XXXII. CHAP. had erected on the verge of Europe and Afia. Inacceffible to the menaces of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received, with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate; while the impregnable ftrength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hoftile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were bounded by the Hadriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of twentyfive days navigation, which feparated the extreme cold of Scythia from the torrid zone of Æthiopia, was comprehended within the limits of the empire of the Eaft. The populous countries of that empire were the feat of art and learning, of luxury and wealth; and the inhabitants, who had affumed the language and manners of Greeks, ftiled themselves, with fome appearance of truth, the most enlightened and civilifed portion of the human fpecies. The form of government was a pure and fimple monarchy; the name of the ROMAN REPUBLIC, which fo long preferved a faint tradition of freedom, was confined to the Latin provinces; and the princes of Conftantinople measured their greatnefs by the fervile obedience of their people. They were ignorant 2 According to the loose reckoning, that a fhip could fail, with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the revolution of a day and night; Diodorus Siculus computes ten days from the Paulus Mootis to Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to Alexandria. The navigation of the Nile, from Alexandria to Syene, under the tropic of Cancer, required, as it was against the stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. 1. iii. p. 200. edit. Weffeling. He might, without much impropriety, measure the extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he fpeaks of the Mootis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay within the polar circle. how XXXII. how much this paffive difpofition enervates and CHAP. degrades every faculty of the mind. The fubjects, who had refigned their will to the absolute commands of a mafter, were equally incapable of guarding their lives and fortunes against the affaults of the Barbarians, or of defending their reafon from the terrors of fuperftition. ftration and character of Eutropius, A. D. 395-399 The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Admini Honorius are so intimately connected, that the rebellion of the Goths, and the fall of Rufinus, have already claimed a place in the history of the Weft. It has already been obferved, that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Conftantinople, fucceeded the haughty minifter whofe ruin he had accomplished, and whofe vices he foon imitated. Every order of the ftate bowed to the new favourite; and their tame and obfequious fubmiffion encouraged him to infult the laws, ånd, what is ftill more difficult and dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the predeceffors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been fecret and almoft invifible. They infinuated themselves into the confidence of the prince; but their oftenfible functions were confined to the menial fervice of the wardrobe and Imperial bed-chamber. They might direct, in a whisper, the public counfels, and blaft, by their malicious fuggeftions, 3 Barthius, who adored his author with the blind superstition of a commentator, gives the preference to the two books which Claudian compofed against Eutropius, above all his other productions (Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p. 227.). They are indeed a very elegant and fpirited fatire; and would be more valuable in an hiftorical light, if the invective were lefs vague, and more temperate. CHAP. the fame and fortunes of the moft illuftrious citiXXXII. zens; but they never prefumed to ftand forward in the front of empire, or to profane the public honours of the ftate. Eutropius was the first of his artificial fex, who dared to affume the cha-. racter of a Roman magiftrate and generals. Sometimes, in the prefence of the blufhing fenate, he afcended the tribunal, to pronounce judgment, or or to repeat elaborate harangues; and fometimes appeared on horfeback, at the head of his troops, in the drefs and armour of a hero. The difregard of cuftom and decency always betrays a weak and ill regulated mind; nor does Eutropius feem to have compenfated for the folly of the defign, by any fuperior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercifes of the field; his awkward and unfuc 4 After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the Roman palace, and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds, Imperii. A fronte recedant In Eutrop. i. 422. Yet it does not appear that the eunuch had assumed any of the ef- 5 Jamque oblita fui, nec fobria divitiis mens In miferas leges hominumque negotia ludit ; Arma etiam violare parat. Claudian (i. 229-270.), with that mixture of indignation and hu- Gaudet, cum viderit hoftis, Et fentit jam deeffe viros. cefsful XXXII. cefsful attempts provoked the fecret contempt of CHAP. the fpectators; the Goths expreffed their wifh, that fuch a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious perhaps than hatred, to a public character. The fubjects of Arcadius were exasperated by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepid eunuch, who fo perverfely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject condition of fervitude; that, before he entered the Imperial palace, he had been fucceffively fold, and purchased, by an hundred mafters, who had exhaufted his youthful ftrength in every mean and infamous office, and at length difmiffed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty 7. these disgraceful ftories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in private converfations, the vanity of the favourite was flattered with the moft extraordinary honours. In the fenate, in While 6 The poet's lively defcription of his deformity (i. 110-125.) is confirmed by the authentic teftimony of Chryfoftom (tom. iii. p. 384. edit. Montfaucon); who obferves, that when the paint was washed away, the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly and wrinkled than that of an old woman. Claudian remarks (i. 469.), and the remark must have been founded on experience, that there was fcarcely any interval between the youth and the decrepid age of an eunuch. : 7 Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia or Affyria. His three fervices, which Claudian more particularly defcribes, were thefe 1. He spent many years as the catamite of Ptolemy, a groom or foldier of the Imperial ftables. 2. Ptolemy gave him to the old general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully exercised the profeffion of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her marriage, to the daughter of Arintheus; and the future conful was employed to comb her hair, to present the filver ewer, to wash and to fan his mistress in hot weather. See l. i. 31-137. the XXXII. CHAP. the capital, in the provinces, the ftatues of Eutropius were erected, in brafs, or marble, decorated with the fymbols of his civil and military virtues, and infcribed with the pompous title of the third founder of Conftantinople. He was promoted to the rank of patrician, which began to fignify, in a popular, and even legal acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year of the fourth century was polluted by the confulship of an eunuch, and a flave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy awakened, however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate conful was rejected by the Weft, as an indelible ftain to the annals of the republic; and, without invoking the fhades of Brutus and Camillus, the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and refpectable magistrate, fufficiently reprefented the different maxims of the two administrations. His venality and injustice. 8 The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated by a more fanguinary and revengeful fpirit; but the avarice of the eunuch was not lefs infatiate than that of the præfect". 8 Claudian (1. i. in Eutrop. 1-22.), after enumerating the various prodigies of monftrous births, fpeaking animals, fhowers of blood or stones, double funs, &c. adds, with fome exaggeration, Omnia cefferunt eunucho confule monftra. The first book concludes with a noble speech of the goddess of Rome to her favourite Honorius, deprecating the new ignominy to which she was expofed. 9 Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whofe civil honours, and philofophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian in a very elegant pane. gyric. 10 Meluar de non tự tλ8tw, drunk with riches, is the forcible expreffion of Zofimus (1. v. p. 301.); and the avarice of Eutropius is equally execrated in the Lexicon of Suidas, and the Chronicle of Marcellinus. Chryfoftom had often admonished the favourite, of the vanity and danger of immoderate wealth, tom. iii. P. 381. As |