destination, soon became the serious employment of the Latin clergy; the Providence which had decrced, or foreseen, or permitted, such a train of moral and natural evils, was rashly weighed in the imperfect and fallacious balance of reason. The crimes, and the misfortunes, of the suffering people, were presumptuously compared with those of their ancestors; and they arraigned the Divine Justice, which did not exempt from the common destruction the feeble, the guiltless, the infant portion of the human species. These idle disputants overlooked the invariable laws of nature, which have connected peace with innocence, plenty with industry, and safety with valour. The timid and selfish policy of the court of Ravenna might recall the palatine legions for the protection of Italy; the remains of the stationary troops might be unequal to the arduous task; and the barbarian auxiliaries might prefer the unbounded licence of spoil to the benefits of a moderate and regular stipend. But the provinces of Gaul were filled with a numerous race of hardy and robust youth, who, in the defence of their houses, their families, and their altars, if they had dared to die, would have deserved to vanquish. The knowledge of their native country would have enabled them to oppose continual and insuperable obstacles to the progress of an invader; and the deficiency of the barbarians, in arms as well as in discipline, removed the only pretence which excuses the submission of a populous country to the inferior numbers of a veteran army. When France was invaded by Charles the fifth, he inquired of a prisoner, How many days Paris might be distant from the frontier? "Perhaps twelve, but they will be days of battle." Such was the gallant answer which checked the arrogance of that ambitious prince. The subjects of Honorius, and those of Francis I. were animated by a very different spirit; and in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic, whose numbers, were they fairly stated, would appear contemptible, advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenæan mountains. . In the early part of the reign of Revolt of the British army, Honorius, the vigilance of Stilicho had A. D. 407. successfully guarded the remote island of Britain from her incessant enemies of the ocean, the mountains, and the Irish coast." But those restless barbarians could not neglect the fair opportunity of the Gothic war, when the walls and stations of the province were stripped of the Roman troops. If any of the legionaries were permitted to return from the Italian expedition, their faithful report of the court and character of Honorius must have tended to dissolve the bonds of allegiance, and a See the Memoires de Guillaume du Bellay, 1. vi. In the French, the original reproof is less obvious, and more pointed, from the double sense of the word journée, which alike signifies, a day's travel, or a battle. b Claudian. (i Cons. Stil. 1. ii. 250.) It is supposed, that the Scots of Ireland invaded, by sea, the whole western coast of Britain and some slight credit may be given even to Nennius and the Irish tradi tions. (Carte's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 169. Whitaker's Genuine History of the Britons, p. 199.) The sixty-six lives of St. Patrick, which were extant in the ninth century, must have contained as many thousand lies; yet we may believe, that, in one of these Irish to exasperate the seditious temper of the British army. The spirit of revolt, which had formerly disturbed the age of Gallienus, was revived by the capricious violence of the soldiers; and the unfortunate, perhaps the ambitious, candidates, who were the objects of their choice, were the instruments, and at length the victims, of their passion." Marcus was the first whom they placed on the throne, as the lawful emperor of Britain and of the west. They violated, by the hasty murder of Marcus, the oath of fidelity, which they had imposed on themselves; and their disapprobation of his manners may seem to inscribe an honourable epitaph on his tomb. Gratian was the next whom they adorned with the diadem and the purple; and, at the end of four months, Gratian experienced the fate of his predecessor. The memory of the great Constantine, whom the British legions had given to the church and to the empire, suggested the singular motive of their third choice. They Constantine is acdiscovered in the ranks a private sol- knowledged in Britain and Gaul, dier of the name of Constantine, and A. D. 407. their impetuous levity had already seated him on the throne, before they perceived his incapacity to sustain the weight of that glorious appellation.d Yet the authority of Constantine was less precarious, and his government was more successful, than the transient reigns of Marcus and of Gratian. The danger of leaving his inactive troops in those camps, which had been twice polluted with blood and sedition, urged him to attempt the reduction of the western provinces. He landed at Boulogne with an inconsiderable force; and after he had reposed himself some days, he summoned the cities of Gaul, which had escaped the yoke of the barbarians, to acknowledge their lawful sovereign. They obeyed the summons without reluctance. The neglect of the court of Ravenna had absolved a deserted people from the duty of allegiance; their actual distress encouraged them to accept any circumstances of change, without apprehension, and, perhaps, some degree of hope; and they might flatter themselves, that the troops, the authority, and even the name of a Roman emperor, who fixed his residence in Gaul, would protect the unhappy country from the rage of the barbarians. The first successes of Constantine against the detached parties of the Germans, were magnified by the, voice of adulation into splendid and decisive victories; which the reunion and insolence of the enemy soon reduced to their just value. His negociations procured a short and precarious truce; and if some tribes of the barbarians were engaged, by the liberality of his gifts and promises, to undertake the defence of the inroads, the future apostle was led away captive. (Usher, Antiquit. Eccles. Britann. p. 431. and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 456. 