A.D. 431-440.

THE PERSIANS AND THE ROMANS.

169

gold and purple. The less fortunate nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and envied the honours of their equals, were provoked to negociate their peace and pardon at the Persian court; and, returning with their followers to the palace of Artaxata, acknowledged Chosroes" for their lawful sovereign. About thirty years afterwards, Artasires, the nephew and successor of Chosroes, fell under the displeasure of the haughty and capricious nobles of Armenia; and they unanimously desired a Persian governor in the room of an unworthy king. The answer of the archbishop Isaac, whose sanction they earnestly solicited, is expressive of the character of a superstitious people. He deplored the manifest and inexcusable vices of Artasires; and declared that he should not hesitate to accuse him before the tribunal of a Christian emperor, who would punish, without destroying, the sinner. "Our king," continued Isaac, "is too much "addicted to licentious pleasures, but he has been purified in the holy waters of baptism. He is a lover of women, but he does not "adore the fire or the elements. He may deserve the reproach of "lewdness, but he is an undoubted catholic; and his faith is pure, though his manners are flagitious. I will never consent to abandon my sheep to the rage of devouring wolves; and you would soon "repent your rash exchange of the infirmities of a believer, for the "specious virtues of an heathen." 85 Exasperated by the firmness of Isaac, the factious nobles accused both the king and the archbishop as the secret adherents of the emperor; and absurdly rejoiced in the sentence of condemnation, which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were degraded from the royal dignity, which they had possessed above

66

66

66

85 Moses Choren. 1. iii. c. 63, p. 316. According to the institution of St. Gregory, the Apostle of Armenia, the archbishop was always of the royal family; a circumstance which, in some degree, corrected the influence of the sacerdotal character, and united the mitre with the crown.

s6 A branch of the royal house of Arsaces still subsisted with the rank and possessions (as it should seem) of Armenian satraps. See Moses Choren. 1. iii. c. 65, p. 321.

a Chosroes, according to Procopius [de Edific. 1. iii. c. 1] (who calls him Arsaces, the common name of the Armenian kings) and the Armenian writers, bequeathed to his two sons, to Tigranes the Persian, to Arsaces the Roman, division of Armenia, A.D. 416. With the assistance of the discontented nobles the Persian king placed his son Sapor on the throne of the Eastern division; the Western at the same time was united to the Roman empire and called the Greater Armenia. It was then that Theodosiopolis was built. Sapor

abandoned the throne of Armenia to assert his rights to that of Persia: he perished in the struggle, and, after a period of anarchy, Bahram V., who had ascended the throne of Persia, placed the last native prince, Ardaschir, son of Bahram Schahpour, on the throne of the Persian division of Armenia. St. Martin, v. 506. This Ardaschir was the Artasires of Gibbon. The archbishop Isaac is called by the Armenians the Patriarch Sahag. St. Martin, vi. 29.-M.

five hundred and sixty years;87 and the dominions of the unfortunate Artasires, under the new and significant appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the form of a province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an amicable, though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of Armenia; and a territorial acquisition, which Augustus might have despised, reflected some lustre on the declining empire of the younger Theodosius.

67 Valarsaces was appointed king of Armenia by his brother the Parthian monarch, immediately after the defeat of Antiochus Sidetes (Moses Choren. 1. ii. c. 2, p. 85), one hundred and thirty years before Christ. Without depending on the various and contradictory periods of the reigns of the last kings, we may be assured that the ruin of the Armenian kingdom happened after the council of Chalcedon, A.D. 431 (1. iii. c. 61, p. 312); and under Varanes, or Bahram, king of Persia (1. iii. c. 64, p. 317), who reigned from A.D. 420 to 440. See Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396.a

a

According to St. Martin the duration of the Armenian kingdom was about 580 years, from B.C. 149 to A.D. 428. See St.

Martin, Mémoires sur l'Arménie, vol. i. p. 410, sqq., Notes to Le Beau, vol. vi. p. 32.-S.

A.D. 423.

LAST YEARS OF HONORIUS..

171

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DEATH OF HONORIUS. VALENTINIAN III. EMPEROR OF THE WEST. ADMINISTRATION OF HIS MOTHER PLACIDIA. AËTIUS AND BONIFACE. CONQUEST OF AFRICA BY THE VANDALS.

Last years

and death of

Honorius,

August 27.

DURING a long and disgraceful reign of twenty-eight years, Honorius, emperor of the West, was separated from the friendship of his brother, and afterwards of his nephew, who reigned over the East; and Constantinople beheld, with apparent in- A.D. 423, difference and secret joy, the calamities of Rome. The strange adventures of Placidia1 gradually renewed and cemented the alliance of the two empires. The daughter of the great Theodosius had been the captive and the queen of the Goths; she lost an affectionate husband; she was dragged in chains by his insulting assassin; she tasted the pleasure of revenge, and was exchanged, in the treaty of peace, for six hundred thousand measures of wheat. After her return from Spain to Italy, Placidia experienced a new persecution in the bosom of her family. She was averse to a marriage which had been stipulated without her consent; and the brave Constantius, as a noble reward for the tyrants whom he had vanquished, received, from the hand of Honorius himself, the struggling and reluctant hand of the widow of Adolphus. But her resistance ended with the ceremony of the nuptials; nor did Placidia refuse to become the mother of Honoria and Valentinian the Third, or to assume and exercise an absolute dominion over the mind of her grateful husband. The generous soldier, whose time had hitherto been divided between social pleasure and military service, was taught new lessons of avarice and ambition: he extorted the title of Augustus; and the servant of Honorius was associated to the empire of the West. The death of Constantius, in the seventh month of his reign, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase, the power of Placidia; and the indecent familiarity of her brother, which might be no more than the symptoms of

See p. 114, sqq.

a

2 Tà ouvexã xarà oróμa Qiλńμara, is the expression of Olympiodorus (apud Photium, p. 196 [p. 62 b, ed. Bekk.]; who means, perhaps, to describe the same caresses which Mahomet bestowed on his daughter Phatemah. Quando (says the prophet himself), quando subit mihi desiderium Paradisi, osculor eam, et ingero linguam meani

a Constantius married Placidia in A.D. 417, and died in 421.-S.

a childish affection, were universally attributed to incestuous love. On a sudden, by some base intrigues of a steward and a nurse, this excessive fondness was converted into an irreconcileable quarrel : the debates of the emperor and his sister were not long confined within the walls of the palace; and as the Gothic soldiers adhered to their queen, the city of Ravenna was agitated with bloody and dangerous tumults, which could only be appeased by the forced or voluntary retreat of Placidia and her children. The royal exiles landed at Constantinople, soon after the marriage of Theodosius, during the festival of the Persian victories. They were treated with kindness and magnificence; but as the statues of the emperor Constantius had been rejected by the Eastern court, the title of Augusta could not decently be allowed to his widow. Within a few months after the arrival of Placidia a swift messenger announced the death of Honorius, the consequence of a dropsy; but the important secret was not divulged till the necessary orders had been despatched for the march of a large body of troops to the sea-coast of Dalmatia. The shops and the gates of Constantinople remained shut during seven days; and the loss of a foreign prince, who could neither be esteemed nor regretted, was celebrated with loud and affected demonstrations of the public grief.

Elevation and fall of the usurper John,

4.D. 423-425.

While the ministers of Constantinople deliberated, the vacant throne of Honorius was usurped by the ambition of a stranger. The name of the rebel was John; he filled the confidential office of Primicerius, or principal secretary; and history has attributed to his character more virtues than can easily be reconciled with the violation of the most sacred duty. Elated by the submission of Italy, and the hope of an alliance with the Huns, John presumed to insult, by an embassy, the majesty of the Eastern emperor; but when he understood that his agents had been banished, imprisoned, and at length chased away with deserved ignominy, John prepared to assert by arms the injustice of his claims. In such a cause the grandson of the great Theodosius should. have marched in person; but the young emperor was easily diverted by his physicians from so rash and hazardous a design; and the conduct of the Italian expedition was prudently intrusted to Ardaburius and his son Aspar, who had already signalised their valour against the Persians. It was resolved that Ardaburius should embark with the infantry; whilst Aspar, at the head of the cavalry, conducted Placidia, and her son Valentinian, along the sea-coast of the Adriatic. The march of the

in os ejus. But this sensual indulgence was justified by miracle and mystery; and the anecdote has been communicated to the public by the Reverend Father Maracci, in his Version and Confutation of the Koran, tom. i. p. 32.

A.D. 425-455.

FALL OF THE USURPER JOHN.

173

cavalry was performed with such active diligence, that they surprised, without resistance, the important city of Aquileia; when the hopes of Aspar were unexpectedly confounded by the intelligence that a storm had dispersed the Imperial fleet, and that his father, with only two galleys, was taken and carried a prisoner into the port of Ravenna. Yet this incident, unfortunate as it might seem, facilitated the conquest of Italy. Ardaburius employed, or abused, the courteous freedom which he was permitted to enjoy, to revive among the troops a sense of loyalty and gratitude; and, as soon as the conspiracy was ripe for execution, he invited, by private messages, and pressed the approach of Aspar. A shepherd, whom the popular credulity transformed into an angel, guided the Eastern cavalry, by a secret, and, it was thought, an impassable road, through the morasses of the Po: the gates of Ravenna, after a short struggle, were thrown open; and the defenceless tyrant was delivered to the mercy, or rather to the cruelty, of the conquerors. His right hand was first cut off; and, after he had been exposed, mounted on an ass, to the public derision, John was beheaded in the circus of Aquileia. The emperor Theodosius, when he received the news of the victory, interrupted the horse-races; and singing, as he marched through the streets, a suitable psalm, conducted his people from the Hippodrome to the church, where he spent the remainder of the day in grateful devotion.3

4

emperor of

A.D. 425-455.

In a monarchy which, according to various precedents, might be considered as elective, or hereditary, or patrimonial, it was Valenimpossible that the intricate claims of female and collateral tinian III. succession should be clearly defined; and Theodosius, by the West, the right of consanguinity or conquest, might have reigned the sole legitimate emperor of the Romans. For a moment, perhaps, his eyes were dazzled by the prospect of unbounded sway; but his indolent temper gradually acquiesced in the dictates of sound policy. He contented himself with the possession of the East; and wisely relinquished the laborious task of waging a distant and doubtful war against the barbarians beyond the Alps, or of securing the obedience of the Italians and Africans, whose minds were alienated by the irreconcileable difference of language and interest. Instead of

3 For these revolutions of the Western empire consult Olympiodor. apud Phot. p. 192, 193, 196, 197, 200 [p. 61-63, ed. Bekk.]; Sozomen, 1. ix. c. 16; Socrates, 1. vii. 23, 24; Philostorgius, I. xii. c. 10, 11 [12-14], and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 486; Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 3, p. 182, 183 [ed. Paris; tom. i. p. 319 seqq. ed. Bonn]; Theophanes, in Chronograph. p. 72, 73 [ed. Par.; tom. i. p. 129-131, ed. Bonn]; and the Chronicles.

* See Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, 1. ii. c. 7. He has laboriously, but vainly, attempted to form a reasonable system of jurisprudence from the various and discordant modes of royal succession, which have been introduced by fraud or force, by time or accident.