to accept a privilege which they should ardently have solicited. A fine of three, or even five, pounds of gold, was imposed on the absent representatives; who seem to have declined this imaginary gift of a free constitution, as the last and most cruel insult | of their oppressors.

CHAP. XXXII.

Arcadius emperor of the east.—Administration and disgrace of Eutropius.—Revolt of Gainas.-Persecution of St. John Chrysostom.-Theodosius II. emperor of the east.-His sister Pulcheria.-His wife Eudocia.-The Persian war, and division of Armenia.

The empire of the east,

A. D. 395-1453.

dius,

A. D. 395-408.

the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, that glitter as they arc agitated by the motion of the carriage. The imperial pictures are white, on a blue ground: the emperor appears scated on his throne, with his arms, his horses, and his guards beside him, and his vanquished enemies in chains at his feet." The successors of Constantine established their perpetual residence in the royal city, which he had erected on the verge of Europe and Asia. Inaccessible 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 strength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hostile attempts of the barbarians. Their dominions were bounded by the Hadriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of twenty-five days' navigation, THE division of the Roman world bewhich separated the extreme cold of Scythia from tween the sons of Theodosius, marks the torrid zone of Ethiopia, was comprehended Reign of Arca- the final establishment of the empire within the limits of the empire of the east. The of the east, which, from the reign of populous countries of that empire were the seat of Arcadius to the taking of Constanti- art and learning, of luxury and wealth; and the nople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and inhabitants, who had assumed the language and fifty-eight years, in a state of premature and per- manners of Greeks, styled themselves, with some petual decay. The sovereign of that empire as- appearance of truth, the most enlightened and sumed, and obstinately retained, the vain, and at civilized portion of the human species. The form length fictitious, title of Emperor of the ROMANS; of government was a pure and simple monarchy; and the hereditary appellations of CÆSAR and AU-❘ the name of the ROMAN REPUBLIC, which so long GUSTUS Continued to declare, that he was the legiti-preserved a faint tradition of freedom, was conmate successor of the first of men who had reigned over the first of nations. The palace of Constantinople rivalled, and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia, and the eloquent sermons of St. Chrysostom a a celebrate, while they condemn, the❘ pompous luxury of the reign of Arcadius. "The emperor," says he, wears on his head either a diadem, or a crown of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value. These ornaments, and his purple garments, are reserved for his sacred person alone; and his robes of silk are embroidered with the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massy gold. Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers, his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the substance, or the appearance, of gold; and the large splendid boss in the midst of their shield, is encircled with smaller bosses, which represent the shape of the human eye. The two mules that draw the chariot of the monarch, are perfectly white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot itself, of pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators, who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size of

a Father Montfauçon, who, by the command of his Benedictine superiors, was compelled (see Longueruana, tom. i. p. 205.) to execute the laborious edition of St. Chrysostom, in thirteen volumes in folio, (Paris, 1738.) amused himself with extracting from that immense col. lection of morals some curious antiquities, which illustrate the manners of the Theodosian age. (See Chrysostom. Opera, tom. xiii. p. 192-196. and his French Dissertation, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, tom. xiii. p. 474-490.)

b According to the loose reckoning, that a ship could sail, with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the revolution of a day and night, Diodorus Siculus computes ten days from the Palus Mootis to Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to Alexandria. The navigation of

fined to the Latin provinces; and the princes of Constantinople measured their greatness by the servile obedience of their people. They were ignorant how much this passive disposition enervates and degrades every faculty of the mind. The subjects, who had resigned their will to the absolute commands of a master, were equally incapable of guarding their lives and fortunes against the assaults of the barbarians, or of defending their reason from the terrors of superstition.

The first events of the reign of Administration Arcadius and Honorius are so inti- and character of Eutropius, mately connected, that the rebellion of A. D. 395–399. the Goths, and the fall of Rufinus, have already claimed a place in the history of the west. It has already been observed, that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the new favourite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him to insult the laws, and, what is still more difficult and dangerous, the manners, of his country. Under the weakest of the predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been secret the Nile, from Alexandria to Syene, under the tropic of Cancer, re quired, as it was against the stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. 1. iii. p. 200. edit. Wesseling. He might, without much im. propriety, measure the extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he speaks of the Mootis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay within the polar circle.

e Barthius, who adored his author with the blind superstition of a commentator, gives the preference to the two books which Claudian composed against Eutropius, above all his other productions. (Baillet, Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p. 227.) They are indeed a very elegant and spirited satire; and would be more valuable in an historical light, if the invective were less vague, and more temperate.

of patrician, which began to signify, in a popular and even legal acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of a eunuch and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy h awakened, however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was rejected by the west, as an indelible stain to the annals of the republic; and, without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus, the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate,i sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two administrations.

