XXV. to Constantinople, to be interred with his pre- CHAP. decessors; and the sad procession was met on the road by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her tears in the embraces of an imperial husband. Her disappointment and grief were embittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother expected, every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from her arms, to appease with his blood the suspicions of the reigning prince.' After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained ten days without a Chrysostom, tom. i, p. 336, 344, edit. Montfaucon. The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors (including the Cesar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only two (Constantine and Con stantius) died a natural death. Such vague consolations have never wiped away a single tear. Ten days appear. scarcely sufficient for the march and election. But it may be observed-1. That the generals might command the expeditions use of the public posts for themselves, their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at Ancyra. of the throne, Feb. 17 26. CHAP master. The ministers and generals still conXXV. tinued to meet in council; to exercise their re Vacancy spective functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for the place of the election." In a solemn assembly of the civil and military powers of the empire the diadem was again unanimously offered to the prefect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were alleged in favour of his son, the prefect, with the firmness of a disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of character or situation, they were successively rejected; but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian was the son of Count Gratian, a native of and cha- Cibalis, in Pannonia, who, from an obscure conValenti- dition, had raised himself, by matchless strength Election racter of nian. * Ammianus, xxvi, 1; Zosimus, l. iii, p. 198; Philostorgius, 1. viit c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334. Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the prefect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Degalaiphus, count of the domestics, and the Patrician Datianus, whose pressing recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty inAuence in the election. * Ammianus, (xxx, 7, 9), and the younger Victor, have furnished the portrait of Valentinian; which naturally precedes and illustrates the history of his reign XXV. and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa OHAP. and Britain; from which he retired, with an ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian contributed, however to smooth the first steps of the promotion of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear: and, to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of Gratian had inhetited the advantages of a strong and healthy constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own, and the public, esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of literature; he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious di ligence, and inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger XXV. CHAP. of disgrace, by the contempt which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; and it should seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however, and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit: and in the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation, which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with which he executed an important commission, recommended him to the favour of Jovian, and to the honourable command of the second school or company, of Targetteers, of the domestic. guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was, unexpectedly summoned, without guilt, and without intrigue, to assume, in the forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman empire. He is acknowledg The invitation of the ministers and generals ed by the at nice was of little moment, unless it were con 364, Feb. army, A.D. firmed by the voice of the army. The aged 26. Sallust, who had long observed the irregular fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the emperor to the temple, he struck a priest who had presumed to purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi, c. 6; Theodoret, I. iii, c. 15). Such public defiance might become Valentinian; but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence, (Zosimus, 1. iv, p. 200, 201). z Socrates, 1. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or Thebatis, (the first › might be possible), is interposed by Sozomen, (1. vi, c. 6), and Philostorgius (1. vii. c. 7 with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 203), XXV. .......... under pain of death, that none of those persons, CHAP. whose rank in the service might excite a party in their favour, should appear in public, on the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the intercalation of the Bissextile. At length, when the hour was supposed to be propitious, Valentinian shewed himself from a lofty tribunal: the judicious choice was applauded; and the new prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple, amidst the acclamations of the troops, who were disposed in martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a loud and imperious clamour, that he should name, without delay, a colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed the assembly." A few minutes since it "was in your power, fellow-soldiers, to have left "me in the obscurity of a private station. Judg ing, from the testimony of my past life, that "I deserved to reign, you have placed me on Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable, digression, (xxvi, 1, and Valesius ad locum), rashly supposes that he understands an astronomical question, of which his readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and propriety by Censorinus, (De Die Natali, c. 20), and Macrobius, (Saturnal. 1. i, cap. 12—16). The appellation of Bissextile, which marks the inauspicious year, (Augustin, ad Janu. arium, Epist. 119), is derived from the repetition of the sixth day of the caleuds of March |