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Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.—
Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian
Wars.—Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II. |
Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.—
Danger And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian
Wars.—Victories Of Julian In Gaul.
The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of Oriental jealousy and despotism, 1 were introduced into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. 2 Their progress was rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, 3 were gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves. 4 Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, 6 they multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species, appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy action. 7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. 8 Whilst he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, 9 and to gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. 10 By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the house of Constantine.
1 (return)
[ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice of
castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is supposed to have
reigned above nineteen hundred years before Christ. The use of eunuchs
is of high antiquity, both in Asia and Egypt. They are mentioned in the
law of Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii. 1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c.,
Part i. l. i. c. 3.]
2 (return)
[ Eunuchum dixti velle te; Quia solae utuntur his
reginae—Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated from
Meander, and the original must have appeared soon after the eastern
conquests of Alexander.]
3 (return)
[ Miles.... spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat. Carm.
v. 9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word spado, the Romans very forcibly
expressed their abhorrence of this mutilated condition. The Greek
appellation of eunuchs, which insensibly prevailed, had a milder sound,
and a more ambiguous sense.]
4 (return)
[ We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch of
Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the most
honorable rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in Claudio, c. 28.
Posides employed a great part of his wealth in building.
Ut Spado vincebat Capitolia Nostra
Posides.
Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]
Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]
6 (return)
[ There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137, in
which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and Constantine
for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores the mischiefs
which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit quod eunuchos nec in
consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui soli principes perdunt, dum
eos more gentium aut regum Persarum volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam
amicissimum semovent; qui internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur,
referentes; claudentes principem suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid
sciat.]
7 (return)
[ Xenophon (Cyropaedia, l. viii. p. 540) has stated the
specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to intrust his person to the guard
of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that although the practice of
castration might tame their ungovernable fierceness, it did not diminish
their strength or spirit; and he persuaded himself, that those who were
separated from the rest of human kind, would be more firmly attached to
the person of their benefactor. But a long experience has contradicted
the judgment of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of eunuchs
distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their abilities; but
if we examine the general history of Persia, India, and China, we shall
find that the power of the eunuchs has uniformly marked the decline and
fall of every dynasty.]
8 (return)
[ See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c. 4. The
whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify the invectives
of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself, who have insulted the
vices of the court of Constantius.]
9 (return)
[ Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his sovereign in
choosing the governors of the provinces, and the generals of the army,
and concludes his history with a very bold observation, as it is much
more dangerous under a feeble reign to attack the ministers than the
master himself. "Uti verum absolvam brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius
ita apparitorum plerisque magis atrox nihil."]
10 (return)
[ Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius potuit.
Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]
When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. 11 Different cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum, near Caesarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six years' confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant. 12 Their prison was an ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant, the buildings of stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition of the most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Caesar, and to cement this political connection by his marriage with the princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to their respective stations. Constantius continued his march towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch; from whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five great dioceses of the eastern praefecture. 13 In this fortunate change, the new Caesar was not unmindful of his brother Julian, who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty, and the restitution of an ample patrimony. 14
11 (return)
[ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the
apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa, who
had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a less
respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a church. * Note:
Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same mother. Their father, Julius
Constantius, had had Gallus by his first wife, named Galla: Julian
was the son of Basilina, whom he had espoused in a second marriage.
Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie de Constantin. art. 3.—G.]
12 (return)
[ The most authentic account of the education and adventures
of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto which he himself
addressed to the senate and people of Athens. Libanius, (Orat.
Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,)
on that of the Christians, have preserved several interesting
circumstances.]
13 (return)
[ For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus, and the
two Victors. According to Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,) Theophilus, an
Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were, the guarantee of this
solemn engagement. He supported that character with generous firmness;
but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it
very improbable that a heretic should have possessed such virtue.]
14 (return)
[ Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies at
Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon excited the
jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was advised to withdraw
himself to the less conspicuous scenes of Bithynia and Ionia.]
The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Caesar was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne, he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who approached his person, or were subject to his power. 15 Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood. 16 Instead of employing her influence to insinuate the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity, though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent and virtuous nobleman. 17 The cruelty of Gallus was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies and informers; and the Caesar himself, concealed in a a plebeian habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of the East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing, by their secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the people; whilst he furnished the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his purple, and of his life. 18
15 (return)
[ See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron.
Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of Eutropius,
who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after the death of Gallus,
when there was no longer any motive either to flatter or to depreciate
his character. "Multis incivilibus gestis Gallus Caesar.... vir natura
ferox et ad tyrannidem pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset."]
16 (return)
[ Megaera quidem mortalis, inflammatrix saevientis assidua,
humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c. 1. The sincerity
of Ammianus would not suffer him to misrepresent facts or characters,
but his love of ambitious ornaments frequently betrayed him into an
unnatural vehemence of expression.]
17 (return)
[ His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only crime
was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law; who solicited
his death, because she had been disappointed of his love. Ammian. xiv.
c. i.]
