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Division of the empire between Arcadius and Honorius, A.D. 395, January 17.
THE genius of Rome expired with Theodosius, the last of the
successors of Augustus and Constantine who appeared in the
field at the head of their armies, and whose authority was
universally acknowledged throughout the whole extent of the
empire. The memory of his virtues still continued, however,
to protect the feeble and inexperienced youth of his two
sons. After the death of their father, Arcadius and Honorius
were saluted, by the unanimous consent of mankind, as the
lawful emperors of the East and of the West; and the oath of
fidelity was eagerly taken by every order of the state, the
senates of old and new Rome, the clergy, the magistrates,
the soldiers, and the people. Arcadius, who then was about
eighteen years of age, was born in Spain in the humble
habitation of a private family. But he received a princely
education in the palace of Constantinople; and his
inglorious life was spent in that peaceful and splendid seat
of royalty, from whence he appeared to reign over the
provinces of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, from the
Lower Danube to the confines of Persia and Aetheopia. His
younger brother, Honorius, assumed, in the eleventh year of
his age, the nominal government of Italy, Africa, Gaul,
Spain, and Britain; and the troops which guarded the
frontiers of his kingdom were opposed, on one side, to the
Caledonians, and on the other to the Moors. The great and
martial praefecture of Illyricum was divided between the two
princes: the defence and possession of the provinces of
Noricum, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, still belonged to the
Western empire; but the two large dioceses of Dacia and
Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the valour of
Theodosius, were for ever united to the empire of the East.
The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line
which now separates the Germans and the Turks; and the
respective advantages of territory, riches, populousness,
and military strength, were fairly balanced and compensated
in this final and permanent division of the Roman empire The
hereditary sceptre of the sons of Theodosius appeared to be
the gift of nature and of their father; the generals and
ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the
royal infants and the army and people were not admonished of
their rights, and of their power, by the dangerous example
of a recent election. The gradual discovery of the weakness
of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated calamities of
their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep and
early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who
still reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their
sovereigns, beheld with equal abhorrence the rebels who
opposed, and the ministers who abused, the authority of the
throne.
Character and administration of Rufinus, A.D. 386-395
Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the
elevation of Rufinus, an odious favourite, who in an age of
civil and religious faction has deserved, from every party,
the imputation of every crime. The strong impulse of
ambition and avarice (1) had urged Rufinus to abandon his
native country, an obscure corner of Gaul,(2) to advance his
fortune in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and
ready elocution(3) qualified him to succeed in the lucrative
profession of the law; and his success in that profession
was a regular step to the most honourable and important
employments of the state. He was raised, by just degrees, to
the station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his
various functions, so essentially connected with the whole
system of civil government, he acquired the confidence of a
monarch who soon discovered his diligence and capacity in
business, and who long remained ignorant of the pride, the
malice, and the covetousness of his disposition. These vices
were concealed beneath the mask of profound dissimulation;(4)
his passions were subservient only to the passions of his
master; yet, in the horrid massacre of Thessalonica, the
cruel Rufinus inflamed the fury, without imitating the
repentance, of Theodosius. The minister, who viewed with
proud indifference the rest of mankind, never forgave the
appearance of an injury; and his personal enemies had
forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services.
Promotus, the master-general of the infantry, had saved the
empire from the invasion of the Ostrogoths; but he
indignantly supported the pre-eminence of a rival whose
character and profession he despised; and, in the midst of a
public council, the impatient soldier was provoked to
chastise with a blow the indecent pride of the favourite.
