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were violently impelled against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North.149

Sarmatians,

The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate War of the care the defence of the Rhætian and Illyrian provinces, Quadi and which spread so many hundred miles along the greatest A.D. 374. of the European rivers. The active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in adding new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but the abuse of this policy provoked the just resentment of the barbarians. The Quadi complained that the ground for an intended fortress had been marked out on their territories, and their complaints were urged with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius, master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution of the work till he should be more clearly informed of the will of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring a rival, and of advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the inhuman Maximin, the præfect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The passions of Valentinian were impatient of control, and he credulously listened to the assurances of his favourite, that, if the government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany, were insulted by the arrogance of a young and worthless minister, who considered his rapid elevation as the proof and reward of his superior merit. He affected, however, to receive the modest application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some attention and regard; but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary the narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the course of the same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was stained with the royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by their order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para, was the same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented in a very different manner by the servile temper of the Armenians and the free and daring spirit of the

149 The Gothic war is described by Ammianus (xxvii. 5), Zosimus (1. iv. [c. 10] p. 211-214), and Themistius (Orat. x. p. 129-141). The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the Visi-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name (Mascou's Hist. of the Germans, vii. 3).

288

WAR OF THE QUADI AND SARMATIANS.

CHAP. XXV.

Germans. The Quadi were much declined from that formidable power which, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage was animated by despair, and they obtained the usual reinforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian allies. So improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away to suppress the revolt of Firmus, and the whole province was exposed, with a very feeble defence, to the rage of the exasperated barbarians. They invaded Pannonia in the season of harvest, unmercifully destroyed every object of plunder which they could not easily transport, and either disregarded or demolished the empty fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by the active zeal of Messalla, governor of the provinces. As soon as he was informed that the village where she stopped only to dine was almost encompassed by the barbarians, he hastily placed her in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure if the Quadi and Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed Probus, the Prætorian præfect, sufficient time to recover his own spirits and to revive the courage of the citizens. He skilfully directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the decayed fortificatious, and procured the seasonable and effectual assistance of a company of archers to protect the capital of the Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the walls of Sirmium, the indignant barbarians turned their arms against the master-general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into the field no more than two legions, but they contained the veteran strength of the Mæsian and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy with which they disputed the vain honours of rank and precedency was the cause of their destruction, and, while they acted with separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and slaughtered by the active vigour of the Sarmatian horse. The success of this invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering tribes, and the province of Mæsia would infallibly have been lost if young Theodosius, the duke or military commander of the frontier, had not signalised, in the defeat

of the public enemy, an intrepid genius worthy of his illustrious father and of his future greatness. 150

The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Trèves, was deeply affected by the calamities of Illyricum, but the lateness of The the season suspended the execution of his designs till the expedition,

ensuing spring. He marched in person, with a consider- A.D. 375,

able part of the forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle; and to the suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way, he returned a doubtful answer, that as soon as he reached the scene of action he should examine and pronounce. When he arrived at Sirmium he gave audience to the deputies of the Illyrian provinces, who loudly congratulated their own felicity under the auspicious government of Probus, his Prætorian præfect.151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity,152 whether he was freely sent by the wishes of the province? "With tears and groans am I sent (replied Iphicles) by a reluctant people." The emperor paused, but the impunity of his ministers established the pernicious maxim that they might oppress his subjects without injuring his service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honour of the Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation and promiscuous massacre of a savage war were justified in the eyes of the emperor, and perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of retaliation;153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and the conster150 Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (1. iv. [c. 16] p. 219, 220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and Sarmatian war.

151 Ammianus (xxx. 5), who acknowledges the merit, has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and continued the Chronicle of Eusebius (A.D. 380; see Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. xii. p. 53, 626), he expressed the truth, or at least the public opinion of his country, in the following words: "Probus P. P. Illyrici iniquissimis tributorum "exactionibus, ante provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, erasit." (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187; Animadvers. p. 239.) The saint afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius, with less propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in

the text.

152 Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend Iphicles as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and manners of the Cynics.

153 Ammian. xxx. 5. Jerom, who exaggerates the misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation of revenge. Vastato genitali solo, et inultam patriam derelinquens (tom. i. p. 26 [Ep. ad Heliodor. tom. i. p. 341, ed. Vallars.]).

VOL. III.

U

290

DEATH OF VALENTINIAN,

CHAP. XXV.

nation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second campaign, he fixed his winterquarters at Bregetio, on the Danube, near the Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror, and, at the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne with bended bodies and dejected countenances, and, without daring to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some irregular robbers, which the public council of the nation condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude, their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his colour, his gestures, expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion a large blood-vessel suddenly burst in his body, and Valentinian fell speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care immediately concealed his and death, of situation from the crowd, but in a few minutes the emperor Valentinian, of the West expired in an agony of pain, retaining his senses till the last, and struggling, without success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four years of age, and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish the twelve years of his reign. 154

A.D. 875,
Nov. 17.

The

emperors

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The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an ecclesiastical historian. 155 "The empress Severa (I relate the fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely "Justina, the daughter of an Italian governor; her ad"miration of those naked charms, which she had often seen in the

Gratian,

and Valentinian II.

154 See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus (xxx. 6), Zosimus (1. iv. [c. 17] p. 221), Victor (in Epitom. [c. 45]), Socrates (1. iv. c. 31), and Jerom (in Chron. p. 187 [tom. viii. p. 815, ed. Vallars.], and tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodor. [tom. i. p. 341, ed. Vallars.]). There is much variety of circumstances among them; and Ammianus is so eloquent that he writes nonsense.

165 Socrates (1. iv. c. 31) is the only original witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy (Mém. de l'Académie, tom. xxx. p. 394–405). Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance of the bath, instead of following Zosimus, who represents Justina as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius."

"There seems to be no sufficient reason for rejecting the positive statement of Zosimus (iv. c. 19, 43), that Justina was the widow of Magnentius; though she must have been very young at the death

of her first husband, since Valentinian II.,
the son of her second marriage, was born
in A.D. 371, eighteen years after the death
Clinton, Fasti Rom.
of Magnentius.
vol. ii. p. 111.-S.

"bath, was expressed with such lavish and imprudent praise that the "emperor was tempted to introduce a second wife into his bed; and "his public edict extended to all the subjects of the empire the same "domestic privilege which he had assumed for himself." But we may be assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the two marriages of Valentinian with Severa and with Justina were successively contracted, and that he used the ancient permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws, though it was condemned by the church. Severa was the mother of Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the free and honourable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had attained the ninth year of his age the royal youth received from the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem, with the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by the consent and applause of the armies of Gaul,156 and the name of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens in all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his marriage with the grand-daughter of Constantine," the son of Valentinian acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian family, which, in a series of three Imperial generations, were sanctified by time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At the death of his father the royal youth was in the seventeenth year of his age, and his virtues already justified the favourable opinion of the army and people. But Gratian resided, without apprehension, in the palace of Treves, whilst at the distance of many hundred miles Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of Bregetio. The passions which had been so long suppressed by the presence of a master immediately revived in the Imperial council, and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an infant was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who 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 asserted the claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies by a bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was respectfully invited to appear in the camp with the son of the deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of Valentinian,

156 Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this military election, and august investiture. Valentinian does not appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.

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