782, &c.) e The British usurpers are taken from Zosimus, (1. vi. p. 371–375.) Orosius, (1. vii. c. 40. p. 576, 577.) Olympiodorus, (apud Photium, p. 180, 181.) the ecclesiastical historians, and the Chronicles. The Latins are ignorant of Marcus. d Cum in Constantino inconstantiam execrarentur. (Sidonius Apollinaris, 1. v. epist. 9. p. 139. edit. secund. Sirmond.) Yet Sidonius might be tempted, by so fair a pun, to stigmatize a prince, who had disgraced his grandfather. Rhine, these expensive and uncertain treaties, instead of restoring the pristine vigour of the Gallic frontier, served only to disgrace the majesty of the | prince, and to exhaust what yet remained of the treasures of the republic. Elated however with this imaginary triumph, the vain deliverer of Gaul advanced into the provinces of the south, to encounter a more pressing and personal danger. Sarus the Goth was ordered to lay the head of the rebel at the feet of the emperor Honorius; and the forces of Britain and Italy were unworthily consumed in this domestic quarrel. After the loss of his two bravest generals, Justinian and Nevigastes, the former of whom was slain in the field of battle, the latter in a peaceful but treacherous interview, Constantine fortified himself within the walls of Vienna. The place was ineffectually attacked seven days; and the imperial army supported, in a precipitate retreat, the ignominy of purchasing a secure passage from the freebooters and outlaws of the Alps. Those mountains now separated the dominions of two rival monarchs: and the fortifications of the double frontier were guarded by the troops of the empire, whose arms would have been more usefully employed to maintain the Roman limits against the barbarians of Germany and Scythia. He reduces Spain, On the side of the Pyrenees, the A. D. 408. ambition of Constantine might be justified by the proximity of danger; but his throne was soon established by the conquest, or rather submission, of Spain; which yielded to the influence of regular and habitual subordination, and received the laws and magistrates of the Gallic præfecture. The only opposition which was made to the authority of Constantine proceeded not so much from the powers of government, or the spirit of the people, as from the private zeal and interest of the family of Theodosius. Four brothers had obtained by the favour of their kinsman, the deceased emperor, an honourable rank, and ample possessions, in their native country: and the grateful youths resolved to risk those advantages in the service of his son. After an unsuccessful effort to maintain their ground at the head of the stationary troops of Lusitania, they retired to their estates; where they armed and levied, at their own expense, a considerable body of slaves and dependents, and boldly marched to occupy the strong posts of the Pyrenæan mountains. This domestic insurrection alarmed and perplexed the sovereign of Gaul and Britain; and he was compelled to negociate with some troops of barbarian auxiliaries, for the service of the Spanish war. They were distinguished by the title of Honorians; a name which might have reminded them of their fidelity to their lawful sovereign; and if it should candidly be allowed that the Scots were in e Bagaude is the name which Zosimus applies to them; perhaps they deserved a less odious character. (See Dubois, Hist. Critique, tom. i. p. 203. and this History, vol. ii. p. 121.) We shall hear of them again. f Verinianus, Didymus, Theodosius, and Lagodius, who, in modern courts, would be styled princes of the blood, were not distinguished by any rank or privileges above the rest of their fellow-subjects. These Honoriani, or Honoriaci, consisted of two bands of Scots, | fluenced by any partial affection for a British prince, the Moors and the Marcomanni could be tempted only by the profuse liberality of the usurper, who distributed among the barbarians the military, and even the civil, honours of Spain. The nine bands of Honorians, which may be easily traced on the establishment of the western empire, could not exceed the number of five thousand men; yet this inconsiderable force was sufficient to terminate a war, which had threatened the power and safety of Constantine. The rustic army of the Theodosian family was surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees two of the brothers had the good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the east; the other two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen. Such were the feeble arms which decided the possession of the western provinces of Europe, from the walls of Antoninus to the columns of Herculcs. The events of peace and war have undoubtedly been diminished by the narrow and imperfect view of the historians of the times, who were