This act of violence was represented to the emperor as an
insult which it was incumbent on his dignity to resent. The
disgrace and exile of Promotus were signified by a
peremptory order to repair without delay to a military
station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of that
general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the
barbarians) was imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus.(5)
The sacrifice of an hero gratified his revenge; the honours
of the consulship elated his vanity; but his power was still
imperfect and precarious as long as the important posts of
praefect of the East, and of praefect of Constantinople,
were filled by Tatian (6) and his son Proculus, whose united
authority balanced for some time the ambition and favour of
the master of the offices. The two praefects were accused of
rapine and corruption in administration of the laws and
finances. For the trial of these illustrious offenders the
emperor constituted a special commission: several judges
were named to share the guilt and reproach of injustice; but
the right of pronouncing sentence was reserved to the
president alone, and that president was Rufinus himself. The
father, stripped of the praefecture of the East, was thrown
into a dungeon; but the son, conscious that few ministers
can be found innocent where an enemy is their judge, had
secretly escaped; and Rufinus must have been satisfied with
the least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not
condescended to employ the basest and most ungenerous
artifice. The prosecution was conducted with an appearance
of equity and moderation which flattered Tatian with the
hope of a favourable event: his confidence was fortified by
the solemn assurances and perfidious oaths of the president,
who presumed to interpose the sacred name of Theodosius
himself; and the unhappy father was at last persuaded to
recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proculus. He was
instantly seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded in one
of the suburbs of Constantinople, with a precipitation which
disappointed the clemency of the emperor. Without respecting
the misfortunes of a consular senator, the cruel judges of
Tatian compelled him to behold the execution of his son: the
fatal cord was fastened round his own neck; but in the
moment when he expected, and perhaps desired, the relief of
a speedy death, he was permitted to consume the miserable
remnant of his old age in poverty and exile. (7) The
punishment of the two praefects might perhaps be excused by
the exceptionable parts of their own conduct; the enmity of
Rufinus might be palliated by the jealous and unsociable
nature of ambition. But he indulged a spirit of revenge,
equally repugnant to prudence and to justice, when he
degraded their native country of Lycia from the rank of
Roman provinces, stigmatised a guiltless people with a mark
of ignominy, and declared that the countrymen of Tatian and
Proculus should for ever remain incapable of holding any
employment of honour or advantage under the Imperial
government.(8) The new praefect of the East (for Rufinus
instantly succeeded to the vacant honours of his adversary)
was not diverted, however, by the most criminal pursuits
from the performance of the religious duties which in that
age were considered as the most essential to salvation. In
the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, he had built a
magnificent villa, to which he devoutly added a stately
church consecrated to the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul,
and continually sanctified by the prayers and penance of a
regular society of monks. A numerous and almost general
synod of the bishops of the Eastern empire was summoned to
celebrate at the same time the dedication of the church and
the baptism of the founder. This double ceremony was
performed with extraordinary pomp; and when Rufinus was
purified in the holy font from all the sins that he had
hitherto committed, a venerable hermit of Egypt rashly
proposed himself as the sponsor of a proud and ambitious
statesman.(9)
He oppresses the East. A.D. 395
The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task
of hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the
abuse of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing
the indolent slumber of a prince still capable of exerting
the abilities and the virtue which had raised him to the
throne.(10) But the absence, and soon afterwards the death,
of the emperor confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus
over the person and dominions of Arcadius, a feeble youth,
whom the imperious praefect considered as his pupil, rather
than his sovereign. Regardless of the public opinion, he
indulged his passions without remorse and without
resistance; and his malignant and rapacious spirit rejected
every passion that might have contributed to his own glory
or the happiness of the people. His avarice,(11) which seems
to have prevailed in his corrupt mind over every other
sentiment, attracted the wealth of the East by the various
arts of partial and general extortion - oppressive taxes,
scandalous bribery, immoderate fines, unjust confiscations,
forced or fictitious testaments, by which the tyrant
despoiled of their lawful inheritance the children of
strangers or enemies; and the public sale of justice, as
well as of favour, which he instituted in the palace of
Constantinople. The ambitious candidate eagerly solicited,
at the expense of the fairest part of his patrimony, the
honours and emoluments of some provincial government; the
lives and fortunes of the unhappy people were abandoned to
the most liberal purchaser, and the public discontent was
sometimes appeased by the sacrifice of an unpopular
criminal, whose punishment was profitable only to the
praefect of the East, his accomplice and his judge. If
avarice were not the blindest of the human passions, the
motives of Rufinus might excite our curiosity, and we might
be tempted to inquire with what view he violated every
principle of humanity and justice to accumulate those
immense treasures which he could not spend without folly nor
possess without danger. Perhaps he vainly imagined that he
laboured for the interest of an only daughter, on whom he
intended to bestow his royal pupil and the august rank of
empress of the East. Perhaps he deceived himself by the
opinion that his avarice was the instrument of his ambition.
He aspired to place his fortune on a secure and independent
basis, which should no longer depend on the caprice of the
young emperor; yet he neglected to conciliate the hearts of
the soldiers and people by the liberal distribution of those
riches which he had acquired with so much toil and with so
much guilt. The extreme parsimony of Rufinus left him only
the reproach and envy of ill-gotten wealth; his dependents
served him without attachment; the universal hatred of
mankind was repressed only by the influence of servile fear.
The fate of Lucian proclaimed to the East that the praefect,
whose industry was much abated in the despatch of ordinary
business, was active and indefatigable in the pursuit of
revenge. Lucian, the son of the praefect Florentius, the
oppressor of Gaul and the enemy of Julian, had employed a
considerable part of his inheritance, the fruit of rapine
and corruption, to purchase the friendship of Rufinus and
the high office of count of the East. But the new magistrate
imprudently departed from the maxims of the court and of the
times, disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a
virtuous and temperate administration, and presumed to
refuse an act of injustice which might have tended to the
profit of the emperor's uncle. Arcadius was easily persuaded
to resent the supposed insult; and the praefect of the East
resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance which he
meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He
performed with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight
hundred miles from Constantinople to Antioch, entered the
capital of Syria at the dead of night, and spread universal
consternation among a people ignorant of his design, but not
ignorant of his character. The count of the fifteen
provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest
malefactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus.
Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity,
which was not impeached even by the voice of an accuser,
Lucian was condemned, almost without a trial, to suffer a
cruel and ignominious punishment. The ministers of the
tyrant, by the order and in the presence of their master,
beat him on the neck with leather thongs armed at the
extremities with lead; and when he fainted under the
violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter to
conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant
city. No sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman act,
the sole object of his expedition, than he returned, amidst
the deep and silent curses of a trembling people, from
Antioch to Constantinople; and his diligence was accelerated
by the hope of accomplishing, without delay, the nuptials of
his daughter with the emperor of the East.(12)
He is disappointed by the marriage of Arcadius, A.D. 395, April 27
But Rufinus soon experienced that a prudent minister should
constantly secure his royal captive by the strong, though
invisible, chain of habit; and that the merit, and much more
easily the favour of the absent, are obliterated in a short
time from the mind of a weak and capricious sovereign. While
the praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret
conspiracy of the favourite eunuchs, directed by the great
chamberlain Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of
Constantinople. They discovered that Arcadius was not
inclined to love the daughter of Rufinus, who had been
chosen without his consent for his bride, and they contrived
to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter of
Bauto,(13) a general of the Franks in the service of Rome,
and who was educated, since the death of her father, in the
family of the sons of Promotus. The young emperor, whose
chastity had been strictly guarded by the pious care of his
tutor Arsenius,(14) eagerly listened to the artful and
flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia; he gazed
with impatient ardour on her picture, and he understood the
necessity of concealing his amorous designs from the
knowledge of a minister who was so deeply interested to
oppose the consummation of his happiness. Soon after the
return of Rufinus, the approaching ceremony of the royal
nuptials was announced to the people of Constantinople, who
prepared to celebrate with false and hollow acclamations the
fortune of his daughter. A splendid train of eunuchs and
officers issued, in hymeneal pomp, from the gates of the
palace, bearing aloft the diadem, the robes, and the
inestimable ornaments of the future empress. The solemn
procession passed through the streets of the city, which
were adorned with garlands and filled with spectators; but
when it reached the house of the sons of Promotus, the
principal eunuch respectfully entered the mansion, invested
the fair Eudoxia with the Imperial robes, and conducted her
in triumph to the palace and bed of Arcadius.(15) The secrecy
and success with which this conspiracy against Rufinus had
been conducted imprinted a mark of indelible ridicule on the
character of a minister who had suffered himself to be
deceived, in a post where the arts of deceit and
dissimulation constitute the most distinguished merit. He
considered, with a mixture of indignation and fear, the
victory of an aspiring eunuch who had secretly captivated
the favour of his sovereign; and the disgrace of his
daughter, whose interest was inseparably connected with his
own, wounded the tenderness, or at least the pride, of
Rufinus. At the moment when he flattered himself that he
should become the father of a line of kings, a foreign maid,
who had been educated in the house of his implacable
enemies, was introduced into the Imperial bed; and Eudoxia
soon displayed a superiority of sense and spirit to improve
the ascendant which her beauty must acquire over the mind of
a fond and youthful husband. The emperor would soon be
instructed to hate, to fear, and to destroy the powerful
subject whom he had injured; and the consciousness of guilt
deprived Rufinus of every hope, either of safety or comfort,
in the retirement of a private life. But he still possessed
the most effectual means of defending his dignity, and
perhaps of oppressing his enemies. The praefect still
exercised an uncontrolled authority over the civil and
military government of the East; and his treasures, if he
could resolve to use them, might be employed to procure
proper instruments for the execution of the blackest designs
that pride, ambition, and revenge could suggest to a
desperate statesman. The character of Rufinus seemed to
justify the accusations that he conspired against the person
of his sovereign to seat himself on the vacant throne; and
that he had secretly invited the Huns and the Goths to
invade the provinces of the empire and to increase the
public confusion. The subtle praefect, whose life had been
spent in the intrigues of the palace, opposed with equal
arms the artful measures of the eunuch Eutropius; but the
timid soul of Rufinus was astonished by the hostile approach
of a more formidable rival, of the great Stilicho, the
general, or rather the master, of the empire of the West.(16)
Character of Stilicho, the minister, and general, of the Western empire.
