perplexed in the application of the most
      perfect theory.

      But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was
      assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the
      wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon
      conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his
      friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
      talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the
      delicacy of a royal ear. 69

      67 (return) [ The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe
      discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi.
      5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects
      to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince
      of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of
      mankind.]

      68 (return) [ Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo.
      Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the schools of Greece,
      always considered the language of the Romans as a foreign and
      popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]

      69 (return) [ We are ignorant of the actual office of this
      excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created præfect of
      Gaul. Sallust was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the
      emperor; and we may still read a sensible but pedantic discourse,
      (p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the loss of so valuable a
      friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
      reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.]

      Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was
      sent into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty
      soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious winter
      in the hands of those ministers to whom Constantius had intrusted
      the direction of his conduct, the Cæsar was informed of the siege
      and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient city, protected
      only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison, was saved by
      the generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their arms
      for the defence of their country. In his march from Autun,
      through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with
      ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing his courage. At the
      head of a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred
      the shorter but the more dangerous of two roads; 6911 and
      sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the
      Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor
      and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had
      been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince
      revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched
      from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had
      almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the
      knowledge of the country, secretly collected their scattered
      forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark and rainy day,
      poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the Romans.
      Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions
      were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution
      and vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war.
      In a second and more successful action, he recovered and
      established his military fame; but as the agility of the
      Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was neither
      bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the
      Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the
      difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter,
      discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own
      success. 70 The power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the
      Cæsar had no sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own
      quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded
      and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans. Reduced, in this
      extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he displayed a
      prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the deficiencies
      of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of
      thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage.

      6911 (return) [ Aliis per Arbor—quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram
      in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what
      place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
      Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d’Or, six
      leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the
      river of the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii.
      162.—M. ——Note: At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St.
      Martin, ii. 184.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied
      with the success of his first campaign than Julian himself; who
      very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence, and that he
      fled before the enemy.]

      The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword
      for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection,
      that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to
      destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie
      of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry
      in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the
      court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of Julian,
      and had restrained the troops under his command from marching to
      the relief of Sens. If the Cæsar had dissembled in silence so
      dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been
      exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action so
      criminal had been suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor
      would have confirmed the suspicions, which received a very
      specious color from his past conduct towards the princes of the
      Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently dismissed from
      his office. 71 In his room Severus was appointed general of the
      cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and
      fidelity, who could advise with respect, and execute with zeal;
      and who submitted, without reluctance to the supreme command
      which Julian, by the inrerest of his patroness Eusebia, at length
      obtained over the armies of Gaul. 72 A very judicious plan of
      operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
      himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
      some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly
      penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments, and
      carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, in an
      advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
      intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio,
      general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of
      thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw
      a bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was
      reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by
      the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of
      Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
      the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the
      envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he
      had been the enemy of the Cæsar, and the secret ally of the
      Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
      pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
      of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
      treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous
      stock of provisions, which would have been of the most essential
      service to the army of Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and
      criminal intentions. The Germans despised an enemy who appeared
      destitute either of power or of inclination to offend them; and
      the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
      expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a
      hazardous situation, where he could neither remain with safety,
      nor retire with honor. 73

      71 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more
      advantageously of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p.
      272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have been so easily
      recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to the
      court, p. 278.]

      72 (return) [ Severus, non discors, non arrogans, sed longa
      militiæ frugalitate compertus; et eum recta præeuntem secuturus,
      ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
      140.]

      73 (return) [ On the design and failure of the cooperation
      between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius,
      (Orat. x. p. 273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself
      to be surprised and defeated—M.]

      As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the
      Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to
      dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as
      their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed
      three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine
      their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the
      ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
      brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
      moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example
      inspired. 74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
      of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and
      by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of
      Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
      strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received
      from a deserter, that the Cæsar, with a feeble army of thirteen
      thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
      their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian
      resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the
      chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
      uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties
      of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two
      columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and
      the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
      enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the
      next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
      exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and
      food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of
      the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
      them to justify by their valor the eager impatience, which, in
      case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
      of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military
      shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with
      equal fury to the charge. The Cæsar, who conducted in person his
      right wing, depended on the dexterity of his archers, and the
      weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken by
      an irregular mixture of light horse and of light infantry, and he
      had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred of
      his most renowned cuirassiers. 75 The fugitives were stopped and
      rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of
      his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every
      motive of shame and honor, led them back against the victorious
      enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry was
      obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of
      strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper;
      and as the Barbarians, who served under the standard of the
      empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their
      strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length
      determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
      and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable
      battle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Cæsar, 76 and so
      salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the
      Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who
      were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
      attempted to swim across the river. 77 Chnodomar himself was
      surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
      companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death
      the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
      pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous
      pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the
      abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
      vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the
      cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor
      this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an
      honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long
      survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile. 78

      74 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated
      eloquence the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens
      ingenti robore lacertorum, ubi ardor prœlii sperabatur immanis,
      equo spumante sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandæ
      vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et
      miles, et utilis præter cæteros ductor... Decentium Cæsarem
      superavit æquo marte congressus.]