and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves of Constantinople. He was promoted to the rank into the confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were confined to the menial service of the wardrobe and imperial bed-chamber. They might direct, in a whisper, the public counsels, and blast, by their malicious suggestions, the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of empire, or to profane the public honours of the state. Eutropius was the first of his artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal, to pronounce judgment, or to repeat elaborate harangues; and sometimes appeared on horseback, at the head of his troops, in the dress and armour of a hero. The disregard of custom and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor does Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design, by any superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such 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 subjects of Arcadius, were exasperated by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, who so perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject condition of servitude; that before he entered the imperial palace, he had been successively sold, and purchased, by an hundred masters, who had exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and at length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in private conversations, the vanity of the favourite was flattered with the most extraordinary honours. In the senate, in the capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were erected, in brass, or marble, decorated with the symbols of his civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title of the third founder

-Gaudet, cum viderit hostis,"

Et sentit jam deesse viros.

f The poet's lively description of his deformity (i. 110-125.) is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom; (tom. iii. p. 384. edit. Montfauçon;) who observes, that when the paint was washed away, the face of Eutropins 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 scarcely any interval between the youth and the decrepit age of a eunuch.

The bold and vigorous mind of His venality and Rufinus seems to have been actuated injustice. by a more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of the eunuch was not less insatiate than that of the præfect. As long as he despoiled the oppressors, who had enriched themselves with the plunder of the people, Eutropius might gratify his covetous disposition without much envy or injustice but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the wealth which had been acquired by lawful inheritance, or laudable industry. The usual methods of extortion were practised and improved; and Claudian has sketched a lively and original picture of the public auction of the state. "The impotence of the eunuch" (says that agreeable satirist) "has served only to stimulate his avarice: the same hand which, in his servile condition, was exercised in petty thefts, to unlock the coffers of his master, now grasps the riches of the world; and this infamous broker of the empire appreciates and divides the Roman provinces, from mount Hamus to the Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is made proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his wife's jewels; and a third laments, that he has exchanged his paternal estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antichamber of Eutropius, a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks the respective prices of the provinces. The different value of Pontus, of Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia may be obtained for so many thousand pieces of gold; but the opulence of Phrygia will require a more considerable sum. The eunuch wishes to obliterate, by the general dis

g Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia or Assyria.. His three services, which Claudian more particularly describes, were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of Ptolemy, a groom or soldier of the imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy gave him to the old general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully exercised the profession of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her marriage, to the daughter of Arintheus; and the future consul was employed to comb her hair, to present the silver ewer, to wash, and to fan his mistress in hot weather. See 1. i. 31-137.

h Claudian, (l. i. in Eutrop. 1-22.) after enumerating the various prodigies of monstrous births, speaking animals, showers of blood or stones, double suns, &c. adds, with some exaggeration,

Omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra, 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 exposed.

i Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whose civil honours, and philosophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian in a very elegant panegyric. k Metvwv de non τ λτ, drunk with riches, is the forcible expression of Zosimus; (1. v. p. 301.) and the avarice of Eutropius is equally execrated in the Lexicon of Suidas, and the Chronicle of Mar. cellinus. Chrysostom had often admonished the favourite, of the vanity and danger of immoderate wealth, tom. iii. p. 381,

m

grace, his personal ignominy; and as he has been | principal eunuch stood by the side of the throne to sold himself, he is desirous of selling the rest of suggest the questions and answers of his sovereign. mankind. In the eager contention, the balance, But as this form of trial might be deemed partial which contains the fate and fortunes of the pro- and arbitrary, the further inquiry into the crimes of vince, often trembles on the beam; and till one of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus and Prothe scales is inclined, by a superior weight, the copius; the former of consular rank, the latter mind of the impartial judge remains in anxious still respected as the father-in-law of the emperor suspense. Such" (continues the indignant poet) Valens. The appearances of a fair and legal pro"are the fruits of Roman valour, of the defeat of ceeding were maintained by the blunt honesty of Antiochus, and of the triumph of Pompey." This Procopius; and he yielded with reluctance to the venal prostitution of public honours secured the obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who proimpunity of future crimes; but the riches, which nounced a sentence of condemnation against the Eutropius derived from confiscation, were already unfortunate Timasius. His immense riches were stained with injustice; since it was decent to accuse, confiscated, in the name of the emperor, and for the and to condemn, the proprietors of the wealth which benefit of the favourite; and he was doomed to perhe was impatient to confiscate. Some noble blood petual exile at Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of was shed by the hand of the executioner; and the the sandy deserts of Libya.° Secluded from all most inhospitable extremities of the empire were human converse, the master-general of the Roman filled with innocent and illustrious exiles. Among armies was lost for ever to the world; but the cirthe generals and consuls of the east, cumstances of his fate have been related in a variRuin of Abun. dantius. Abundantius had reason to dread ous and contradictory manner. It is insinuated, the first effects of the resentment of Eutropius. He that Eutropius despatched a private order for his had been guilty of the unpardonable crime of in- secret execution. It was reported, that, in attempttroducing that abject slave to the palace of Con- ing to escape from Oasis, he perished in the desert, stantinople and some degree of praise must be of thirst and hunger; and that his dead body was allowed to a powerful and ungrateful favourite, who found on the sands of Libya. It has been asserted, was satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. with more confidence, that his son Syagrius, after Abundantius was stripped of his ample fortunes by successfully eluding the pursuit of the agents and an imperial rescript, and banished to Pityus, on the emissaries of the court, collected a band of African Euxine, the last frontier of the Roman world; where robbers; that he rescued Timasius from the place he subsisted by the precarious mercy of the barbari- of his exile; and that both the father and son disans, till he could obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, appeared from the knowledge of mankind. But a milder exile at Sidon in Phoenicia. The dethe ungrateful Bargus, instead of being suffered to struction of Timasius" required a possess the reward of guilt, was soon afterwards more serious and regular mode of at- circumvented and destroyed, by the more powerful tack. That great officer, the master-general of the villany of the minister himself; who retained sense armies of Theodosius, had signalized his valour by and spirit enough to abhor the instrument of his a decisive victory, which he obtained over the Goths own crimes. of Thessaly; but he was too prone, after the example of his sovereign, to enjoy the luxury of peace, and to abandon his confidence to wicked and de

of Timasius.

signing flatterers. Timasius had despised the public clamour, by promoting an infamous dependent to the command of a cohort; and he deserved to feel the ingratitude of Bargus, who was secretly instigated by the favourite to accuse his patron of a treasonable conspiracy. The general was arraigned before the tribunal of Arcadius himself; and the

1

certantum sæpe duorum

Diversum suspendit onus: cum pondere judex
Vergit, et in geminas nutat provincia lances.
Claudian (i. 192-209) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of
the sale, that they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.

m Claudian (i. 154-170.) mentions the guilt and exile of Abun. dantius, nor could he fail to quote the example of the artist, who made the first trial of the brazen bull, which he presented to Phalaris. See Zosimus, 1. v. p. 302. Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. The difference of place is easily reconciled; but the decisive authority of Asterius of Amasia, (Orat. iv. p. 76. apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 435.) must turn the scale in favour of Pityus..

Suidas (most probably from the history of Eunapius) has given a very unfavourable picture of Timasius. The account of his accuser, the judges, trial, &c. is perfectly agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern courts. (See Zosimus, I. v. p. 298-300.) I am almost tempted to quote the romance of a great master, (Fielding's Works, vol. iv. p. 49, &c. 8vo. edit.) which may be considered as the history of human

nature.

The great Oasis was one of the spots in the sands of Libya, watered with springs, and capable of producing wheat, barley, and palm-trees.

A. D. 397.

The public hatred, and the despair A cruel and unof individuals, continually threatened, just law of treason, or seemed to threaten, the personal Sept. 4. safety of Eutropius; as well as of the numerous adherents, who were attached to his fortune, and had been promoted by his venal favour. For their mutual defence, he contrived the safeguard of a law, which violated every principle of humanity and justice. I. It is enacted, in the name, and by the authority, of Arcadius, that all those who shall con

It was about three days' journey from north to south, about half a day
in breadth, and at the distance of about five days' march to the west of
Abydus, on the Nile. See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p.
186-188. The barren desert which encompasses Oasis (Zosimus, I. v.
p. 300.) has suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the epi.
thet of the happy island. (Herodot. iii. 26.)

p The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. I. i. 180.
Marmaricus claris violatur cædibus Hammon,

evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius.

q Sozomen, 1. viii. c. 7. He speaks from report, s TIVOS ETVbOUEY. r Zosimus, 1. v. p. 300. Yet he seems to suspect that this rumour was spread by the friends of Eutropius.

s See the Theodosian Code, 1. ix. tit. 14. ad legem Corneliam de Si cariis, leg. 3. and the Code of Justinian, 1. ix. tit. viii. ad legem Juliam de Majestate, leg. 5. The alteration of the title, from murder to trea. son, was an improvement of the subtle Tribonian. Godefroy, in a formal dissertation, which he has inserted in his Commentary, illustrates this law of Arcadius, and explains all the difficult passages which had been perverted by the jurisconsults of the darker ages. See tom. iii. p. 88-111.

conspiracies. Some of the noblest regulations of Roman jurisprudence have been suffered to expire; but this edict, a convenient and forcible engine of ministerial tyranny, was carefully inserted in the codes of Theodosius and Justinian; and the same maxims have been revived in modern ages, to protect the electors of Germany, and the cardinals of the church of Rome."

