Usurpation of Eugenius. the firm assurance that their pious brother, though he had not received the sacrament of baptism, was introduced, without difficulty, into the mansions of eternal bliss.111 The prudence of Arbogastes had prepared the success of his, A.D. 392-394 ambitious designs; and the provincials, in whose breasts every sentiment of patriotism or loyalty was extinguished, expected, with tame resignation, the unknown master, whom the choice of a Frank might place on the Imperial throne. But some remains of pride and prejudice still opposed the elevation of Arbogastes himself; and the judicious Barbarian thought it more advisable to reign under the name of some dependent Roman. He bestowed the purple on the rhetorician Eugenius ; 112 whom he had already raised from the place of his domestic secretary to the rank of master of the offices.112 In the course both of his private and public service, the count had always approved the attachment and abilities of Eugenius; his learning and eloquence, supported by the gravity of his manners, recommended him to the esteem of the people; and the reluctance with which he seemed to ascend the throne may inspire a favourable prejudice of his virtue and moderation. The ambassadors of the new emperor were immediately despatched to the court of Theodosius, to communicate, with affected grief, the unfortunate accident of the death of Valentinian; and, without mentioning the name of Arbogastes, to request that the monarch of the East would embrace, as his lawful colleague, the respectable citizen who had obtained the unanimous suffrage of the armies and provinces of the West.118 Theodosius was justly provoked that the perfidy of a Barbarian should have destroyed, in a moment, the labours and the fruit of his former victory; and he was excited by the tears of his beloved wife 114 to revenge the fate of her unhappy brother and once more to assert by 111 See c. 51, p. 1188; c. 75, P. 1193. Dom. Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 86), who owns that St. Ambrose most strenuously maintains the indispensable necessity of baptism, labours to reconcile the contradiction. 112 Quem [leg. hunc] sibi Germanus famulum delegerat exul, is the contemptuous expression of Claudian (iv. Cons. Hon. 74). Eugenius professed Christianity; but his secret attachment to Paganism (Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 22. Philostorg. 1. xi. c. 2) is probable in a grammarian, and would secure the friendship of Zosimus (1. iv. p. 276, 277 [c. 54]). [Gibbon has not sufficiently insisted on the paganism as part of the political programme of Eugenius (cp. chap. xxviii. n. 60).] 112 [This inference from Philostorgius (xi. 2, μáyɩorpos) is not certain.] 113 Zosimus (1. iv. p. 278 [c. 55]) mentions this embassy; but he is diverted by another story from relating the event. [But see c. 57 ad init.] 114 Συνετάραξεν ἡ τούτου γαμετὴ Γάλλα τὰ βασίλεια τὸν ἀδελφὸν ὀλοφυρομένη. Zosim, 1. iv. p. 277 [ib. He afterwards says (p. 280 [c. 57]) that Galla died in childbed; and intimates that the affliction of her husband was extreme, but short. 2 prepares for arms the violated majesty of the throne. But, as the second conquest of the West was a task of difficulty and danger, he dismissed, with splendid presents and an ambiguous answer, the ambassadors of Eugenius; and almost two years were consumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before he formed Theodosius any decisive resolution, the pious emperor was anxious to dis-war cover the will of Heaven; and, as the progress of Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona, he consulted an Egyptian monk, who possessed, in the opinion of the age, the gift of miracles and the knowledge of futurity. Eutropius, one of the favourite eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, embarked for Alexandria, from whence he sailed up the Nile as far as the city of Lycopolis, or of Wolves, in the remote province of Thebais. 115 In the neighbourhood of that city, and on the summit of a lofty mountain, the holy John 116 had constructed, with his own hands, an humble cell, in which he had dwelt above fifty years, without opening his door, without seeing the face of a woman, and without tasting any food that had been prepared by fire or any human art. Five days of the week he spent in prayer and meditation; but on Saturdays and Sundays he regularly opened a small window, and gave audience to the crowd of suppliants who successively flowed from every part of the Christian world. The eunuch of Theodosius approached the window with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the event of the civil war, and soon returned with a favourable oracle, which animated the courage of the emperor by the assurance of a bloody but infallible victory. 