      75 (return) [ After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the
      rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in
      female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next
      campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 142.]

      76 (return) [ Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks
      of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit;
      Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius;
      and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
      military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct
      and success of a single day.]

      77 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
      number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
      differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus
      has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
      might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
      transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not
      swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude
      of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection does not
      inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.]

      78 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]

      After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the
      Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were
      seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany;
      and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
      valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the
      Barbarians. 79 Although they were strongly actuated by the
      allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of
      war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of
      human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely
      hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
      expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to
      them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which
      followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six
      hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the
      Meuse. 80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with
      inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length,
      exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the
      enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of
      escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense
      with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die.
      The Cæsar immediately sent his captives to the court of
      Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, 81
      rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
      choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance
      of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of
      the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against
      the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and
      astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
      provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly
      pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him
      in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of
      his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
      or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to
      the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his
      arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency,
      and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians
      submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the
      Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new
      establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
      the Roman empire. 82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
      perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks,
      with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the
      conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself,
      and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
      ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the
      tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son
      of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A
      mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the
      sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented
      in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by
      a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at
      the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to
      have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as
      soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Cæsar
      addressed the assembly in the following terms: “Behold the son,
      the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God
      and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve
      and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue,
      than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate
      the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will
      avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty.” The
      Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest
      sentiments of gratitude and admiration. 83

      79 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
      picture of the manners of the Franks.]

      80 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The
      Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been
      induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men;
      and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
      compares them to the Lacedæmonians, who were besieged and taken
      in the Island of Sphatoria.]

      81 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor,
      which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an
      honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
      evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom.
      i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the
      difficulty and the spirit of this passage.]

      82 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his
      narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S.
      P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This difference of treatment
      confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were permitted to
      retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
      fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed,
      illustrates this transaction. “Julian commanded the Romans to
      abstain from all hostile measures against the Salians, neither to
      waste or ravage _their own_ country, for he called every country
      _their own_ which was surrendered without resistance or toil on
      the part of the conquerors.” Mai, Script. Vez Nov. Collect. ii.
      256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.]

      83 (return) [ This interesting story, which Zosimus has abridged,
      is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,)
      with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the silence
      of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the
      truth of it extremely suspicious.]

      It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of
      Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the
      glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after
      whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic
      war. 84 Cæsar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in
      which he _twice_ passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that
      before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman
      eagles beyond that great river in _three_ successful expeditions.
      85 The consternation of the Germans, after the battle of
      Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the
      reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence
      of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed
      on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of
      the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle,
      felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses,
      constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed
      by the flames; and the Cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles,
      till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest,
      undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with
      secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground
      was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an
      ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce
      of ten months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of
      the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine,
      to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of
      the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh.
      They promised to restore all the Roman captives who yet remained
      alive; and as the Cæsar had procured an exact account from the
      cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants whom they had
      lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a degree of
      readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of
      his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more
      splendid and important than the two former. The Germans had
      collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite
      banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and
      of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan
      of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred
      light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small
      boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some
      distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders
      with so much boldness and celerity, that they had almost
      surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the fearless
      confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals.
      Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter
      and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian
      dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest
      kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the
      severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by
      twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of
      the Barbarians, the Cæsar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a
      war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient
      glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.

      84 (return) [ Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
      (Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
      Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have
      derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles
      of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians
      contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against
      the Germans.]

      85 (return) [ See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l.
      iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]

      As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an
      interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to
      his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had
      suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently
      repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth
      of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt
      and fortified by the order of Julian. 86 The vanquished Germans
      had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing
      and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian
      urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which
      he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
      themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,
      contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the
      Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Cæsar to provide for the
      subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of
      the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of the
      latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences of
      famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted
      by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the
      continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of
      the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the
      forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of
      Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up
      the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
      fortresses along the banks of the river. 87 The arms of Julian
      had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantinius
      had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a
      tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
      parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted
      with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The
      dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe
      trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had
      already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay
      or any extraordinary donative. 88

      86 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280.
      Of these seven posts, four are at present towns of some
      consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other three,
      Tricesimæ, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or Heraclea, no
      longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that on the ground
      of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the fort of Schenk, a
      name so offensive to the fastidious delicacy of Boileau. See
      D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 183. Boileau, Epitre
      iv. and the notes. Note: Tricesimæ, Kellen, Mannert, quoted by
      Wagner. Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of Juliers. St.
      Martin, ii. 311.—M.]

      87 (return) [ We may credit Julian himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular account of the
      transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
      145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy
      tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
      Arbuthnot’s Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which
      could bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an
      improved state of agriculture.]

      88 (return) [ The troops once broke out into a mutiny,
      immediately before the second passage of the Rhine. Ammian. xvii.
      9.]

      A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was
      the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
      administration of Julian. 89 He devoted the leisure of his winter
      quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to
      assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than
      that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the
      provincial governors most of the public and private causes which
      had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
      carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
      law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
      Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet
      and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness
      and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for
      extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. “Who will
      ever be found guilty,” exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, “if it
      be enough to deny?” “And who,” replied Julian, “will ever be
      innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?” In the general
      administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is
      commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would
      have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
      defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from
      an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested
      with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct
      the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their
      corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
      collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
      intrusted to Florentius, prætorian præfect of Gaul, an effeminate
      tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister
      complained of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian
      himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his own
      behavior. The Cæsar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for
      the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the
      præfect had offered for his signature; and the faithful picture
      of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify his
      refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the
      pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses
      them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most
      intimate friends. After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in
      the following terms: “Was it possible for the disciple of Plato
      and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon
      the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon
      to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling
      robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death,
      and deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I
      pronounce _his_ sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself
      neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has
      placed me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and
      support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive
      comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience.
      Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust!
      If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit
      without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short
      opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity
      of evil.” 90 The precarious and dependent situation of Julian
      displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero
      who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not
      permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had
      courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people.
      Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the
      Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among
      their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes
      of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or
      conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a
      short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin
      of the Western Empire.

      89 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. 4]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit.
      Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the encomium of
      Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
      domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut
      contra hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]

      His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had
      been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian
      war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
      with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and
      commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and
      the _curiæ_, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful
      and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of
      marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of
      posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with
      customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the
      provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. 91 A mind
      like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which
      he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction
      and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter
      residence, and the object even of his partial affection. 92 That
      splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
      side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in
      the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a
      supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot of
      the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden
      bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but
      on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
      University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with
      a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of
      Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops. The severity of the
      climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with
      some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and
      fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,
      the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that
      floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
      blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of
      Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to
      the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved
      Lutetia; 93 where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or
      despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with
      the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave
      the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic
      character. 94 If Julian could now revisit the capital of France,
      he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of
      understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he
      might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose
      martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of
      luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable
      art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of
      social life.

      91 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in
      Fabricius Bibliothec. Græc. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]

      92 (return) [ See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The
      primitive state of Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad
      Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and
      M. D’Anville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the
      Abbé de Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,)
      and M. Bonamy, (in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xv. p. 656-691.)]

      93 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 340. Leuce tia, or
      Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according to
      the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
      appellation of _Parisii_.]

      94 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.

The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or
Catholic Church.

The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of
those important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively
curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and
the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of
Europe; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the
impression which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and
the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an
indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests
of the present generation. In the consideration of a subject which may
be examined with impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference,
a difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that of
ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court, seems
impatient 1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the
sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged
and adored the majesty of the true and only God. 2 The learned Eusebius
has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was
displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian
expedition. 3 The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the
emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he
publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. 4 The
perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the
behavior of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of
ecclesiastical language, the first of the _Christian_ emperors was
unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the
imposition of hands, 5 and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory
rites of baptism, into the number of the faithful. 6 The Christianity
of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and qualified
sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the slow and
almost imperceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself
the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the church. It was an
arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education,
to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that the
truth of _his_ revelation was incompatible with the worship of the
gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind,
instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous change of a
national religion; and he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as
far as he could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the
whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed with a
gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general direction was
sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental
circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the
caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the
intentions of their master in the various language which was best
adapted to their respective principles; 7 and he artfully balanced the
hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two
edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, 8
and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. 9
While this important revolution yet remained in suspense, the
Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with
the same anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former were
prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate the
marks of his favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till
their just apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment,
attempted to conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods
of Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the partial
writers of the times to connect the public profession of Christianity
with the most glorious or the most ignominious æra of the reign of
Constantine.