equally ignorant of the causes, and of the effects, of the most important revolutions. But the total decay of the national strength had annihilated even the last resource of a despotic government; and the revenue of exhausted provinces could no longer purchase the military service of a discontented and pusillanimous people. cho, The poet, whose flattery has ascribed Negociation of to the Roman eagle the victories of Alaric and StiliPollentia and Verona, pursues the A. D. 404–409. hasty retreat of Alaric, from the confines of Italy, with a horrid train of imaginary spectres, such as might hover over an army of barbarians, which was almost exterminated by war, famine, and disease." In the course of this unfortunate expedition, the king of the Goths must indeed have sustained a considerable loss; and his harassed forces required an interval of repose to recruit their numbers, and revive their confidence. Adversity had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his valour invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of the barbarian warriors; who, from the Euxine to the Rhine, were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest. He had deserved the esteem, and he soon accepted the friendship, of Stilicho himself. Renouncing the service of the emperor of the east, Alaric concluded, with the court of Ravenna, a treaty of peace and alliance, by which he was declared master-general of the Roman armies throughout the præfecture of Illyricum; and it was claimed, according to the true and ancient limits, by the minister of Honorius. The execution or Attacotti, two of Moors, two of Marcomanni, the Victores, the Ascarii, and the Gallicani. (Notitia Imperii, sect. xxxviii. edit. Lab.) They were part of the sixty-five Auxilia Palatina, and are properly styled, ev y avλn makeis, by Zosimus, (l. vi. 374.) h Comitatur euntem Pallor, et atra fames; et saucia lividus ora Claudian in vi Cons. Hon. 321, &c. of the ambitious design, which was either stipulated, ted to their consideration the choice of peace or or implied, in the articles of the treaty, appears to have been suspended by the formidable irruption of Radagaisus; and the neutrality of the Gothic king may perhaps be compared to the indifference of Cæsar, who, in the conspiracy of Catiline, refused either to assist, or to oppose, the enemy of the republic. After the defeat of the Vandals, Stilicho resumed his pretensions to the provinces of the east; appointed civil magistrates for the ad- | ministration of justice, and of the finances; and declared his impatience to lead, to the gates of Constantinople, the united armies of the Romans and of the Goths. The prudence, however, of Stilicho, his aversion to civil war, and his perfect knowledge of the weakness of the state, may countenance the suspicion, that domestic peace, rather than foreign conquest, was the object of his policy; and, that his principal care was to employ the forces of Alaric at a distance from Italy. This design could not long escape the penetration of the Gothic king, who continued to hold a doubtful, and perhaps a treacherous, correspondence with the rival courts; who protracted, like a dissatisfied mercenary, his languid operations in Thessaly and Epirus, and who soon returned to claim the extravagant reward of his ineffectual services. From his camp near Æmona, on the confines of Italy, he transmitted to the emperor of the west a long account of promises, of expenses, and of demands; called for immediate satisfaction, and clearly intimated the consequences of a refusal. Yet if bis conduct was hostile, his language was decent and dutiful. He humbly professed himself the friend of Stilicho, and the soldier of Honorius; offered his person and his troops to march, without delay, against the usurper of Gaul; and solicited, as a permanent retreat for the Gothic nation, the possession of some vacant province of the western empire. k Debates of the The political and secret transactions A. D. 408. deceive each other and the world, must for ever have been concealed in the impenetrable darkness of the cabinet, if the debates of a popular assembly had not thrown some rays of light on the correspondence of Alaric and Stilicho. The necessity of finding some artificial support for a government, which, from a principle, not of moderation, but of weakness, was reduced to negociate with its own subjects, had insensibly revived the authority of the Roman senate: and the minister of Honorius respectfully consulted the legislative council of the republic. Stilicho assembled the senate in the palace of the Cæsars; represented, in a studied oration, the actual state of affairs; proposed the demands of the Gothic king, and submit i These dark transactions are investigated by the count de Buat, (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. c. iii.-viii. p. 69-206.) whose laborious accuracy may sometimes fatigue a superficial reader. See Zosimus, 1. v. p. 334,335. He interrupts his scanty narrative, to relate the fable of Emona, and of the ship Argo; which was drawn overland from that place to the Hadriatic. Sozomen (1. viii. c. 25. 