18 (return)
[ See in Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample detail of
the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272) insinuates, that a
secret conspiracy had been formed against him; and Zosimus names (l. ii.
p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a minister of considerable rank, and
two obscure agents, who were resolved to make their fortune.]
As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that the emperor and the Caesar were united by the same interest, and pursued by the same enemies. 19 But when the victory was decided in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian the Oriental praefect, and Montius, quaestor of the palace, were empowered by a special commission 1911 to visit and reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the praefect disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin, as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several days in sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the praefect condescended to take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Caesar should immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject, expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his disposition. 20 The quaestor reproached Gallus in a haughty language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Praetorian praefect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers; and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the praefect and the quaestor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of the Orontes. 21
19 (return)
[ Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins had
seduced a great number of legionaries; but their designs were discovered
and revealed by an old woman in whose cottage they lodged.]
1911 (return)
[ The commission seems to have been granted to Domitian
alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm. Marc. loc.
cit.—M]
20 (return)
[ In the present text of Ammianus, we read Asper, quidem,
sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms a sentence of contradictory
nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript, Valesius has rectified
the first of these corruptions, and we perceive a ray of light in the
substitution of the word vafer. If we venture to change lenitatem into
lexitatem, this alteration of a single letter will render the whole
passage clear and consistent.]
21 (return)
[ Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full stream
of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the seventh and ninth
chapters of his fourteenth book. Philostorgius, however, (l. iii. c. 28)
though partial to Gallus, should not be entirely overlooked.]
After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the Caesar to discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier, disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions. 22
22 (return)
[ She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever on the
road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum Gallicanum.]
After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.
In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside at Petovio, 2311 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola, [23b] in Istria, a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife, exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of the East. 25
23 (return)
[ The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at
Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit. Labb.)
mentions three several legions which bore the name of Thebaean. The zeal
of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable though celebrated legion, has
tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the existence of a Thenaean
legion in the Roman armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414,
quarto edition.]
2311 (return)
[ Pettau in Styria.—M ---- Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St.
Martin.—M.]
24 (return)
[ See the complete narrative of the journey and death of
Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his brother
was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or at least to
excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on his enemies; but
seems at last to acknowledge that he might justly have been deprived of
the purple.]
25 (return)
[ Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p.
19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch, and the latter
transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever he found in the
writings of the ancients.]
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26 But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and, notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29
26 (return)
[ See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian himself
in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and just picture of
his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows, however, a tendency to
exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating, though in obscure terms, that
they lasted above a year; a period which cannot be reconciled with the
truth of chronology.]
27 (return)
[ Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the family
of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily conceived and
agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the seventh Oration, from
whence it has been detached and translated by the Abbe de la Bleterie,
Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]
28 (return)
[ She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of a noble
family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls. Her marriage
with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a divided age, the
historians of all parties agree in her praises. See their testimonies
collected by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]
29 (return)
[ Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the arts as
well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent Julian as the first
of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory was his fellow-student at
Athens; and the symptoms which he so tragically describes, of the future
wickedness of the apostate, amount only to some bodily imperfections,
and to some peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests,
however, that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion. 30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands, or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the title of Caesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32
30 (return)
[ Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum se,
quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c. 8. He
then expresses, in their own words, the fattering assurances of the
courtiers.]
31 (return)
[ Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens fratris
quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et Titum. Ammian. l.
xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of the two brothers, were so
nearly the same, as to afford a strong example of the innate difference
of characters.]
32 (return)
[ Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137, 138.]
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame, and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached, with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with false and servile respect by the assassins of his family. Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes, embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince, amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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, irae 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 Caesar 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 Caesar; 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 manu sua conscripserat, praelicenter disponens quid in
convivio Caesaris 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
praesecto plusquam convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the
emperor and empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quaesitum
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 Rhaetian 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 Aemilian 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 Bargaeus on Obelisks,
inserted in the fourth volume of Graevius'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 Taifalae, 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]
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 Praetorian praefect 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 Caesar, 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. Aedesii, 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 balistae. 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
Legae, 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 Vertae; 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. Bibliotheque 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 Mem. 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
amplae.) 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 [Sacastene. 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, Biblitheque 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
Vertae 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 Ossetae, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
Hist. de l'Asie, p. 179, 180.—M. ——The Vertae 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 praecipiti haedorumque 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 Antiochiae
redit in Syriam aerumnosam, 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. (Lipsiae, 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 Abbe le Boeuf, an antiquarian,
whose name was happily expressive of his talents.]
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 praefect 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar, 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 militiae
frugalitate compertus; et eum recta praeeuntem 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar, 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 Caesar, 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 proelii sperabatur immanis, equo spumante
sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandae vastitatis, armorumque
nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et miles, et utilis praeter caeteros
ductor... Decentium Caesarem superavit aequo 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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
Lacedaemonians, 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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 Caesar 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, Tricesimae, 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: Tricesimae, 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, praetorian praefect 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 Caesar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the praefect 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 curioe, 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. Graec. 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 Abbe de Longuerue,
(Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,) and M. Bonamy, (in the
Mem. de l'Aca demie 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.]