Rebellion of
Tribigild,
A. D. 399.

X

spire, either with subjects, or with strangers, against | conded, or who had not disclosed, these fictitious the lives of any of the persons whom the emperor considers as the members of his own body, shall be punished with death and confiscation. This species of fictitious and metaphorical treason is extended to protect, not only the illustrious officers of the state and army, who are admitted into the sacred consistory, but likewise the principal domestics of the palace, the senators of Constantinople, the military commanders, and the civil magistrates of the provinces: a vague and indefinite list, which, under the successors of Constantine, included an obscure and numerous train of subordinate ministers. II. This extreme severity might perhaps be justified, had it been only directed to secure the representatives of the sovereign from any actual violence in the exccution of their office. But the whole body of imperial dependents claimed a privilege, or rather impunity, which screened them, in the loosest moments of their lives, from the hasty, perhaps the justifiable, resentment of their fellow-citizens: and, by a strange perversion of the laws, the same degree of guilt and punishment was applied to a private quarrel, and to a deliberate conspiracy against the emperor and the empire. The edict of Arcadius most positively and most absurdly declares, that in such cases of treason, thoughts and actions ought to be punished with equal severity; that the knowledge of a mischievous intention, unless it be instantly revealed, becomes equally criminal with the intention itself; and that those rash men, who shall presume to solicit the pardon of traitors, shall themselves be branded with public and perpetual infamy. III. “With regard to the sons of the traitors,” (continues the emperor,) "although they ought to share the punishment, since they will probably imitate the guilt, of their parents; yet, by the special effect of our imperial lenity, we grant them their lives: but, at the same time, we declare them incapable of inheriting either on the father's or on the mother's side, or of receiving any gift or legacy, from the testament either of kinsmen or of strangers. Stigmatized with hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes of honours or fortune, let them endure the pangs of poverty and contempt, till they shall consider life as a calamity, and death as a comfort and relief." In such words, so well adapted to insult the feelings of mankind, did the emperor, or rather his favourite eunuch, applaud the moderation of a law, which transferred the same unjust and inhuman penalties to the children of all those who had se

u Godefroy, tom. iii. p. 89. It is, however, suspected, that this law, so repugnant to the maxims of Germanic freedom, has been surreptitiously added to the golden bull.

x A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he might have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by Zosimus (1. v. p. 304-312.) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas. See likewise Socrates, 1. vi. c. 6. and Sozomen, 1. viii. c. 4. The second book of Claudian against Eutropius, is a fine, though imperfect, piece of history.

Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed and dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the bold enterprise of Tribigild the Ostrogoth. The colony of that warlike nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of the most fertile districts of Phrygia, impatiently compared the slow returns of laborious husbandry with the successful rapine and liberal rewards of Alaric; and their leader resented, as a personal affront, his own ungracious reception in the palace of Constantinople. A soft and wealthy province, in the heart of the empire, was astonished by the sound of war; and the faithful vassal, who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a barbarian. The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid Marsyas and the winding Mæander,' were consumed with fire; the decayed walls of the city crumbled into dust, at the first stroke of an enemy; the trembling inhabitants escaped from a bloody massacre to the shores of the Hellespont; and a considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated by the rebellion of Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the resistance of the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in a narrow pass, between the city of Selgæ, a deep morass, and the craggy cliffs of mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of their bravest troops. But the spirit of their chief was not daunted by misfortune; and his army was continually recruited by swarms of barbarians and outlaws, who were desirous of exercising the profession of robbery, under the more honourable names of war and conquest. The rumours of the success of Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by flattery; yet they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital. Every misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious conjecture. Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country, the Romans were inclined to suppose that

y Claudian (in Eutrop. I. ii. 237-250.) very accurately observes, that the ancient name and nation of the Phrygians extended very far on every side, till their limits were contracted by the colonies of the Bithynians of Thrace, of the Greeks, and at last of the Gauls. His description (ii. 257-272.) of the fertility of Phrygia, and of the four rivers that produced gold, is just and picturesque.

z Xenophon. Anabasis, 1. i. p. 11, 12. edit. Hutchinson. Strabo, 1. xii. p. 865. edit. Amstel. Q. Curt. I. ii. c. I. Claudian compares the junction of the Marsyas and Mæander to that of the Saone and the Rhone with this difference, however, that the smaller of the Phrygian rivers is not accelerated, but retarded, by the larger.

a Selgæ, a colony of the Lacedæmonians, had formerly numbered twenty thousand citizens; but in the age of Zosimus it was reduced to a woλixvn, or small town. See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 117.