CHAP. of reigning in the name of an infant, was artfully XXV. executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who camp, commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They contrived the most honourable pretences to remove the popular leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have afferted the claims of the lawful fucceffor: they fuggefted the neceflity of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a bold and decifive measure. The emprefs Juftina, who had been left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was respectfully invited to appear in the with the fon of the deceased emperor. On the fixth day after the death of Valentinian, the infant prince of the fame name, who was only four years old, was fhewn, in the arms of his mother, to the legions; and folemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the titles and enfigns of fupreme power. The impending dangers of a civil war were feasonably prevented by the wife and moderate conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the choice of the army; declared, that he fhould always confider the fon of Juftina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the emprefs, with her fon Valentinian, to fix their refidence at Milan, in the fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he affumed the more arduous command of the coun tries beyond the Alps. Gratian diffembled his refentment till he could fafely punish, or difgrace, the authors of the confpiracy; and though he uniformly behaved with tendernefs and regard to his infant colleague, he gradually confounded, XXV. in the administration of the Western empire, the CHAP. 157 Ammianus, XXX. 10. Zofimus, 1. iv. p. 222, 223. Tillemont has proved (Hift. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707–709.), that Gratian reigned in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have endeavoured to express his authority over his brother's dominions, as he ufed it, in an ambiguous ftyle. СНАР. Earth- CHAP. XXVI. Manners of the Paftoral Nations.-Progress of the Huns, from China to Europe.-Flight of the Goths. -They pass the Danube.-Gothic War.-Defeat and Death of Valens.-Gratian invests Theodofius with the Eastern Empire.-His Character and Succefs.-Peace and Settlement of the Goths. N the fecond year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the morning of the twentyfirst day of July, the greatest part of the Roman world was fhaken by a violent and deftructive earthquake. The impreffion was communicated to the waters; the fhores of the Mediterranean were left dry, by the fudden retreat of the sea; great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large veffels were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator' amufed his eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance of vallies and mountains, which had never, fince the formation of the globe, been expofed to the fun. But the tide foon returned, with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was feverely felt on the coafts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or Such is the bad tafte of Ammianus (xxvi. to.), that it is not easy to diflinguith his facts from his metaphors. Yet he pofitively affirms, that he faw the rotten carcafe of a ship, ad fecundum lapidem, at Methone, or Modon, in Peloponnefus. at the distance of two miles from the fhore; the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty thousand perfons had loft their lives in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was magnified from one province to another, aftonished and terrified the fubjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the preceding earthquakes, which had fubverted the cities of Palestine and Bithynia: they confidered these alarming ftrokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and their fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a declining empire, and a finking world. It was the fashion of the times, to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an invisible chain, with the moral and metaphyfical opinions of the human mind; and the most fagacious divines could diftinguish, according to the colour of their respective prejudices, that the establishment of herefy tended to produce an earthquake; or that a deluge was 2 The earthquakes and inundations are variously described by Libanius (Orat. de ulcifcendâ Juliani nece, c. x. in Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p. 158. with a learned note of Olearius), Zofimus (1. iv. p. 221.), Sozomen (1. vi. c. 2.), Cedrenus (p. 310. 314.), and Jerom (in Chron. p. 186. and tom. i. p. 250. in Vit. Hilarion.). Epidaurus must have been overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the fign of the crofs. The mountain wave stopped, bowed, and returned. CHA P. XXVI. XXVI. CHAP. the inevitable confequence of the progress of fr and error. Without prefuming to difcufs the truth or propriety of thefe lofty fpeculations, the hiftorian may content himself with an obfervation, which feems to be juftified by experience, that man has much more to fear from the pasfions of his fellow-creatures, than from the convulfions of the elements 3. The mifchievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane, or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconfiderable proportion to the ordinary calamities of war; as they are now moderated by the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse their own leifure, and exercife the courage of their fubjects, in the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of modern nations protect the fafety and freedom of the vanquished foldier; and the peaceful citizen has feldom reafon to complain, that his life, or even his fortune, is expofed to the rage of war. In the difaftrous period of the fall of the Roman empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness and fecurity of each individual were perfonally attacked; and the arts and labours of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of The Huns Scythia and Germany. The invafion of the Huns precipitated on the provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in lefs than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way, by the fuccefs of their arms, and Goths, A. D. 376. 3 Dicæarchus, the Peripatetic, compofed a formal treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most honourable to the human fpecies (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5). to |