117 The accomplishment of the prediction was forwarded by all the means that human prudence could supply. The industry of the two master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed to recruit the numbers, and to revive the discipline, of the Roman legions. The formidable troops of Barbarians (starts May marched under the ensigns of their national chieftains. The 115 Lycopolis is the modern Siut, or Osiot, a town of Said, about the size of St. Denys, which drives a profitable trade with the kingdom of Sennaar, and has a very convenient fountain, cujus potu signa virginitatis eripiuntur. See D'Anville, Description de l'Egypte, p. 181. Abulfeda, Descript. Ægypt. p. 14, and the curious annotations, p. 25, 92, of his editor Michaelis. 116 The life of John of Lycopolis is described by his two friends, Rufinus (l. ii. c. i. p. 449) and Palladius (Hist. Lausiac. c. 43, p. 738) in Rosweyde's great Collection of the Vita Patrum. [See Acta Sctorum, 27 Mart. iii. 693 sqq.] Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 718, 720) has settled the Chronology. 117 Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 22. Claudian (in Eutrop. 1. i. 312) mentions the eunuch's journey: but he most contemptuously derides the Egyptian dreams and the oracles of the Nile, June 394] His victory over Eugenius. A.D. 394, Beptember [Wipbach] Iberian, the Arab, and the Goth, who gazed on each other with mutual astonishment, were enlisted in the service of the same prince; and the renowned Alaric acquired, in the school of Theodosius, the knowledge of the art of war which he afterwards so fatally exerted for the destruction of Rome.118 The emperor of the West, or, to speak more properly, his general Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of Maximus, how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of defence against a skilful antagonist, who was free to press or to suspend, to contract or to multiply, his various methods of attack.119 Arbogastes fixed his station on the confines of Italy: the troops of Theodosius were permitted to occupy without resistance the provinces of Pannonia as far as the foot of the Julian Alps; and even the passages of the mountains were negligently, or perhaps artfully, abandoned to the bold invader. He descended from the hills, and beheld, with some astonishment, the formidable camp of the Gauls and Germans that covered with arms and tents the open country which extends to the walls of Aquileia and the banks of the Frigidus,120 or Cold River. 121 This narrow theatre of the war, circumscribed by the Alps and the Hadriatic, did not allow much room for the operations of military skill; the spirit of Arbogastes would have disdained a pardon; his guilt extinguished the hope of a negotiation; and Theodosius was impatient to satisfy his glory and revenge by the chastisement of the assassins of Valentinian. Without weighing the 118 Zosimus, 1. iv. p. 280 [c. 57]. Socrates, 1. vii. 1o. Alaric himself (de Bell, Getico, 524) dwells with more complacency on his early exploits against the Romans. Tot Augustos Hebro qui teste fugavi. Yet his vanity could scarcely have proved this plurality of flying emperors. usurpers: ... Novitas audere priorem Suadebat; cautumque dabant exempla sequentem. Hic vagus excurrens; hic intra claustra reductus; 120 The Frigidus, a small though memorable stream in the country of Goretz, now called the Vipao [Wipbach], falls into the Sontius, or Lisonzo, above Aquileia, some miles from the Hadriatic. See D'Anville's Ancient and Modern Maps, and the Italia Antiqua of Cluverius (tom. i. p. 188). [Mr. Hodgkin thinks the battle was fought near Heidenschafft, i. p. 578.] 121 Claudian's wit is intolerable: the snow was dyed red; the cold river smoked; and the channel must have been choked with carcases, if the current had not been swelled with blood, natural and artificial obstacles that opposed his efforts, the emperor of the East immediately attacked the fortifications (sept. 5] of his rivals, assigned the post of honourable danger to the Goths, and cherished a secret wish that the bloody conflict might diminish the pride and numbers of the conquerors. Ten thousand of those auxiliaries, and Bacurius, general of the Iberians, died bravely on the field of battle. But the victory was not purchased by their blood; the Gauls maintained their advantage; and the approach of night protected the disorderly flight, or retreat, of the troops of Theodosius. The emperor retired to the adjacent hills; where he passed a disconsolate night, without sleep, without provisions, and without hopes; 122 except that strong assurance which, under the most desperate circumstances, the independent mind may derive from the contempt of fortune and of life. The triumph of Eugenius was celebrated by the insolent and dissolute joy of his camp; whilst the active and vigilant Arbogastes secretly detached a considerable body of troops, to occupy the passes of the mountains, and to encompass the rear of the Eastern army. The dawn of day discovered to the eyes of Theodosius the ex-tsept. 