The celestial gift, which Achilles obtained, and Alexander
envied, of a poet worthy to celebrate the actions of heroes,
has been enjoyed by Stilicho, in a much higher degree than
might have been expected from the declining state of genius
and of art. The muse of Claudian,(17) devoted to his service,
was always prepared to stigmatise his adversaries, Rufinus
or Eutropius, with eternal infamy; or to paint, in the most
splendid colours, the victories and virtues of a powerful
benefactor. In the review of a period indifferently supplied
with authentic materials, we cannot refuse to illustrate the
annals of Honorius from the invectives, or the panegyrics,
of a contemporary writer; but as Claudian appears to have
indulged the most ample privilege of a poet and a courtier,
some criticism will be requisite to translate the language
of fiction or exaggeration into the truth and simplicity of
historic prose. His silence concerning the family of
Stilicho may be admitted as a proof that his patron was
neither able nor desirous to boast of a long series of
illustrious progenitors, and the slight mention of his
father, an officer of barbarian cavalry in the service of
Valens, seems to countenance the assertion that the general
who so long commanded the armies of Rome was descended from
the savage and perfidious race of the Vandals. (18) If
Stilicho had not possessed the external advantages of
strength and stature, the most flattering bard, in the
presence of so many thousand spectators, would have
hesitated to affirm that he surpassed the measure of the
demigods of antiquity; and that, whenever he moved, with
lofty steps, through the streets of the capital, the
astonished crowd made room for the stranger, who displayed,
in a private condition, the awful majesty of a hero. From
his earliest youth he embraced the profession of arms; his
prudence and valour were soon distinguished in the field;
the horsemen and archers of the East admired his superior
dexterity; and in each degree of his military promotions,
the public judgment always prevented and approved the choice
of the sovereign. He was named by Theodosius to ratify a
solemn treaty with the monarch of Persia:; he supported,
during that important embassy, the dignity of the Roman
name; and after his return to Constantinople his merit was
rewarded by an intimate and honourable alliance with the
Imperial family. Theodosius had been prompted, by a pious
motive of fraternal affection, to adopt, for his own, the
daughter of his brother Honorius; the beauty and
accomplishments of Serena(19) were universally admired by the
obsequious court; and Stilicho obtained the preference over
a crowd of rivals who ambitiously disputed the hand of the
princess, and the favour of her adoptive father.(20) The
assurance that the husband of Serena would be faithful to
the throne which he was permitted to approach engaged the
emperor to exalt the fortunes, and to employ the abilities,
of the sagacious and intrepid Stilicho. His military command, A.D. 385-408. He rose through the
successive steps of master of the horse, and count of the
domestics, to the supreme rank of master-general of all the
cavalry and infantry of the Roman, or at least of the
Western, empire;(21) and his enemies confessed that he
invariably disdained to barter for gold the rewards of
merit, or to defraud the soldiers of the pay and
gratifications which they deserved or claimed from the
liberality of the state.(22) The valour and conduct which he
afterwards displayed in the defence of Italy against the
arms of Alaric and Radagaisus may justify the fame of his
early achievements; and in an age less attentive to the laws
of honour or of pride, the Roman generals might yield the
pre-eminence of rank to the ascendant of superior genius.(23)
He lamented and revenged the murder of Promotus, his rival
and his friend; and the massacre of many thousands of the
flying Bastarnae is represented by the poet as a bloody
sacrifice which the Roman Achilles offered to the names of
another Patroclus. The virtues and victories of Stilicho
deserved the hatred of Rufinus: and the arts of calumny
might have been successful, if the tender and vigilant
Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic
foes, whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of the
empire. (24) Theodosius continued to support an unworthy
minister, to whose diligence he delegated the government of
the palace and of the East; but when he marched against the
tyrant Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the
labours and glories of the civil war; and in the last
moments of his life the dying monarch recommended to
Stilicho the care of his son and of the republic.(25) The
ambition and the abilities of Stilicho were not unequal to
the important trust; and he claimed the guardianship of the
two empires during the minority of Arcadius and Honorius.(26)
The first measure of his administration, or rather of his
reign, displayed to the nations the vigour and activity of a
spirit worthy to command. He passed the Alps in the depth of
winter; descended the stream of the Rhine, from the fortress
of Basel to the marshes of Batavia; reviewed the state of
the garrisons; repressed the enterprises of the Germans;
and, after establishing along the banks a firm and
honourable peace, returned with incredible speed to the
palace of Milan. (27) The person and court of Honorius were
subject to the master. general of the West; and the armies
and provinces of Europe obeyed, without hesitation, a
regular authority, which was exercised in the name of their
young sovereign. Two rivals only remained to dispute the
claims, and to provoke the vengeance, of Stilicho. Within
the limits of Africa, Gildo, the Moor, maintained a proud
and dangerous independence; and the minister of
Constantinople asserted his equal reign over the emperor and
the empire of the East.
The fall and death of Rufinus,. A.D. 395, November 27th.