1 (return) [ The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been
accurately discussed, difficulties have been started, solutions
proposed, and an expedient imagined of two _original_ editions; the
former published during the persecution of Diocletian, the latter under
that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465-470. Lardner’s Credibility, part ii. vol.
vii. p. 78-86. For my own part, I am _almost_ convinced that Lactantius
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when
Galerius, Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that
is, between the years 306 and 311.]

2 (return) [ Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The first and most
important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight
manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative
value of these manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of
France’s library may be alleged in its favor; but the passage is
omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de
Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic. p.
489.) The taste of most of the editors (except Isæus; see Lactant.
edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine style of
Lactantius.]

3 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]

4 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]

5 (return) [ That rite was _always_ used in making a catechumen, (see
Bingham’s Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom Chardon, Hist. des
Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it for the _first_
time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61) immediately before his
baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad
loc. Euseb.) has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with
feeble arguments by Mosheim, (p. 968.)]

6 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend
of Constantine’s baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was
invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive for his _donation_.
Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which
Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared
himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within
the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianæ, tom. ii. p.
232; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751
by Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican.]

7 (return) [ The quæstor, or secretary, who composed the law of the
Theodosian Code, makes his master say with indifference, “hominibus
supradictæ religionis,” (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The minister of
ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout and respectful style,
[**Greek] the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship.]

8 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. l.
iii. tit. xii. leg. 3. Constantine styles the Lord’s day _dies solis_,
a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects.]

9 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in the
character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to excuse
Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321,
No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.]

Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses
or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years
of age in the practice of the established religion; 10 and the same
conduct which in the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear,
could be ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of
Gaul. His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the
medals which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and
his filial piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn
apotheosis of his father Constantius. 11 But the devotion of
Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the
Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be
represented with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The
unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel
wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him
out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned
with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude
were taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with
mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that,
either walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens
of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as
the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might
reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting
vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. 12

10 (return) [ Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena
gave her son a Christian education; but we may be assured, from the
superior authority of Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 47,) that
she herself was indebted to Constantine for the knowledge of
Christianity.]

11 (return) [ See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As
few cities had retained the privilege of coining, almost all the medals
of that age issued from the mint under the sanction of the Imperial
authority.]

12 (return) [ The panegyric of Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr. Vet.,)
which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war, abounds with
the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan superstition of
Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun;
to which Julian alludes.]

As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the
provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the
authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the
gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the
assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator of
the savage cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. 13 In
the East and in the West, he had seen the different effects of severity
and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the
example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son
of Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of
persecution, and granted the free exercise of their religious
ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves members of
the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as
on the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere
reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians. 14

13 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easily
be shown, that the Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin
original; and the aged emperor might recollect the persecution of
Diocletian with a more lively abhorrence than he had actually felt to
the days of his youth and Paganism.]

14 (return) [ See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and in
Vit. Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l. Cæcilius de
Mort. Persecut. c. 25.]

About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a
solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated
edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the
personal interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the
ascendant of genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his
colleague, Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed
the fury of Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the
edict of Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the
Roman world. 15

15 (return) [ Cæcilius (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the
Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 5) has given a
Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which refers to some
provisional regulations.]

The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the
civil and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly
deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,
which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction
was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers
had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the
Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged
and equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted
by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two
emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and
absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the
religion which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has
addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his own
use. They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every
exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict
obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which
have induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane
intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and
the pious hope, that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and
propitiate _the Deity_, whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully
acknowledge the many signal proofs which they have received of the
divine favor; and they trust that the same Providence will forever
continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these
vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of
Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian
religions. According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism,
he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as _one_ of the _many_
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might
embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the
variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the
nations of mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and
Creator of the universe. 16

16 (return) [ A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight
months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p.
7, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 246,) uses the
following remarkable expression: “Summe rerum sator, cujus tot nomina
sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem enim te ipse dici velin,
scire non possumus.” (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In explaining
Constantine’s progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is
ingenious, subtle, prolix.]

But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of
temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative
truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be
referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of
the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel
would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever
latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his
interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil
obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is
imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that
they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they
prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid the
powers of education and of opinion. But every principle which had once
maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still
exercised her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of
virtue derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent
magistrate might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which
diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of
ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of life; recommended
as the will and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by the
sanction of eternal rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and
Roman history could not inform the world how far the system of national
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine
revelation; and Constantine might listen with some confidence to the
flattering, and indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The
eloquent apologist seemed firmly to expect, and almost ventured to
promise, _that_ the establishment of Christianity would restore the
innocence and felicity of the primitive age; _that_ the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who mutually
considered themselves as the children of a common parent; _that_ every
impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained by
the knowledge of the gospel; and _that_ the magistrates might sheath
the sword of justice among a people who would be universally actuated
by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of
harmony and universal love. 17

17 (return) [ See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.]

The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of an
absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. 18 The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by
treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of
vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the
abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and
society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the
defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they
were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing
the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory
life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero
had preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of
the three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent
of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either
to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw
themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. 19 The
Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with
such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the
primitive and of the reformed Christians. 20 Perhaps, instead of
censure, some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of
our ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot
abolish the unalienable rights of human nature. 21 Perhaps the patience
of the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to
its virtue.

A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash
and fruitless resistance to the master of the Roman legions. But the
Christians, when they deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited
the favor of Constantine, could allege, with truth and confidence, that
they held the principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of
three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable to their
principles. They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their subjects,
embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to obey.

18 (return) [ The political system of the Christians is explained by
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a
republican and an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined him to
support the established powers.]

19 (return) [ Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen nunquam
Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Ad
Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly true, it excludes the
Christians of that age from all civil and military employments, which
would have compelled them to take an active part in the service of
their respective governors. See Moyle’s Works, vol. ii. p. 349.]

20 (return) [ See the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes, tom. iii. p. 210-258.) and the malicious Bayle, (tom ii.
p. 820.) I _name_ Bayle, for he was certainly the author of the Avis
aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire Critique de Chauffepié, tom. i.
part ii. p. 145.]

21 (return) [ Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most
celebrated, of the reformers, who has justified the theory of
resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii. p. 28,
30, edit. fol. Rudiman.]

In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered
as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the
nations of the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious
examples of the more immediate interposition of the Deity in the
government of his chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were
committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of
the divine favor, the success of their arms was destined to achieve the
deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were
occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from
the royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and
indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices,
nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same extraordinary
providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish people, might
elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the Christian
world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the
future glories of his long and universal reign. 22 Galerius and
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the
favorite of heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of
Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the
sanguine expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine
against Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors
who still opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might
seem to claim the peculiar interposition of Providence. The character
of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple and human nature; and though
the Christians might enjoy his precarious favor, they were exposed,
with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his wanton and
capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the
reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and humane
regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods
was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were
ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger,
of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still
more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement. 23
While the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was
involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the
justice of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of
the Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the
Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of
toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested
Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he immediately,
by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without
delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth
of Christianity. 24

22 (return) [ Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l. Eusebius in the course of
his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly inculcates the
divine right of Constantine to the empire.]

23 (return) [ Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is
derived from Eusebius, (Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius Victor mentions his cruelty in general
terms.]

24 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.

The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately
connected with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of
the Christians two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted
the accomplishment of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty
exhausted in his favor every resource of human industry; and they
confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by
some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed
to interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with
the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of
his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians
still bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the
empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters
with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious
party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a
principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. 25
The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to
reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by the
choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a
just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified
missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in
the court and army; the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of
the legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without
resistance in the religion of their commander; and when they passed the
Alps, it may fairly be presumed, that a great number of the soldiers
had already consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. 26 The habits of mankind and the interests of religion
gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long
prevailed among the Christians; and in the councils which were
assembled under the gracious protection of Constantine, the authority
of the bishops was seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the
military oath, and to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those
soldiers who threw away their arms during the peace of the church. 27
While Constantine, in his own dominions, increased the number and zeal
of his faithful adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful
faction in those provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects
of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which the latter did not
attempt to conceal, served only to engage them still more deeply in the
interest of his competitor. The regular correspondence which connected
the bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to
communicate their wishes and their designs, and to transmit without
danger any useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might
promote the service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had
taken up arms for the deliverance of the church. 28

25 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of
England were only a _thirtieth_, and the Protestants of France only a
_fifteenth_, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit and
power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.]

26 (return) [ This careless temper of the Germans appears almost