till one of the scales is inclined, by a superior weight, the mind of the impartial judge remains in anxious suspense. Such (continues the indignant poet) are the fruits of Roman valour, of the defeat of Antiochus, and of the triumph of Pompey." This venal prostitution of public honours secured the impunity of future crimes; but the riches, which Eutropius derived from confiscation, were already stained with injustice; since it was decent to accuse, and to condemn, the proprietors of the wealth which he was impatient to confiscate. Some noble blood was shed by the hand of the executioner; and the most inhospitable extremities of the empire were filled with innocent and illustrious exiles. Among the generals and consuls of the east, AbundanAbundan- tius had reason to dread the first effects of the tius; resentment of Eutropius. He had been guilty of the unpardonable crime of introducing that abject slave to the palace of Constantinople: and some degree of praise must be allowed to a powerful and ungrateful favourite, who was satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. Abundantius was stripped of his ample fortune by an imperial rescript, and banished to Pityus, on the Euxine, the last frontier of the Roman world; where he subsisted by the precarious mercy of the barbarians, till he could obtain, after the fall of Eutropius, a milder exile at Sidon in Phoenicia. The destruction of Timasius" required a more serious

Ruin of

of Timasius.

1

m

-certantum sæpe duorum

Diversum suspendit onus: cum pondare judex

Vergit, et in geminas nutat provincia lances.

Claudian (1. 192-209.) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of the sale, that they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.

m Claudian (1. 154-170.) mentions the guilt and exile of Abundantius; 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, lib. 5. p. 302. Jerome, tom. 1. p. 26. The difference of place is easily reconciled; but the decisive authority of Asterius of Amasius (Orat. 4. p. 76. apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. 5. 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, lib. 5. p. 298-300.) I am almost tempted to quote the romance of a great master, (Fielding's Works, vol. 4. p. 49, &c. 8vo. edit.) which may be considered as the history of human nature.

and regular mode of attack. That great officer, the master-general of the armies of Theodosius, had signalized his valour by a decisive victory, which he obtained over the Goths 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 designing flatterers. Timasius had despised the public clamour, by promoting an infamous dependant 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 treasonable conspiracy. The general was arraigned before the tribunal of Arcadius himself; and the principal eunuch stood by the side of the throne to suggest the questions and answers of his sovereign. But as this form of trial might be deemed partial and arbitrary, the farther inquiry into the crimes of Timasius was delegated to Saturninus and Procopius; the former of consular rank, the latter still respected as the father-in-law of the emperor Valens. The appearances of a fair and legal proceeding were maintained by the blunt honesty of Procopius; and he yielded with reluctance to the obsequious dexterity of his colleague, who pronounced a sentence of condemnation against the unfortunate Timasius. His immense riches were confiscated, in the name of the emperor, and for the benefit of the favourite; and he was doomed to perpetual exile at Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of the sandy desarts of Libya." Secluded from all human converse, the master-general of the Roman armies was lost for ever to the world; but the circumstances of his fate have been related in a various and contradictory manner. It is insinuated, that Eutropius dispatched a private order for his secret exe

• 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. 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, lib. 5. p. 300.) has suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the epithet of the happy island. (Herodot. 3. 26.)

cution. It was reported, that, in attempting to escape from Oasis, he perished in the desert, of thirst and hunger; and that his dead body was found on the sands of Libya." It has been asserted, with more confidence, that his son Syagrius, after successively eluding the pursuit of the agents and emissaries of the court, collected a band of African robbers; that he rescued Timasius from the place of his exile; and that both the father and son disappeared from the knowledge of mankind. But the ungrateful Bargus, instead of being suffered to possess the reward of guilt, was soon afterward circumvented and destroyed, by the more powerful villany of the minister himself; who retained sense and spirit enough to abhor the instrument of his own crimes. The public hatred, and the despair of indiunjust law viduals, continually threatened, or seemed to A. D. 397. threaten, the personal safety of Eutropius; as Sep. 4. 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 conspire, either with subjects or with strangers, against 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,

A cruel and

of treason.

P The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. lib. 1. 180.

Marmaricus claris volatur cædibus Hammon, evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius.

a Sozomen, lib. 8. c. 7. He speaks from report, ws Tivos erudoμer.

r Zosimus, lib. 5. p. 300. Yet he seems to suspect that this rumour was spread by the friends of Eutropius.

See the Theodosian code, lib. 9. tit. 14. ad legem Corneliam de Sicariis, leg. 3. and the Code of Justinian, lib. 9. tit. 8. ad legem Juliam de Majestate, leg. 5. The alteration of the title from murder to treason, was an improvement of the subtle Tribonian. Godefroy, in a former 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. 3. p. 88-111.

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 execution of their office. But the whole body of imperial dependants 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,

'Bartolus understands a simple and naked consciousness, without any sign of approbation or concurrence. For this opinion, says Baldus, he is now roasting in hell. For my own part, continues the discreet Heineccius, (Element. Jur. Civil. lib. 4. p. 411.) I must approve the theory of Bartolus; but in practice I should incline to the sentiments of Baldus. Yet Bartolus was gravely quoted by the lawyers of cardinal Richelieu; and Eutropius was indirectly guilty of the murder of the virtuous de Thou.

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 seconded, or who had not disclosed, these fictitious 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

A.D.399.

Yet the sanguinary laws, which spread terror of Tribi- among a disarmed and dispirited people, were gild. of too weak a texture to restrain the bold enterprise of Tribigild the Ostrogoth. The colony of the 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

"Godefroy, tom. 3. 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.

A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he might have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by Zosimus (lib. 5. p. 304--312.) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas. See likewise Socrates, lib. 6. c. 6. and Sozomen, lib. 8. c. 4. The second book of Claudian against Eutropius, is a fine, though imperfect, piece of history.

Claudian (in Eutrop. lib. 2. 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 (2. 257-272.) of the fertility of Phrygia, and of the four rivers that produced gold, is just and picturesque.