The impartiality which Stilicho affected, as the common
guardian of the royal brothers, engaged him to regulate the
equal division of the arms, the jewels, and the magnificent
wardrobe and furniture of the deceased emperor.(28) But the
most important object of the inheritance consisted of the
numerous legions, cohorts, and squadrons, of Romans or
barbarians, whom the event of the civil war had united under
the standard of Theodosius. The various multitudes of Europe
and Asia, exasperated by recent animosities, were overawed
by the authority of a single man; and the rigid discipline
of Stilicho protected the lands of the citizen from the
rapine of the licentious soldier.(29) Anxious, however, and
impatient to relieve Italy from the presence of this
formidable host, which could be useful only on the frontiers
of the empire, he listened to the just requisition of the
minister of Arcadius, declared his intention of reconducting
in person the troops of the East, and dexterously employed
the rumour of a Gothic tumult to conceal his private designs
of ambition and revenge. (30) The guilty soul of Rufinus was
alarmed by the approach of a warrior and a rival whose
enmity he deserved; he computed, with increasing terror, the
narrow space of his life and greatness; and, as the last
hope of safety, he interposed the authority of the emperor
Arcadius. Stilicho who appears to have directed his march along the
seacoast of the Hadriatic, was not far distant from the city
of Thessalonica when he received a peremptory message to
recall the troops of the East, and to declare that his
nearer approach would be considered, by the Byzantine court,
as an act of hostility. The prompt and unexpected obedience
of the general of the West convinced the vulgar of his
loyalty and moderation; and, as he had already engaged the
affection of the Eastern troops, he recommended to their
zeal the execution of his bloody design, which might be
accomplished in his absence, with less danger perhaps, and
with less reproach. Stilicho left the command of the troops
of the East to Gainas, the Goth, on whose fidelity he firmly
relied, with an assurance at least that the hardy barbarian
would never be diverted from his purpose by any
consideration of fear or remorse. The soldiers were easily
persuaded to punish the enemy of Stilicho and of Rome; and
such was the general hatred which Rufinus had excited, that
the fatal secret, communicated to thousands, was faithfully
preserved during the long march from Thessalonica to the
gates of Constantinople. As soon as they had resolved his
death, they condescended to flatter his pride; the ambitious
praefect was seduced to believe that those powerful
auxiliaries might be tempted to place the diadem on his
head; and the treasures which he distributed with a tardy
and reluctant hand were accepted by the indignant multitude
as an insult rather than as a gift. At the distance of a
mile from the capital, in the field of Mars, before the
palace of Hebdomon, the troops halted; and the emperor, as
well as his minister, advanced, according to ancient custom,
respectfully to salute the power which supported their
throne. As Rufinus passed along the ranks, and disguised,
with studied courtesy, his innate haughtiness, the wings
insensibly wheeled from the right and left, and enclosed the
devoted victim within the circle of their arms. Before he
could reflect on the danger of his situation, Gainas gave
the signal of death; a daring and forward soldier plunged
his sword into the breast of the guilty praefect, and
Rufinus fell, groaned, and expired, at the feet of the
affrighted emperor. If the agonies of a moment could expiate
the crimes of a whole life, or if the outrages inflicted on
a breathless corpse could be the object of pity, our
humanity might perhaps be affected by the horrid
circumstances which accompanied the murder of Rufinus. His
mangled body was abandoned to the brutal fury of the
populace of either sex, who hastened in crowds, from every
quarter of the city, to trample on the remains of the
haughty minister, at whose frown they had so lately
trembled. His right hand was cut off, and carried through
the streets of Constantinople, in cruel mockery, to extort
contributions for the avaricious tyrant, whose head was
publicly exposed, borne aloft on the point of a long lance.
(31) According to the savage maxims of the Greek republics,
his innocent family would have shared the punishment of his
crimes. The wife and daughter of Rufinus were indebted for
their safety to the influence of religion. Her sanctuary
protected them from the raging madness of the people; and
they were permitted to spend the remainder of their lives in
the exercises of Christian devotion in the peaceful
retirement of Jerusalem.(32)
Discord of the two empires, A.D. 396 etc
The servile poet of Stilicho applauds with ferocious joy
this horrid deed, which, in the execution, perhaps of
justice, violated every law of nature and society, profaned
the majesty of the prince, and renewed the dangerous
examples of military licence. The contemplation of the
universal order and harmony had satisfied Claudian of the
existence of the Deity; but the prosperous impunity of vice
appeared to contradict his moral attributes; and the fate of
Rufinus was the only event which could dispel the religious
doubts of the poet. (33) Such an act might vindicate the
honour of Providence; but it did not much contribute to the
happiness of the people. In less than three months they were
informed of the maxims of the new administration, by a
singular edict, which established the exclusive right of the
treasury over the spoils of Rufinus; they silenced, under
heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims of the subjects of
the Eastern empire who had been injured by his rapacious
tyranny.(34) Even Stilicho did not derive from the murder of
his rival the fruit which he had proposed; and though he
gratified his revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under
the name of a favourite, the weakness of Arcadius required a
master, but he naturally preferred the obsequious arts of
the eunuch Eutropius, who had obtained his domestic
confidence; and the emperor contemplated with terror and
aversion the stern genius of a foreign warrior. Till they
were divided by the jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas,
and the charms of Eudoxia, supported the favour of the great
chamberlain of the palace: the perfidious Goth, who was
appointed master-general of the East, betrayed, without
scruple, the interest of his benefactor; and the same troops
who had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho were
engaged to support, against him, the independence of the
throne of Constantinople. The favourites of Arcadius
fomented a secret and irreconcilable war against a
formidable hero, who aspired to govern and to defend the two
empires of Rome and the two sons of Theodosius. They
incessantly laboured, by dark and treacherous machinations,
to deprive him of the esteem of the prince, the respect of
the people, and the friendship of the barbarians. The life
of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the dagger of hired
assassins and a decree was obtained from the senate of
Constantinople, to declare him an enemy of the republic, and
to confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the
East. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of
the Roman name depended on the firm union and reciprocal aid
of all the nations to whom it had been gradually
communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were
instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other
in a foreign and even hostile light to rejoice in their
mutual calamities; and to embrace, as their faithful allies,
the barbarians whom they excited to invade the territories
of their countrymen. (35) The natives of Italy affected to
despise the servile and effeminate Greeks of Byzantium, who
presumed to imitate the dress, and to usurp the dignity, of
Roman senators;(36) and the Greeks had not yet forgot the
sentiments of hatred and contempt which their polished
ancestors had so long entertained for the rude inhabitants
of the West. The distinction of two governments, which soon
produced the separation of two nations, will justify my
design of suspending the series of the Byzantine history, to
prosecute, without interruption, the disgraceful but
memorable reign of Honorius.