1. ix. war. The senators, as if they had been suddenly awakened from a dream of four hundred years, appeared on this important occasion to be inspired by the courage, rather than by the wisdom, of their predecessors. They loudly declared, in regular speeches, or in tumultuary acclamations, that it was unworthy of the majesty of Rome to purchase a precarious and disgraceful truce from a barbarian king; and that, in the judgment of a magnanimous people, the chance of ruin was always preferable to the certainty of dishonour. The minister, whose pacific intentions were seconded only by the voices of a few servile and venal followers, attempted to allay the general ferment, by an apology for his own conduct, and even for the demands of the Gothic prince. "The payment of a subsidy, which had excited the indignation of the Romans, ought not (such was the language of Stilicho) to be considered in the odious light, either of a tribute, or of a rausom, extorted by the menaces of a barbarian enemy. Alaric had faithfully asserted the just pretensions of the republic to the provinces which were usurped by the Greeks of Constantinople; he modestly required the fair and stipulated recompence of his services; and if he had desisted from the prosecution of his enterprise, he had obeyed, in his retreat, the peremptory, though private, letters of the emperor himself. These contradictory orders (he would not dissemble the errors of his own family) had been procured by the intercession of Serena. The tender piety of his wife had been too deeply affected by the discord of the royal brothers, the sons of her adopted father; and the sentiments of nature had too easily prevailed over the stern dictates of the public welfare." These ostensible reasons, which faintly disguise the obscure intrigues of the palace of Ravenna, were supported by the authority of Stilicho; and obtained, after a warm debate, the reluctant approbation of the senate The tumult of virtue and freedom subsided; and the sum of four thousand pounds of gold was granted, under the name of a subsidy, to secure the peace of Italy, and to conciliate the friendship of the king of the Goths. Lampadius alone, one of the most illustrious members of the assembly, still persisted in his dissent; exclaimed with a loud voice, “This is not a treaty of peace, but of servitude;"1 and escaped the danger of such bold opposition by immediately retiring to the sanctuary of a christian church. But the reign of Stilicho drew Intrigues of the towards its end; and the proud mi- palace, nister might perceive the symptoms of A. D. 408. May. his approaching disgrace. The generous boldness of Lampadius had been applauded; and the senate, so patiently resigned to a long servitude, rejected with disdain the offer of invidious and imaginary c. 4.) and Socrates, 1. vii. c. 10.) cast a pale and doubtful light; and Orosius (1. vii. c. 38. p. 571.) is abominably partial. 1 Zosimus, 1. v. p. 338, 339. He repeats the words of Lampadius as they were spoke in Latin, "Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis," and then translates them into Greek for the benefit of his readers. The as a tyrant, and proceeded on his way to the camp of Pavia; where he was received by the loyal acclamations of the troops who were assembled for the service of the Gallic war. On the morning of the fourth day, he pronounced, as he had been taught, a military oration in the presence of the soldiers, whom the charitable visits, and artful discourses, of Olympius had prepared to execute a dark and bloody conspiracy. At the first signal they massacred the friends of Stilicho, the most illustrious officers of the empire; two prætorian præfects, of Gaul, and of Italy; two masters-general, of the cavalry and infantry; the master of the offices; the quæstor, the treasurer, and the count of the domestics. Many lives were lost; many houses were plundered; the furious sedition continued to rage till the close of the evening; and the trembling emperor, who was seen in the streets of Pavia, without his robes or diadem, yielded to the persuasions of his favourite; condemned the memory of the slain; and solemnly approved the innocence and fidelity of their assassins. The intelligence of the massacre of Pavia filled the mind of Stilicho with just and gloomy apprehensions; and he instantly summoned, in the camp of Bologna, a council of the confederate leaders, who were attached to his service, and would be involved in his ruin. The impetuous voice of the assembly called aloud for arms, and for revenge; to march, without a moment's delay, under the banners of a hero, whom they had so often followed to victory; to surprise, to oppress, to extirpate the guilty Olympius, and his degenerate Romans; and perhaps to fix the diadem on the head of their injured general. Instead of executing a resolution, which might have been justified by success, Stilicho hesitated till he was irrecoverably lost. He was still ignorant of the fate of the emperor; he distrusted the fidelity of his own party; and he viewed with horror the fatal consequences of arming a crowd of licentious barbarians, against the soldiers and people of Italy. The confederates, impatient of his timorous and doubtful delay, hastily retired, with fear and indignation. At the hour of midnight, Sarus, a Gothic warrior, renowned among the barbarians themselves for his strength and valour, suddenly invaded the camp of his benefactor, plundered the baggage, cut freedom. The troops, who still assumed the name and prérogatives of the Roman legions, were exasperated by the partial affection of Stilicho for the barbarians; and the people imputed to the mischievous policy of the minister the public misfortunes, which were the natural consequence of their own degeneracy. Yet Stilicho might have continued to brave the clamours of the people, and even of the soldiers, if he