6] tent and the extremity of his danger: but his apprehensions were soon dispelled by a friendly message from the leaders of those troops, who expressed their inclination to desert the standard of the tyrant. The honourable and lucrative rewards, which they stipulated as the price of their perfidy, were granted without hesitation; and, as ink and paper could not easily be procured, the emperor subscribed, on his own tablets, the ratification of the treaty. The spirit of his soldiers was revived by this seasonable reinforcement; and they again marched with confidence, to surprise the camp of a tyrant whose principal officers appeared to distrust either the justice or the success of his arms. In the heat of the battle, a violent tempest, 123 122 Theodoret affirms that St. John and St. Philip appeared to the waking, or sleeping, emperor, on horseback, &c. This is the first instance of apostolio chivalry, which afterwards became so popular in Spain and in the Crusades. 123 Te propter, gelidis Aquilo de monte procellis These famous lines of Claudian (in iii. Cons. Honor. 93, &c. A.D. 396) are alleged by his contemporaries, Augustin and Orosius; who suppress the Pagan deity of olus; and add some circumstances from the information of eye-witnesses. Within four months after the victory, it was compared by Ambrose to the miraculous victories of Moses and Joshua. such as is often felt among the Alps, suddenly arose from the East. The army of Theodosius was sheltered by their position from the impetuosity of the wind, which blew a cloud of dust in the faces of the enemy, disordered their ranks, wrested their weapons from their hands, and diverted or repelled their ineffectual javelins. This accidental advantage was skilfully improved; the violence of the storm was magnified by the superstitious terrors of the Gauls; and they yielded without shame to the invisible powers of heaven, who seemed to militate on the side of the pious emperor. His victory was decisive; and the deaths of his two rivals were distinguished only by the difference of their characters. The rhetorician Eugenius, who had almost acquired the dominion of the world, was reduced to implore the mercy of the conqueror; and the unrelenting soldiers separated his head from his body, as he lay prostrate at the feet of Theodosius. Arbogastes, after the loss of a battle in which he had discharged the duties of a soldier and a general, wandered several days among the mountains. But, when he was convinced that his cause was desperate, and his escape impracticable, the intrepid Barbarian imitated the example of the ancient Romans, and turned his sword against his own breast. The fate of the empire was determined in a narrow corner of Italy, and the legitimate successor of the house of Valentinian embraced the archbishop of Milan, and graciously received the submission of the provinces of the West. Those provinces were involved in the guilt of rebellion; while the inflexible courage of Ambrose alone had resisted the claims of successful usurpation. With a manly freedom, which might have been fatal to any other subject, the archbishop rejected the gifts of Eugenius, declined to Florence] his correspondence, and withdrew himself from Milan, to avoid the odious presence of a tyrant, whose downfall he predicted in discreet and ambiguous language. The merit of Ambrose was applauded by the conqueror, who secured the attachment of the people by his alliance with the church; and the clemency of Theodosius is ascribed to the humane intercession of the archbishop of Milan. 124 124 The events of this civil war are gathered from Ambrose (tom. ii. epist. Ixii. p. 1022 [cp. Ep. 57]). Paulinus (in Vit. Ambros. c. 26-34), Augustin (de Civitat. Dei, v. 26), Orosius (1. vii. c. 35), Sozomen (1. vii. c. 24), Theodoret (1. v. c. 24), Zosimus (1. iv. p. 281, 282 [c. 58]), Claudian (in iii. Cons. Hon. 63-105, in iv, Cons. Hon. 70-117), and the Chronicles published by Scaliger. [See also Philqstorg. xi. 2; Socrates, v. 25; Victor, Epit.; and cp. Sievers, Studien, p. 326 sgg. Cp. Appendix 10.] |