Revolt of Gildo in Africa, A.D. 386-398.
The prudent Stilicho, instead of persisting to force the
inclinations of a prince and people who rejected his
government, wisely abandoned Arcadius to his unworthy
favourites; and his reluctance to involve the two empires in
a civil war displayed the moderation of a minister who had
so often signalised his military spirit and abilities. But
if Stilicho had any longer endured the revolt of Africa, he
would have betrayed the security of the capital, and the
majesty of the Western emperor, to the capricious insolence
of a Moorish rebel. Gildo, (37) the brother of the tyrant
Firmus, had preserved and obtained, as the reward of his
apparent fidelity, the immense patrimony which was forfeited
by treason; long and meritorious service in the armies of
Rome raised him to the dignity of a military count; the
narrow policy of the court of Theodosius had adopted the
mischievous expedient of supporting a legal government by
the interest of a powerful family and the brother of Firmus
was invested with the command of Africa. His ambition soon
usurped the administration of justice and of the finances,
without account and without control; and he maintained,
during a reign of twelve years, the possession of an office
from which it was impossible to remove him without the
danger of a civil war. During those twelve years the
provinces of Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant
who seemed to unite the unfeeling temper of a stranger with
the partial resentments of domestic faction. The forms of
law were often superseded by the use of poison; and if the
trembling guests who were invited to the table of Gildo
presumed to express their fears, the insolent suspicion
served only to excite his fury, and he loudly summoned the
ministers of death. Gildo alternately indulged the passions
of avarice and lust;(38) and if his days were terrible to the rich, his nights were not less dreadful to husbands and
parents. The fairest of their wives and daughters were
prostituted to the embraces of the tyrant; and afterwards
abandoned to a ferocious troop of barbarians and assassins,
the black or swarthy natives of the desert, whom Gildo
considered as the only guardians of his throne. In the civil
war between Theodosius and Eugenius, the count, or rather
the sovereign of Africa, maintained a haughty and suspicious
neutrality; refused to assist either of the contending
parties with troops or vessels, expected the declaration of
fortune, and reserved for the conqueror the vain professions
of his allegiance. Such professions would not have satisfied
the master of the Roman world: but the death of Theodosius,
and the weakness and discord of his sons, confirmed the
power of the Moor, who condescended, as a proof of his
moderation, to abstain from the use of the diadem and to
supply Rome with the customary tribute, or rather subsidy,
of corn. In every division of the empire, the five provinces
of Africa were invariably assigned to the West; and Gildo
had consented to govern that extensive country in the name
of Honorius but his knowledge of the character and designs
of Stilicho soon engaged him to address his homage to a more
distant and feeble sovereign. The ministers of Arcadius
embraced the cause of a perfidious rebel; and the delusive
hope of adding the numerous cities of Africa to the empire
of the East tempted them to assert a claim which they were
incapable of supporting either by reason or by arms(39)
He is condemned by the Roman senate, A.D. 397
When Stilicho had given a firm and decisive answer to the
pretensions of the Byzantine court, he solemnly accused the
tyrant of Africa before the tribunal which had formerly
judged the kings and nations of the earth; and the image of
the republic was revived, after a long interval, under the
reign of Honorius. The emperor transmitted an accurate and
ample detail of the complaints of the provincials, and the
crimes of Gildo, to the Roman senate; and the members of
that venerable assembly were required to pronounce the
condemnation of the rebel. Their unanimous suffrage declared
him the enemy of the republic; and the decree of the senate
added a sacred and legitimate sanction to the Roman arms.(40)
A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been
the masters of the world would have applauded, with
conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if
they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid
assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty
and greatness. The subsistence of Rome depended on the
harvests of Africa, and it was evident that a declaration of
war would be the signal of famine. The praefect Symmachus,
who presided in the deliberations of the senate, admonished
the minister of his just apprehension that, as soon as the
revengeful Moor should prohibit the exportation of corn, the
tranquillity, and perhaps the safety, of the capital would
be threatened by the hungry rage of a turbulent multitude.