could have maintained his dominion over the feeble mind of his pupil. But the respectful attachment of Honorius was converted into fear, suspicion, and hatred. The crafty Olympius, who concealed his vices under | the mask of christian piety, had secretly undermined the benefactor, by whose favour he was promoted to the honourable offices of the imperial palace. Olympius revealed to the unsuspecting emperor, who had attained the twenty-fifth year of his age, that he was without weight, or authority, in his own government; and artfully alarmed his timid and indolent disposition by a lively picture of the designs of Stilicho, who already meditated the death of his sovereign, with the ambitious hope of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucharius. emperor was instigated, by his new favourite, to assume the tone of independent dignity; and the minister was astonished to find, that secret resolutions were formed in the court and council, which were repugnant to his interest, or to his intentions. Instead of residing in the palace of Rome, Honorius declared, that it was his pleasure to return to the secure fortress of Ravenna. On the first intelligence of the death of his brother Arcadius, he prepared to visit Constantinople, and to regulate, with the authority of a guardian, the provinces of the infant Theodosius." The representation of the difficulty and expense of such a distant expedition, checked this strange and sudden sally of active diligence; but the dangerous project of showing the emperor to the camp of Pavia, which was composed of the Roman troops, the enemies of Stilicho, and his barbarian auxiliaries, remained fixed and unalterable. The minister was pressed, by the advice of his confidant Justinian, a Roman advocate, of a lively and penetrating genius, to oppose a journey so prejudicial to his reputation and safety. His strenuous, but ineffectual, efforts confirmed the triumph of Olympius; and the prudent lawyer with-in pieces the faithful Huns, who guarded his perdrew himself from the impending ruin of his patron. In the passage of the emperor Disgrace and death of Sti- through Bologna, a mutiny of the licho, A. D. 408. guards was excited and appeased by Aug. 23. the secret policy of Stilicho; who announced his instructions to decimate the guilty, and ascribed to his own intercession the merit of their pardon. After this tumult, Honorius embraced, for the last time, the minister whom he now considered m He came from the coast of the Euxine, and exercised a splendid office, λαμπρας δε τρατείας εν τοις βασιλείοις εξισμένος. His actions justify his character, which Zosimus (1. v. p. 340.) exposes with visible satisfaction. Augustin revered the piety of Olympius, whom he styles a true son of the church. (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A. D. 408. No. 19, &c. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 467, 468.) But these praises, son, and penetrated to the tent, where the minister, pensive and sleepless, meditated on the dangers of his situation. Stilicho escaped with difficulty from the sword of the Goths; and, after issuing a last and generous admonition to the cities of Italy, to shut their gates against the barbarians, his confidence, or his despair, urged him to throw himself into Ravenna, which was already in the absolute possession of his enemies. Olympius, who had which the African saint so unworthily bestows, might proceed, as well from ignorance, as from adulation. n Zosimus, l. v. p. 338, 339. Sozomen, 1. ix. c. 4. Stilicho offered to undertake the journey to Constantinople, that he might divert Honorius from the vain attempt. The eastern empire would not have obeyed, and could not have been conquered. assumed the dominion of Honorius, was speedily informed, that his rival had embraced, as a suppliant, the altar of the christian church. The base and cruel disposition of the hypocrite was incapable of pity or remorse; but he piously affected to elude, rather than to violate, the privilege of the sanctuary. Count Heraclian, with a troop of soldiers, appeared, at the dawn of day, before the gates of the church of Ravenna. The bishop was satisfied by a solemn oath, that the imperial mandate only directed them to secure the person of Stilicho: but, as soon as the unfortunate minister had been tempted beyond the holy threshold, he produced the warrant for his instant execution. Stilicho supported, with calm resignation, the injurious names of traitor and parricide; repressed the unseasonable zeal of his followers, who were ready to attempt an ineffectual rescue; and, with a firmness not unworthy of the last of the Roman generals, submitted his neck to the sword of Heraclian.° His memory per The servile crowd of the palace, who secuted. had so long adored the fortune of Stilicho, affected to insult his fall; and the most distant connexion with the master-general of the west, which had so lately been a title to wealth and honours, was studiously denied, and rigorously punished. His family, united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius, might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son Eucherius was intercepted; and the death of that innocent youth soon followed the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister Maria; and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the imperial bed. The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of Pavia, were persecuted by the implacable revenge of Olympius; and the most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession of a treasonable and sacrilegious conspiracy. They died in silence; their firmness justified the choice, and perhaps absolved the innocence, of their patron; and the despotic power, which could take his life without a trial, and stigmatize his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial suffrage of posterity. The services of Stilicho are great and manifest; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language of flattery and hatred, are obscure, at least, and improbable. About four . Zosimus (1. v. p. 336-345.) has copiously, though not clearly, re. lated the disgrace and death of Stilicho. Olympiodorus, (apud Phot. p. 177.) Orosius, (1. vii. c. 38. p. 571, 572.) Sozomen, (1. ix. c. 4.) and Philostorgius, (I. xi. c. 3. l. xii. c. 2.) afford supplemental hints. p Zosimus, 1. v. p. 333. The marriage of a christian with two sisters, scandalizes Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom v. p. 557.) who expects, in vain, that pope Innocent I. should have done something in the way either of censure or of dispensation. q Two of his friends are honourably mentioned, (Zosimus, 1. v. p. 346.) Peter, chief of the school of notaries, and the great chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the bed-chamber; and it is surprising, that, under a feeble prince, the bed-chamber was not able to secure him. Orosius (1. vii. c. 38. p. 571, 572.) seems to copy the false and furious manifestos, which were dispersed through the provinces by the new administration. s See the Theodosian code, 1. vii. tit. xvi. leg. 1. 1. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of prædo publicus, who employed his wealth, ad omnem ditandam, inquietandamque barbariem. t Augustin himself is satisfied with the effectual laws, which Stilicho had enacted against heretics and idolaters; and which are still extant in the Code. He only applies to Olympius for their confirmation. (Baronius. Anual. Eccles. A. D. 408. No. 19.) months after his death, an edict was published, in the name of Honorius, to restore the free communication of the two empires, which had been so long interrupted by the public enemy. The minister, whose fame and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state, was accused of betraying Italy to the barbarians; whom he repeatedly vanquished at Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended design of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius, could not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices; and the ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable, and almost miraculous, deliverance was devoutly celebrated by the applause of the clergy; who asserted that the restoration of idols, and the persecution of the church, would have been the first measure of the reign of Eucherius. The son of Stilicho, however, was educated in the bosom of christianity, which his father had uniformly professed, and zealously supported. Serena had borrowed her magnificent necklace from the statue of Vesta ;" and the pagans execrated the memory of the sacrilegious minister, by whose order the Sybilline books, the oracles of Rome, had been committed to the flames. The pride and power of Stilicho constituted his real guilt. An honourable reluctance to shed the blood of his countrymen, appears to have contributed to the success of his unworthy rival: and it is the last humiliation of the character of Honorius, that posterity has not condescended to reproach him with his base ingratitude to the guardian of his youth, and the support of his empire. dian. Among the train of dependents, The poet Clauwhose wealth and dignity attracted the notice of their own times, our curiosity is excited by the celebrated name of the poet Claudian, who enjoyed the favour of Stilicho, and was overwhelmed in the ruin of his patron. The titular offices of tribune and notary fixed his rank in the imperial court; he was indebted to the powerful intercession of Serena for his marriage with a very rich heiress of the province of Africa ;' and the statue of Claudian, erected in the forum of Trajan, was a monument of the taste and liberality of the Roman senate." u Zosimus, 1. v. p. 351. We may observe the bad taste of the age, in dressing their statues with such awkward finery. x See Rutilius Numatianus, (Itinerar. 1. ii. 41-60.) to whom religious enthusiasm has dictated some elegant and forcible lines. Stilicho likewise stripped the gold plates from the doors of the capitol, and read a prophetic sentence, which was engraven under them, (Zosimus, I. v. p. 352.) These are foolish stories; yet the charge of impiety adds weight and credit to the praise, which Zosimus reluctantly bestows, of his virtues. y At the nuptials of Orpheus (a modest comparison!) all the parts of animated nature contributed their various gifts; and the gods them selves enriched their favourite. Claudian had neither flocks nor herds, nor vines, or olives. His wealthy bride was heiress to them all. But he carried to Africa a recommendatory letter from Serena, his Juno, and was made happy. (Epist. ii. ad Serenam.) z Claudian feels the honour like a man who deserved it, (in præfat. Bell. Get.) The original inscription, on marble, was found at Rome, in the fifteenth century, in the house of Pomponius Lætus. The statue of a poet, far superior to Claudian, should have been erected, during his life-time, by the men of letters, his countrymen, and contemporaries. It was a noble design. |