(41) The prudence of Stilicho conceived, and executed without
delay, the most effectual measure for the relief of the
Roman people. A large and seasonable supply of corn,
collected in the inland provinces of Gaul, was embarked on
the rapid stream of the Rhone, and transported by an easy
navigation from the Rhone to the Tiber. During the whole
term of the African war, the granaries of Rome were
continually filled, her dignity was vindicated from the
humiliating dependence, and the minds of an immense people
were quieted by the calm confidence of peace and plenty.(42)
The African war, A.D. 398
The cause of Rome, and the conduct of the African war, were
intrusted by Stilicho to a general active and ardent to
avenge his private injuries on the head of the tyrant. The
spirit of discord which prevailed in the house of Nabal had
excited a deadly quarrel between two of his sons, Gildo and
Mascezel.(43) The usurper pursued, with implacable rage, the
life of his younger brother, whose courage and abilities he
feared; and Mascezel, oppressed by superior power, took
refuge in the court of Milan; where he soon received the
cruel intelligence that his two innocent and helpless
children had been murdered by their inhuman uncle. The
affliction of the father was suspended only by the desire of
revenge. The vigilant Stilicho already prepared to collect
the naval and military forces of the Western empire; and he
had resolved, if the tyrant should be able to wage an equal
and doubtful war, to march against him in person. But as
Italy required his presence, and as it might be dangerous to
weaken the defence of the frontier, he judged it more
advisable that Mascezel should attempt this arduous
adventure at the head of a chosen body of Gallic veterans,
who had lately served under the standard of Eugenius. These
troops, who were exhorted to convince the world that they
could subvert, as well as defend, the throne of an usurper,
consisted of the Jovian, the Herculian, and the Augustan
legions; of the Nervian auxiliaries; of the soldiers who
displayed in their banners the symbol of a lion; and of the
troops which were distinguished by the auspicious names of
Fortunate and Invincible. Yet such was the smallness of
their establishments, or the difficulty of recruiting, that
these seven bands, (44) of high dignity and reputation in the service of Rome, amounted to no more than five thousand
effective men.(45) The fleet of galleys and transports sailed
in tempestuous weather from the port of Pisa, in Tuscany,
and steered their course to the little island of Capraria,
which had borrowed that name from the wild goats, its
original inhabitants, whose place was now occupied by a new
colony of a strange and savage appearance. "The whole island
(says an ingenious traveller of those times) is filled, or
rather defiled, by men who fly from the light. They call
themselves Monks or solitaries, because they choose to live
alone, without any witnesses of their actions. They fear the
gifts of fortune, from the apprehension of losing them; and,
lest they should be miserable, they embrace a life of
voluntary wretchedness. How absurd is their choice! how
perverse their understanding! to dread the evils, without
being able to support the blessings, of the human condition.
Either this melancholy madness is the effect of disease, or
else the consciousness of guilt urges these unhappy men to
exercise on their own bodies the tortures which are
inflicted on fugitive slaves by the hand of justice."(46)
Such was the contempt of a profane magistrate for the monks
of Capraria, who were revered by the pious Mascezel as the
chosen servants of God. (47) Some of them were persuaded, by his entreaties, to embark on board the fleet; and it is
observed, to the praise of the Roman general, that his days
and nights were employed in prayer, fasting, and the
occupation of singing psalms. The devout leader, who with
such a reinforcement appeared confident of victory, avoided
the dangerous rocks of Corsica, coasted along the eastern
side of Sardinia, and secured his ships against the violence
of the south wind, by casting anchor in the safe and
capacious harbour of Cagliari, at the distance of one
hundred and forty miles from the African shores.(48)
Defeat and death of Gildo. A.D. 398
Gildo was prepared to resist the invasion with all the
forces of Africa. By the liberality of his gifts and
promises, he endeavoured to secure the doubtful allegiance
of the Roman soldiers, whilst he attracted to his standard
the distant tribes of Gaetulia and Ethiopia. He proudly
reviewed an army of seventy thousand men, and boasted, with
the rash presumption which is the forerunner of disgrace,
that his numerous cavalry would trample under their horses'
feet the troops of Mascezel, and involve, in a cloud of
burning sand, the natives of the cold regions of Gaul and
Germany.(49) But the Moor who commanded the legions of Honorius was too well acquainted with the manners of the
countrymen to entertain any serious apprehension of a naked
and disorderly host of barbarians, whose left arm, instead
of a shield, was protected only by a mantle; who were
totally disarmed as soon as they had darted the javelin from
their right hand; and whose horses had never been taught to
bear the control, or to obey the guidance, of the bridle. He
fixed his camp of five thousand veterans in the face of a
superior enemy, and, after the delay of three days, gave the
signal of a general engagement. (50) As Mascezel advanced
before the front with fair offers of peace and pardon, he
encountered one of the foremost standard-bearers of the
Africans, and, on his refusal to yield, struck him on the
arm with his sword. The arm and the standard sunk under the
weight of the blow, and the imaginary act of submission was
hastily repeated by all the standards of the line. At this
signal the disaffected cohorts proclaimed the name of their
lawful sovereign; the barbarians, astonished by the
defection of their Roman allies, dispersed, according to
their custom, in tumultuary flight; and Mascezel obtained
the honours of an easy and almost bloodless victory.(51) The
tyrant escaped from the field of battle to the sea-shore,
and threw himself into a small vessel, with the hope of
reaching in safety some friendly port of the empire of the
East; but the obstinacy of the wind drove him back into the
harbour of Tabraca,(52) which had acknowledged, with the rest
of the province, the dominion of Honorius, and the authority
of his lieutenant. The inhabitants, as a proof of their
repentance and loyalty, seized and confined the person of
Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him from the
intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured
and victorious brother. (53) The captives and the spoils of
Africa were laid at the feet of the emperor; but Stilicho,
whose moderation appeared more conspicuous and more sincere
in the midst of prosperity, still affected to consult the
laws of the republic, and referred to the senate and people
of Rome the judgment of the most illustrious criminals.(54)
Their trial was public and solemn; but the judges, in the
exercise of this obsolete and precarious jurisdiction, were
impatient to punish the African magistrates who had
intercepted the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich
and guilty province was oppressed by the Imperial ministers,
who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the
accomplices of Gildo; and if an edict of Honorius seems to
check the malicious industry of informers, a subsequent
edict, at the distance of ten years, continues and renews
the prosecution of the offences which had been committed in
the time of the general rebellion.(55) The adherents of the
tyrant who escaped the first fury of the soldiers and the
judges might derive some consolation from the tragic fate of
his brother, who could never obtain his pardon for the
extraordinary services which he had performed. After he had
finished an important war in the space of a single winter,
Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with loud
applause, affected gratitude, and secret jealousy;(56) and
his death, which perhaps was the effect of accident, has
been considered as the crime of Stilicho. In the passage of
a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied the
master-general of the West, was suddenly thrown from his
horse into the river; the officious haste of the attendants
was restrained by a cruel and perfidious smile which they
observed on the countenance of Stilicho; and while they
delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel
was irrecoverably drowned.(57)
Marriage and character of Honorius, A.D. 398
The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with
the nuptials of the emperor Honorius, and of his cousin
Maria, the daughter of Stilicho; and this equal and
honourable alliance seemed to invest the powerful minister
with the authority of a parent over his submissive pupil.
The muse of Claudian was not silent on this propitious day;
(58) he sung, in various and lively strains, the happiness of
the royal pair, and the glory of the hero who confirmed
their union and supported their throne. The ancient fables
of Greece, which had almost ceased to be the object of
religious faith, were saved from oblivion by the genius of
poetry. The picture of the Cyprian grove, the seat of
harmony and love; the triumphant progress of Venus over her
native seas, and the mild influence which her presence
diffused in the palace of Milan, express to every age the
natural sentiments of the heart in the just and pleasing
language of allegorical fiction. But the amorous impatience
which Claudian attributes to the young prince(59) must excite
the smiles of the court; and his beauteous spouse (if she
deserved the praise of beauty) had not much to fear or to
hope from the passions of her lover. Honorius was only in
the fourteenth year of his age; Serena, the mother of his
bride, deferred, by art or persuasion, the consummation of
the royal nuptials; Maria died a virgin, after she had been
ten years a wife; and the chastity of the emperor was
secured by the coldness, or perhaps the debility, of his
constitution.(60) His subjects, who attentively studied the
character of their young sovereign, discovered that Honorius
was without passions, and consequently without talents; and
that his feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable
of discharging the duties of his rank, or of enjoying the
pleasures of his age. In his early youth he made some
progress in the exercises of riding and drawing the bow; but
he soon relinquished these fatiguing occupations, and the
amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily
care of the monarch of the West,(61) who resigned the reins
of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian
Stilicho. The experience of history will countenance the
suspicion that a prince who was born in the purple received
a worse education than the meanest peasant of his dominions,
and that the ambitious minister suffered him to attain the
age of manhood without attempting to excite his courage or
to enlighten his understanding. (62) The predecessors of
Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at
least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the
dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their
motions through the provinces of the Roman world. But the
son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life a captive
in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient,
almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western
empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally
subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful
history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be
necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius.