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Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part I.
Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace
Of Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division
Of Armenia.
Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part II. Chapter XXXII: Emperors Arcadius, Eutropius, Theodosius II.—Part III. |
Arcadius Emperor Of The East.—Administration And Disgrace
Of Eutropius.—Revolt Of Gainas.—Persecution Of St. John
Chrysostom.—Theodosius II. Emperor Of The East.—His Sister
Pulcheria.—His Wife Eudocia.—The Persian War, And Division
Of Armenia.
The division of the Roman world between the sons of Theodosius marks the final establishment of the empire of the East, which, from the reign of Arcadius to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, subsisted one thousand and fifty-eight years, in a state of premature and perpetual decay. The sovereign of that empire assumed, and obstinately retained, the vain, and at length fictitious, title of Emperor of the Romans; and the hereditary appellation of Caesar and Augustus continued to declare, that he was the legitimate successor of the first of men, who had reigned over the first of nations. The place of Constantinople rivalled, and perhaps excelled, the magnificence of Persia; and the eloquent sermons of St. Chrysostom 1 celebrate, while they condemn, the pompous luxury of the reign of Arcadius. "The emperor," says he, "wears on his head either a diadem, or a crown of gold, decorated with precious stones of inestimable value. These ornaments, and his purple garments, are reserved for his sacred person alone; and his robes of silk are embroidered with the figures of golden dragons. His throne is of massy gold. Whenever he appears in public, he is surrounded by his courtiers, his guards, and his attendants. Their spears, their shields, their cuirasses, the bridles and trappings of their horses, have either the substance or the appearance of gold; and the large splendid boss in the midst of their shield is encircled with smaller bosses, which represent the shape of the human eye. The two mules that drew the chariot of the monarch are perfectly white, and shining all over with gold. The chariot itself, of pure and solid gold, attracts the admiration of the spectators, who contemplate the purple curtains, the snowy carpet, the size of the precious stones, and the resplendent plates of gold, that glitter as they are agitated by the motion of the carriage. The Imperial pictures are white, on a blue ground; the emperor appears seated on his throne, with his arms, his horses, and his guards beside him; and his vanquished enemies in chains at his feet." The successors of Constantine established their perpetual residence in the royal city, which he had erected on the verge of Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received, with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate; while the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hostile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were bounded by the Adriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of twenty-five days' navigation, which separated the extreme cold of Scythia from the torrid zone of Aethiopia, 2 was comprehended within the limits of the empire of the East. The populous countries of that empire were the seat of art and learning, of luxury and wealth; and the inhabitants, who had assumed the language and manners of Greeks, styled themselves, with some appearance of truth, the most enlightened and civilized portion of the human species. The form of government was a pure and simple monarchy; the name of the Roman Republic, which so long preserved a faint tradition of freedom, was confined to the Latin provinces; and the princes of Constantinople measured their greatness by the servile obedience of their people. They were ignorant how much this passive disposition enervates and degrades every faculty of the mind. The subjects, who had resigned their will to the absolute commands of a master, were equally incapable of guarding their lives and fortunes against the assaults of the Barbarians, or of defending their reason from the terrors of superstition.
1 (return)
[ Father Montfaucon, who, by the command of his Benedictine
superiors, was compelled (see Longueruana, tom. i. p. 205) to execute
the laborious edition of St. Chrysostom, in thirteen volumes in
folio, (Paris, 1738,) amused himself with extracting from that immense
collection of morals, some curious antiquities, which illustrate the
manners of the Theodosian age, (see Chrysostom, Opera, tom. xiii. p.
192-196,) and his French Dissertation, in the Memoires de l'Acad. des
Inscriptions, tom. xiii. p. 474-490.]
2 (return)
[ According to the loose reckoning, that a ship could sail,
with a fair wind, 1000 stadia, or 125 miles, in the revolution of a day
and night, Diodorus Siculus computes ten days from the Palus Moeotis to
Rhodes, and four days from Rhodes to Alexandria. The navigation of the
Nile from Alexandria to Syene, under the tropic of Cancer, required, as
it was against the stream, ten days more. Diodor. Sicul. tom. i. l. iii.
p. 200, edit. Wesseling. He might, without much impropriety, measure
the extreme heat from the verge of the torrid zone; but he speaks of the
Moeotis in the 47th degree of northern latitude, as if it lay within the
polar circle.]
The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so intimately connected, that the rebellion of the Goths, and the fall of Rufinus, have already claimed a place in the history of the West. It has already been observed, that Eutropius, 3 one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished, and whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the new favorite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him to insult the laws, and, what is still more difficult and dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were confined to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial bed-chamber. They might direct, in a whisper, the public counsels, and blast, by their malicious suggestions, the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of empire, 4 or to profane the public honors of the state. Eutropius was the first of his artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment, or to repeat elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on horseback, at the head of his troops, in the dress and armor of a hero. The disregard of custom and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor does Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design by any superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, perhaps, than hatred, to a public character. The subjects of Arcadius were exasperated by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, 6 who so perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject condition of servitude; that before he entered the Imperial palace, he had been successively sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and at length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. 7 While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in private conversation, the vanity of the favorite was flattered with the most extraordinary honors. In the senate, in the capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were erected, in brass, or marble, decorated with the symbols of his civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title of the third founder of Constantinople. He was promoted to the rank of patrician, which began to signify in a popular, and even legal, acceptation, the father of the emperor; and the last year of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of a eunuch and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy 8 awakened, however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was rejected by the West, as an indelible stain to the annals of the republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus, the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate, 9 sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two administrations.
3 (return)
[ Barthius, who adored his author with the blind superstition
of a commentator, gives the preference to the two books which Claudian
composed against Eutropius, above all his other productions, (Baillet
Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p. 227.) They are indeed a very elegant
and spirited satire; and would be more valuable in an historical light,
if the invective were less vague and more temperate.]
4 (return)
[ After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the Roman
palace, and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds,
A fronte recedant.
Imperii.
—-In Eutrop. i. 422.
Yet it does not appear that the eunuchs had assumed any of the efficient offices of the empire, and he is styled only Praepositun sacri cubiculi, in the edict of his banishment. See Cod. Theod. l. leg 17.
Jamque oblita sui, nec sobria divitiis mens
In miseras leges hominumque negotia ludit
Judicat eunuchus.......
Arma etiam violare parat......
Claudian, (i. 229-270,) with that mixture of indignation and humor which always pleases in a satiric poet, describes the insolent folly of the eunuch, the disgrace of the empire, and the joy of the Goths.
Gaudet, cum viderit, hostis,
Et sentit jam deesse viros.]
6 (return)
[ The poet's lively description of his deformity (i. 110-125)
is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom, (tom. iii. p.
384, edit Montfaucon;) who observes, that when the paint was washed away
the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly and wrinkled than that of an
old woman. Claudian remarks, (i. 469,) and the remark must have been
founded on experience, that there was scarcely an interval between the
youth and the decrepit age of a eunuch.]
7 (return)
[ Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia or
Assyria. His three services, which Claudian more particularly describes,
were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of Ptolemy, a groom
or soldier of the Imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy gave him to the old
general Arintheus, for whom he very skilfully exercised the profession
of a pimp. 3. He was given, on her marriage, to the daughter of
Arintheus; and the future consul was employed to comb her hair, to
present the silver ewer to wash and to fan his mistress in hot weather.
See l. i. 31-137.]
8 (return)
[ Claudian, (l. i. in Eutrop. l.—22,) after enumerating
the various prodigies of monstrous births, speaking animals, showers of
blood or stones, double suns, &c., adds, with some exaggeration,
Omnia cesserunt eunucho consule monstra.
The first book concludes with a noble speech of the goddess of Rome to her favorite Honorius, deprecating the new ignominy to which she was exposed.]
9 (return)
[ Fl. Mallius Theodorus, whose civil honors, and
philosophical works, have been celebrated by Claudian in a very elegant
panegyric.]
The bold and vigorous mind of Rufinus seems to have been actuated by a more sanguinary and revengeful spirit; but the avarice of the eunuch was not less insatiate than that of the praefect. 10 As long as he despoiled the oppressors, who had enriched themselves with the plunder of the people, Eutropius might gratify his covetous disposition without much envy or injustice: but the progress of his rapine soon invaded the wealth which had been acquired by lawful inheritance, or laudable industry. The usual methods of extortion were practised and improved; and Claudian has sketched a lively and original picture of the public auction of the state. "The impotence of the eunuch," says that agreeable satirist, "has served only to stimulate his avarice: the same hand which in his servile condition, was exercised in petty thefts, to unlock the coffers of his master, now grasps the riches of the world; and this infamous broker of the empire appreciates and divides the Roman provinces from Mount Haemus to the Tigris. One man, at the expense of his villa, is made proconsul of Asia; a second purchases Syria with his wife's jewels; and a third laments that he has exchanged his paternal estate for the government of Bithynia. In the antechamber of Eutropius, a large tablet is exposed to public view, which marks the respective prices of the provinces. The different value of Pontus, of Galatia, of Lydia, is accurately distinguished. Lycia may be obtained for so many thousand pieces of gold; but the opulence of Phrygia will require a more considerable sum. The eunuch wishes to obliterate, by the general disgrace, his personal ignominy; and as he has been sold himself, he is desirous of selling the rest of mankind. In the eager contention, the balance, which contains the fate and fortunes of the province, often trembles on the beam; and 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 valor, of the defeat of Antiochus, and of the triumph of Pompey." This venal prostitution of public honors 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, Abundantius 12 had reason to dread the first effects of the 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 favorite, who was satisfied with the disgrace of his benefactor. Abundantius was stripped of his ample fortunes 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 13 required a more serious and regular mode of attack. That great officer, the master-general of the armies of Theodosius, had signalized his valor 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 clamor, 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 favorite to accuse his patron of a 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 further 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 favorite; and he was doomed to perpetual exile a Oasis, a solitary spot in the midst of the sandy deserts of Libya. 14 Secluded from all human converse, the master-general of the Roman armies was lost forever to the world; but the circumstances of his fate have been related in a various and contradictory manner. It is insinuated that Eutropius despatched a private order for his secret execution. 15 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. 16 It has been asserted, with more confidence, that his son Syagrius, after successfully 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 the son disappeared from the knowledge of mankind. 17 But the ungrateful Bargus, instead of being suffered to possess the reward of guilt was soon after 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.
10 (return)
[ Drunk with riches, is the forcible expression of Zosimus,
(l. v. p. 301;) and the avarice of Eutropius is equally execrated in the
Lexicon of Suidas and the Chronicle of Marcellinus Chrysostom had often
admonished the favorite of the vanity and danger of immoderate wealth,
tom. iii. p. 381. -certantum saepe duorum Diversum suspendit onus: cum
pondere judex Vergit, et in geminas nutat provincia lances. Claudian (i.
192-209) so curiously distinguishes the circumstances of the sale, that
they all seem to allude to particular anecdotes.]
12 (return)
[ Claudian (i. 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, l. v. p. 302. Jerom, tom. i. p. 26. The difference of place
is easily reconciled; but the decisive authority of Asterius of Amasia
(Orat. iv. p. 76, apud Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 435)
must turn the scale in favor of Pityus.]
13 (return)
[ Suidas (most probably from the history of Eunapius)
has given a very unfavorable 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, l. v. p. 298, 299, 300.) I
am almost tempted to quote the romance of a great master, (Fielding's
Works, vol. iv. p. 49, &c., 8vo. edit.,) which may be considered as the
history of human nature.]
14 (return)
[ 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, 187, 188. The barren desert which encompasses Oasis (Zosimus, l.
v. p. 300) has suggested the idea of comparative fertility, and even the
epithet of the happy island ]
15 (return)
[ The line of Claudian, in Eutrop. l. i. 180,
Marmaricus claris violatur caedibus Hammon,
evidently alludes to his persuasion of the death of Timasius. * Note: A fragment of Eunapius confirms this account. "Thus having deprived this great person of his life—a eunuch, a man, a slave, a consul, a minister of the bed-chamber, one bred in camps." Mai, p. 283, in Niebuhr. 87—M.]
16 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. viii. c. 7. He speaks from report.]
17 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 300. Yet he seems to suspect that this
rumor was spread by the friends of Eutropius.]
The public hatred, and the despair of individuals, continually threatened, or seemed to threaten, the personal safety of Eutropius; as well as of the numerous adherents, who were attached to his fortune, and had been promoted by his venal favor. For their mutual defence, he contrived the safeguard of a law, which violated every principal of humanity and justice. 18 I. It is enacted, in the name, and by the authority of Arcadius, that all those who should 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, who were 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 edicts 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; 19 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, from the testament either of kinsmen or of strangers. Stigmatized with hereditary infamy, excluded from the hopes of honors 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 favorite 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, their 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. 20
18 (return)
[ See the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 14, ad legem
Corneliam de Sicariis, leg. 3, and the Code of Justinian, l. ix. tit.
viii, viii. 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 formal 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. iii. p. 88-111.]
19 (return)
[ 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 l. iv. 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.]
20 (return)
[ Godefroy, tom. iii. 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.]
Yet these sanguinary laws, which spread terror among a disarmed and dispirited people, were of too weak a texture to restrain the bold enterprise of Tribigild 21 the Ostrogoth. The colony of that warlike nation, which had been planted by Theodosius in one of the most fertile districts of Phrygia, 22 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 the faithful vassal who had been disregarded or oppressed, was again respected, as soon as he resumed the hostile character of a Barbarian. The vineyards and fruitful fields, between the rapid Marsyas and the winding Maeander, 23 were consumed with fire; the decayed walls of the cities crumbled into dust, at the first stroke of an enemy; the trembling inhabitants escaped from a bloody massacre to the shores of the Hellespont; and a considerable part of Asia Minor was desolated by the rebellion of Tribigild. His rapid progress was checked by the resistance of the peasants of Pamphylia; and the Ostrogoths, attacked in a narrow pass, between the city of Selgae, 24 a deep morass, and the craggy cliffs of Mount Taurus, were defeated with the loss of their bravest troops. But the spirit of their chief was not daunted by misfortune; and his army was continually recruited by swarms of Barbarians and outlaws, who were desirous of exercising the profession of robbery, under the more honorable names of war and conquest. The rumors of the success of Tribigild might for some time be suppressed by fear, or disguised by flattery; yet they gradually alarmed both the court and the capital. Every misfortune was exaggerated in dark and doubtful hints; and the future designs of the rebels became the subject of anxious conjecture. Whenever Tribigild advanced into the inland country, the Romans were inclined to suppose that he meditated the passage of Mount Taurus, and the invasion of Syria. If he descended towards the sea, they imputed, and perhaps suggested, to the Gothic chief, the more dangerous project of arming a fleet in the harbors of Ionia, and of extending his depredations along the maritime coast, from the mouth of the Nile to the port of Constantinople. The approach of danger, and the obstinacy of Tribigild, who refused all terms of accommodation, compelled Eutropius to summon a council of war. 25 After claiming for himself the privilege of a veteran soldier, the eunuch intrusted the guard of Thrace and the Hellespont to Gainas the Goth, and the command of the Asiatic army to his favorite, Leo; two generals, who differently, but effectually, promoted the cause of the rebels. Leo, 26 who, from the bulk of his body, and the dulness of his mind, was surnamed the Ajax of the East, had deserted his original trade of a woolcomber, to exercise, with much less skill and success, the military profession; and his uncertain operations were capriciously framed and executed, with an ignorance of real difficulties, and a timorous neglect of every favorable opportunity. The rashness of the Ostrogoths had drawn them into a disadvantageous position between the Rivers Melas and Eurymedon, where they were almost besieged by the peasants of Pamphylia; but the arrival of an Imperial army, instead of completing their destruction, afforded the means of safety and victory. Tribigild surprised the unguarded camp of the Romans, in the darkness of the night; seduced the faith of the greater part of the Barbarian auxiliaries, and dissipated, without much effort, the troops, which had been corrupted by the relaxation of discipline, and the luxury of the capital. The discontent of Gainas, who had so boldly contrived and executed the death of Rufinus, was irritated by the fortune of his unworthy successor; he accused his own dishonorable patience under the servile reign of a eunuch; and the ambitious Goth was convicted, at least in the public opinion, of secretly fomenting the revolt of Tribigild, with whom he was connected by a domestic, as well as by a national alliance. 27 When Gainas passed the Hellespont, to unite under his standard the remains of the Asiatic troops, he skilfully adapted his motions to the wishes of the Ostrogoths; abandoning, by his retreat, the country which they desired to invade; or facilitating, by his approach, the desertion of the Barbarian auxiliaries. To the Imperial court he repeatedly magnified the valor, the genius, the inexhaustible resources of Tribigild; confessed his own inability to prosecute the war; and extorted the permission of negotiating with his invincible adversary. The conditions of peace were dictated by the haughty rebel; and the peremptory demand of the head of Eutropius revealed the author and the design of this hostile conspiracy.
21 (return)
[ A copious and circumstantial narrative (which he might
have reserved for more important events) is bestowed by Zosimus (l.
v. p. 304-312) on the revolt of Tribigild and Gainas. See likewise
Socrates, l. vi. c. 6, and Sozomen, l. viii. c. 4. The second book
of Claudian against Eutropius, is a fine, though imperfect, piece of
history.]
22 (return)
[ Claudian (in Eutrop. l. ii. 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 Bithvnians of Thrace, of the Greeks, and at last of the
Gauls. His description (ii. 257-272) of the fertility of Phrygia, and of
the four rivers that produced gold, is just and picturesque.]
23 (return)
[ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 11, 12, edit. Hutchinson.
Strabo, l. xii p. 865, edit. Amstel. Q. Curt. l. iii. c. 1. Claudian
compares the junction of the Marsyas and Maeander to that of the Saone
and the Rhone, with this difference, however, that the smaller of the
Phrygian rivers is not accelerated, but retarded, by the larger.]
24 (return)
[ Selgae, a colony of the Lacedaemonians, had formerly
numbered twenty thousand citizens; but in the age of Zosimus it was
reduced to a small town. See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq tom. ii. p.
117.]
25 (return)
[ The council of Eutropius, in Claudian, may be compared to
that of Domitian in the fourth Satire of Juvenal. The principal members
of the former were juvenes protervi lascivique senes; one of them had
been a cook, a second a woolcomber. The language of their original
profession exposes their assumed dignity; and their trifling
conversation about tragedies, dancers, &c., is made still more
ridiculous by the importance of the debate.]
26 (return)
[ Claudian (l. ii. 376-461) has branded him with infamy; and
Zosimus, in more temperate language, confirms his reproaches. L. v. p.
305.]
27 (return)
[ The conspiracy of Gainas and Tribigild, which is attested
by the Greek historian, had not reached the ears of Claudian, who
attributes the revolt of the Ostrogoth to his own martial spirit, and
the advice of his wife.]
The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the partial and passionate censure of the Christian emperors, violates the dignity, rather than the truth, of history, by comparing the son of Theodosius to one of those harmless and simple animals, who scarcely feel that they are the property of their shepherd. Two passions, however, fear and conjugal affection, awakened the languid soul of Arcadius: he was terrified by the threats of a victorious Barbarian; and he yielded to the tender eloquence of his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears, presenting her infant children to their father, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult, which she imputed to the audacious eunuch. 28 The emperor's hand was directed to sign the condemnation of Eutropius; the magic spell, which during four years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly dissolved; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit and fortune of the favorite, were converted into the clamors of the soldiers and people, who reproached his crimes, and pressed his immediate execution. In this hour of distress and despair, his only refuge was in the sanctuary of the church, whose privileges he had wisely or profanely attempted to circumscribe; and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom, enjoyed the triumph of protecting a prostrate minister, whose choice had raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might be distinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic discourse on the forgiveness of injuries, and the instability of human greatness. The agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch, who lay grovelling under the table of the altar, exhibited a solemn and instructive spectacle; and the orator, who was afterwards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius, labored to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the fury, of the people. 29 The powers of humanity, of superstition, and of eloquence, prevailed. The empress Eudoxia was restrained by her own prejudices, or by those of her subjects, from violating the sanctuary of the church; and Eutropius was tempted to capitulate, by the milder arts of persuasion, and by an oath, that his life should be spared. 30 Careless of the dignity of their sovereign, the new ministers of the palace immediately published an edict to declare, that his late favorite had disgraced the names of consul and patrician, to abolish his statues, to confiscate his wealth, and to inflict a perpetual exile in the Island of Cyprus. 31 A despicable and decrepit eunuch could no longer alarm the fears of his enemies; nor was he capable of enjoying what yet remained, the comforts of peace, of solitude, and of a happy climate. But their implacable revenge still envied him the last moments of a miserable life, and Eutropius had no sooner touched the shores of Cyprus, than he was hastily recalled. The vain hope of eluding, by a change of place, the obligation of an oath, engaged the empress to transfer the scene of his trial and execution from Constantinople to the adjacent suburb of Chalcedon. The consul Aurelian pronounced the sentence; and the motives of that sentence expose the jurisprudence of a despotic government. The crimes which Eutropius had committed against the people might have justified his death; but he was found guilty of harnessing to his chariot the sacred animals, who, from their breed or color, were reserved for the use of the emperor alone. 32
28 (return)
[ This anecdote, which Philostorgius alone has preserved,
(l xi. c. 6, and Gothofred. Dissertat. p. 451-456) is curious and
important; since it connects the revolt of the Goths with the secret
intrigues of the palace.]
29 (return)
[ See the Homily of Chrysostom, tom. iii. p. 381-386, which
the exordium is particularly beautiful. Socrates, l. vi. c. 5. Sozomen,
l. viii. c. 7. Montfaucon (in his Life of Chrysostom, tom. xiii. p. 135)
too hastily supposes that Tribigild was actually in Constantinople; and
that he commanded the soldiers who were ordered to seize Eutropius
Even Claudian, a Pagan poet, (praefat. ad l. ii. in Eutrop. 27,) has
mentioned the flight of the eunuch to the sanctuary.
Suppliciterque pias humilis prostratus ad aras,
Mitigat iratas voce tremente nurus,]
30 (return)
[ Chrysostom, in another homily, (tom. iii. p. 386,) affects
to declare that Eutropius would not have been taken, had he not deserted
the church. Zosimus, (l. v. p. 313,) on the contrary, pretends, that his
enemies forced him from the sanctuary. Yet the promise is an evidence of
some treaty; and the strong assurance of Claudian, (Praefat. ad l. ii.
46,) Sed tamen exemplo non feriere tuo, may be considered as an evidence
of some promise.]
31 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xi. leg. 14. The date of that
law (Jan. 17, A.D. 399) is erroneous and corrupt; since the fall
of Eutropius could not happen till the autumn of the same year. See
Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 780.]
32 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313. Philostorgius, l. xi. c. 6.]
While this domestic revolution was transacted, Gainas 33 openly revolted from his allegiance; united his forces at Thyatira in Lydia, with those of Tribigild; and still maintained his superior ascendant over the rebellious leader of the Ostrogoths. The confederate armies advanced, without resistance, to the straits of the Hellespont and the Bosphorus; and Arcadius was instructed to prevent the loss of his Asiatic dominions, by resigning his authority and his person to the faith of the Barbarians. The church of the holy martyr Euphemia, situate on a lofty eminence near Chalcedon, 34 was chosen for the place of the interview. Gainas bowed with reverence at the feet of the emperor, whilst he required the sacrifice of Aurelian and Saturninus, two ministers of consular rank; and their naked necks were exposed, by the haughty rebel, to the edge of the sword, till he condescended to grant them a precarious and disgraceful respite. The Goths, according to the terms of the agreement, were immediately transported from Asia into Europe; and their victorious chief, who accepted the title of master-general of the Roman armies, soon filled Constantinople with his troops, and distributed among his dependants the honors and rewards of the empire. In his early youth, Gainas had passed the Danube as a suppliant and a fugitive: his elevation had been the work of valor and fortune; and his indiscreet or perfidious conduct was the cause of his rapid downfall. Notwithstanding the vigorous opposition of the archbishop, he importunately claimed for his Arian sectaries the possession of a peculiar church; and the pride of the Catholics was offended by the public toleration of heresy. 35 Every quarter of Constantinople was filled with tumult and disorder; and the Barbarians gazed with such ardor on the rich shops of the jewellers, and the tables of the bankers, which were covered with gold and silver, that it was judged prudent to remove those dangerous temptations from their sight. They resented the injurious precaution; and some alarming attempts were made, during the night, to attack and destroy with fire the Imperial palace. 36 In this state of mutual and suspicious hostility, the guards and the people of Constantinople shut the gates, and rose in arms to prevent or to punish the conspiracy of the Goths. During the absence of Gainas, his troops were surprised and oppressed; seven thousand Barbarians perished in this bloody massacre. In the fury of the pursuit, the Catholics uncovered the roof, and continued to throw down flaming logs of wood, till they overwhelmed their adversaries, who had retreated to the church or conventicle of the Arians. Gainas was either innocent of the design, or too confident of his success; he was astonished by the intelligence that the flower of his army had been ingloriously destroyed; that he himself was declared a public enemy; and that his countryman, Fravitta, a brave and loyal confederate, had assumed the management of the war by sea and land. The enterprises of the rebel, against the cities of Thrace, were encountered by a firm and well-ordered defence; his hungry soldiers were soon reduced to the grass that grew on the margin of the fortifications; and Gainas, who vainly regretted the wealth and luxury of Asia, embraced a desperate resolution of forcing the passage of the Hellespont. He was destitute of vessels; but the woods of the Chersonesus afforded materials for rafts, and his intrepid Barbarians did not refuse to trust themselves to the waves. But Fravitta attentively watched the progress of their undertaking As soon as they had gained the middle of the stream, the Roman galleys, 37 impelled by the full force of oars, of the current, and of a favorable wind, rushed forwards in compact order, and with irresistible weight; and the Hellespont was covered with the fragments of the Gothic shipwreck. After the destruction of his hopes, and the loss of many thousands of his bravest soldiers, Gainas, who could no longer aspire to govern or to subdue the Romans, determined to resume the independence of a savage life. A light and active body of Barbarian horse, disengaged from their infantry and baggage, might perform in eight or ten days a march of three hundred miles from the Hellespont to the Danube; 38 the garrisons of that important frontier had been gradually annihilated; the river, in the month of December, would be deeply frozen; and the unbounded prospect of Scythia was opened to the ambition of Gainas. This design was secretly communicated to the national troops, who devoted themselves to the fortunes of their leader; and before the signal of departure was given, a great number of provincial auxiliaries, whom he suspected of an attachment to their native country, were perfidiously massacred. The Goths advanced, by rapid marches, through the plains of Thrace; and they were soon delivered from the fear of a pursuit, by the vanity of Fravitta, 3811 who, instead of extinguishing the war, hastened to enjoy the popular applause, and to assume the peaceful honors of the consulship. But a formidable ally appeared in arms to vindicate the majesty of the empire, and to guard the peace and liberty of Scythia. 39 The superior forces of Uldin, king of the Huns, opposed the progress of Gainas; a hostile and ruined country prohibited his retreat; he disdained to capitulate; and after repeatedly attempting to cut his way through the ranks of the enemy, he was slain, with his desperate followers, in the field of battle. Eleven days after the naval victory of the Hellespont, the head of Gainas, the inestimable gift of the conqueror, was received at Constantinople with the most liberal expressions of gratitude; and the public deliverance was celebrated by festivals and illuminations. The triumphs of Arcadius became the subject of epic poems; 40 and the monarch, no longer oppressed by any hostile terrors, resigned himself to the mild and absolute dominion of his wife, the fair and artful Eudoxia, who was sullied her fame by the persecution of St. John Chrysostom.
33 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 313-323,) Socrates, (l. vi. c. 4,)
Sozomen, (l. viii. c. 4,) and Theodoret, (l. v. c. 32, 33,) represent,
though with some various circumstances, the conspiracy, defeat, and
death of Gainas.]
34 (return)
[ It is the expression of Zosimus himself, (l. v. p. 314,)
who inadvertently uses the fashionable language of the Christians.
Evagrius describes (l. ii. c. 3) the situation, architecture, relics,
and miracles, of that celebrated church, in which the general council of
Chalcedon was afterwards held.]
35 (return)
[ The pious remonstrances of Chrysostom, which do not
appear in his own writings, are strongly urged by Theodoret; but his
insinuation, that they were successful, is disproved by facts. Tillemont
(Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 383) has discovered that the emperor,
to satisfy the rapacious demands of Gainas, was obliged to melt the
plate of the church of the apostles.]
36 (return)
[ The ecclesiastical historians, who sometimes guide, and
sometimes follow, the public opinion, most confidently assert, that the
palace of Constantinople was guarded by legions of angels.]
37 (return)
[ Zosmius (l. v. p. 319) mentions these galleys by the name
of Liburnians, and observes that they were as swift (without explaining
the difference between them) as the vessels with fifty oars; but that
they were far inferior in speed to the triremes, which had been long
disused. Yet he reasonably concludes, from the testimony of Polybius,
that galleys of a still larger size had been constructed in the
Punic wars. Since the establishment of the Roman empire over the
Mediterranean, the useless art of building large ships of war had
probably been neglected, and at length forgotten.]
38 (return)
[ Chishull (Travels, p. 61-63, 72-76) proceeded from
Gallipoli, through Hadrianople to the Danube, in about fifteen days. He
was in the train of an English ambassador, whose baggage consisted of
seventy-one wagons. That learned traveller has the merit of tracing a
curious and unfrequented route.]
3811 (return)
[ Fravitta, according to Zosimus, though a Pagan,
received the honors of the consulate. Zosim, v. c. 20. On Fravitta,
see a very imperfect fragment of Eunapius. Mai. ii. 290, in Niebuhr.
92.—M.]
39 (return)
[ The narrative of Zosimus, who actually leads Gainas beyond
the Danube, must be corrected by the testimony of Socrates, aud Sozomen,
that he was killed in Thrace; and by the precise and authentic dates of
the Alexandrian, or Paschal, Chronicle, p. 307. The naval victory of the
Hellespont is fixed to the month Apellaeus, the tenth of the Calends of
January, (December 23;) the head of Gainas was brought to Constantinople
the third of the nones of January, (January 3,) in the month Audynaeus.]
40 (return)
[ Eusebius Scholasticus acquired much fame by his poem on
the Gothic war, in which he had served. Near forty years afterwards
Ammonius recited another poem on the same subject, in the presence of
the emperor Theodosius. See Socrates, l. vi. c. 6.]
After the death of the indolent Nectarius, the successor of Gregory Nazianzen, the church of Constantinople was distracted by the ambition of rival candidates, who were not ashamed to solicit, with gold or flattery, the suffrage of the people, or of the favorite. On this occasion Eutropius seems to have deviated from his ordinary maxims; and his uncorrupted judgment was determined only by the superior merit of a stranger. In a late journey into the East, he had admired the sermons of John, a native and presbyter of Antioch, whose name has been distinguished by the epithet of Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth. 41 A private order was despatched to the governor of Syria; and as the people might be unwilling to resign their favorite preacher, he was transported, with speed and secrecy in a post-chariot, from Antioch to Constantinople. The unanimous and unsolicited consent of the court, the clergy, and the people, ratified the choice of the minister; and, both as a saint and as an orator, the new archbishop surpassed the sanguine expectations of the public. Born of a noble and opulent family, in the capital of Syria, Chrysostom had been educated, by the care of a tender mother, under the tuition of the most skilful masters. He studied the art of rhetoric in the school of Libanius; and that celebrated sophist, who soon discovered the talents of his disciple, ingenuously confessed that John would have deserved to succeed him, had he not been stolen away by the Christians. His piety soon disposed him to receive the sacrament of baptism; to renounce the lucrative and honorable profession of the law; and to bury himself in the adjacent desert, where he subdued the lusts of the flesh by an austere penance of six years. His infirmities compelled him to return to the society of mankind; and the authority of Meletius devoted his talents to the service of the church: but in the midst of his family, and afterwards on the archiepiscopal throne, Chrysostom still persevered in the practice of the monastic virtues. The ample revenues, which his predecessors had consumed in pomp and luxury, he diligently applied to the establishment of hospitals; and the multitudes, who were supported by his charity, preferred the eloquent and edifying discourses of their archbishop to the amusements of the theatre or the circus. The monuments of that eloquence, which was admired near twenty years at Antioch and Constantinople, have been carefully preserved; and the possession of near one thousand sermons, or homilies has authorized the critics 42 of succeeding times to appreciate the genuine merit of Chrysostom. They unanimously attribute to the Christian orator the free command of an elegant and copious language; the judgment to conceal the advantages which he derived from the knowledge of rhetoric and philosophy; an inexhaustible fund of metaphors and similitudes of ideas and images, to vary and illustrate the most familiar topics; the happy art of engaging the passions in the service of virtue; and of exposing the folly, as well as the turpitude, of vice, almost with the truth and spirit of a dramatic representation.
41 (return)
[ The sixth book of Socrates, the eighth of Sozomen, and the
fifth of Theodoret, afford curious and authentic materials for the life
of John Chrysostom. Besides those general historians, I have taken for
my guides the four principal biographers of the saint. 1. The author
of a partial and passionate Vindication of the archbishop of
Constantinople, composed in the form of a dialogue, and under the name
of his zealous partisan, Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, (Tillemont,
Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 500-533.) It is inserted among the works
of Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 1-90, edit. Montfaucon. 2. The moderate
Erasmus, (tom. iii. epist. Mcl. p. 1331-1347, edit. Lugd. Bat.) His
vivacity and good sense were his own; his errors, in the uncultivated
state of ecclesiastical antiquity, were almost inevitable. 3. The
learned Tillemont, (Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. xi. p. 1-405, 547-626,
&c. &c.,) who compiles the lives of the saints with incredible patience
and religious accuracy. He has minutely searched the voluminous works
of Chrysostom himself. 4. Father Montfaucon, who has perused those
works with the curious diligence of an editor, discovered several new
homilies, and again reviewed and composed the Life of Chrysostom, (Opera
Chrysostom. tom. xiii. p. 91-177.)]
42 (return)
[ As I am almost a stranger to the voluminous sermons of
Chrysostom, I have given my confidence to the two most judicious and
moderate of the ecclesiastical critics, Erasmus (tom. iii. p. 1344)
and Dupin, (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 38:) yet the
good taste of the former is sometimes vitiated by an excessive love
of antiquity; and the good sense of the latter is always restrained by
prudential considerations.]
The pastoral labors of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked, and gradually united against him, two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered, from the pulpit of St. Sophia, against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding, or even marking, the character of any individual. When he declaimed against the peculiar vices of the rich, poverty might obtain a transient consolation from his invectives; but the guilty were still sheltered by their numbers; and the reproach itself was dignified by some ideas of superiority and enjoyment. But as the pyramid rose towards the summit, it insensibly diminished to a point; and the magistrates, the ministers, the favorite eunuchs, the ladies of the court, 43 the empress Eudoxia herself, had a much larger share of guilt to divide among a smaller proportion of criminals. The personal applications of the audience were anticipated, or confirmed, by the testimony of their own conscience; and the intrepid preacher assumed the dangerous right of exposing both the offence and the offender to the public abhorrence. The secret resentment of the court encouraged the discontent of the clergy and monks of Constantinople, who were too hastily reformed by the fervent zeal of their archbishop. He had condemned, from the pulpit, the domestic females of the clergy of Constantinople, who, under the name of servants, or sisters, afforded a perpetual occasion either of sin or of scandal. The silent and solitary ascetics, who had secluded themselves from the world, were entitled to the warmest approbation of Chrysostom; but he despised and stigmatized, as the disgrace of their holy profession, the crowd of degenerate monks, who, from some unworthy motives of pleasure or profit, so frequently infested the streets of the capital. To the voice of persuasion, the archbishop was obliged to add the terrors of authority; and his ardor, in the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, was not always exempt from passion; nor was it always guided by prudence. Chrysostom was naturally of a choleric disposition. 44 Although he struggled, according to the precepts of the gospel, to love his private enemies, he indulged himself in the privilege of hating the enemies of God and of the church; and his sentiments were sometimes delivered with too much energy of countenance and expression. He still maintained, from some considerations of health or abstinence, his former habits of taking his repasts alone; and this inhospitable custom, 45 which his enemies imputed to pride, contributed, at least, to nourish the infirmity of a morose and unsocial humor. Separated from that familiar intercourse, which facilitates the knowledge and the despatch of business, he reposed an unsuspecting confidence in his deacon Serapion; and seldom applied his speculative knowledge of human nature to the particular character, either of his dependants, or of his equals.
Conscious of the purity of his intentions, and perhaps of the superiority of his genius, the archbishop of Constantinople extended the jurisdiction of the Imperial city, that he might enlarge the sphere of his pastoral labors; and the conduct which the profane imputed to an ambitious motive, appeared to Chrysostom himself in the light of a sacred and indispensable duty. In his visitation through the Asiatic provinces, he deposed thirteen bishops of Lydia and Phrygia; and indiscreetly declared that a deep corruption of simony and licentiousness had infected the whole episcopal order. 46 If those bishops were innocent, such a rash and unjust condemnation must excite a well-grounded discontent. If they were guilty, the numerous associates of their guilt would soon discover that their own safety depended on the ruin of the archbishop; whom they studied to represent as the tyrant of the Eastern church.
43 (return)
[ The females of Constantinople distinguished themselves by
their enmity or their attachment to Chrysostom. Three noble and opulent
widows, Marsa, Castricia, and Eugraphia, were the leaders of the
persecution, (Pallad. Dialog. tom. xiii. p. 14.) It was impossible
that they should forgive a preacher who reproached their affectation to
conceal, by the ornaments of dress, their age and ugliness, (Pallad
p. 27.) Olympias, by equal zeal, displayed in a more pious cause, has
obtained the title of saint. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi p.
416-440.]
44 (return)
[ Sozomen, and more especially Socrates, have defined the
real character of Chrysostom with a temperate and impartial freedom,
very offensive to his blind admirers. Those historians lived in the next
generation, when party violence was abated, and had conversed with many
persons intimately acquainted with the virtues and imperfections of the
saint.]
45 (return)
[ Palladius (tom. xiii. p. 40, &c.) very seriously defends
the archbishop 1. He never tasted wine. 2. The weakness of his stomach
required a peculiar diet. 3. Business, or study, or devotion, often kept
him fasting till sunset. 4. He detested the noise and levity of great
dinners. 5. He saved the expense for the use of the poor. 6. He was
apprehensive, in a capital like Constantinople, of the envy and reproach
of partial invitations.]
46 (return)
[ Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii
in Act. Apostol. p. 29) that the number of bishops, who might be saved,
bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned.]
This ecclesiastical conspiracy was managed by Theophilus, 47 archbishop of Alexandria, an active and ambitious prelate, who displayed the fruits of rapine in monuments of ostentation. His national dislike to the rising greatness of a city which degraded him from the second to the third rank in the Christian world, was exasperated by some personal dispute with Chrysostom himself. 48 By the private invitation of the empress, Theophilus landed at Constantinople with a stou body of Egyptian mariners, to encounter the populace; and a train of dependent bishops, to secure, by their voices, the majority of a synod. The synod 49 was convened in the suburb of Chalcedon, surnamed the Oak, where Rufinus had erected a stately church and monastery; and their proceedings were continued during fourteen days, or sessions. A bishop and a deacon accused the archbishop of Constantinople; but the frivolous or improbable nature of the forty-seven articles which they presented against him, may justly be considered as a fair and unexceptional panegyric. Four successive summons were signified to Chrysostom; but he still refused to trust either his person or his reputation in the hands of his implacable enemies, who, prudently declining the examination of any particular charges, condemned his contumacious disobedience, and hastily pronounced a sentence of deposition. The synod of the Oak immediately addressed the emperor to ratify and execute their judgment, and charitably insinuated, that the penalties of treason might be inflicted on the audacious preacher, who had reviled, under the name of Jezebel, the empress Eudoxia herself. The archbishop was rudely arrested, and conducted through the city, by one of the Imperial messengers, who landed him, after a short navigation, near the entrance of the Euxine; from whence, before the expiration of two days, he was gloriously recalled.
47 (return)
[ See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 441-500.]
48 (return)
[ I have purposely omitted the controversy which arose
among the monks of Egypt, concerning Origenism and Anthropomorphism; the
dissimulation and violence of Theophilus; his artful management of the
simplicity of Epiphanius; the persecution and flight of the long,
or tall, brothers; the ambiguous support which they received at
Constantinople from Chrysostom, &c. &c.]
49 (return)
[ Photius (p. 53-60) has preserved the original acts of the
synod of the Oak; which destroys the false assertion, that Chrysostom
was condemned by no more than thirty-six bishops, of whom twenty-nine
were Egyptians. Forty-five bishops subscribed his sentence. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xi. p. 595. * Note: Tillemont argues
strongly for the number of thirty-six—M]
The first astonishment of his faithful people had been mute and passive: they suddenly rose with unanimous and irresistible fury. Theophilus escaped, but the promiscuous crowd of monks and Egyptian mariners was slaughtered without pity in the streets of Constantinople. 50 A seasonable earthquake justified the interposition of Heaven; the torrent of sedition rolled forwards to the gates of the palace; and the empress, agitated by fear or remorse, threw herself at the feet of Arcadius, and confessed that the public safety could be purchased only by the restoration of Chrysostom. The Bosphorus was covered with innumerable vessels; the shores of Europe and Asia were profusely illuminated; and the acclamations of a victorious people accompanied, from the port to the cathedral, the triumph of the archbishop; who, too easily, consented to resume the exercise of his functions, before his sentence had been legally reversed by the authority of an ecclesiastical synod. Ignorant, or careless, of the impending danger, Chrysostom indulged his zeal, or perhaps his resentment; declaimed with peculiar asperity against female vices; and condemned the profane honors which were addressed, almost in the precincts of St. Sophia, to the statue of the empress. His imprudence tempted his enemies to inflame the haughty spirit of Eudoxia, by reporting, or perhaps inventing, the famous exordium of a sermon, "Herodias is again furious; Herodias again dances; she once more requires the head of John;" an insolent allusion, which, as a woman and a sovereign, it was impossible for her to forgive. 51 The short interval of a perfidious truce was employed to concert more effectual measures for the disgrace and ruin of the archbishop. A numerous council of the Eastern prelates, who were guided from a distance by the advice of Theophilus, confirmed the validity, without examining the justice, of the former sentence; and a detachment of Barbarian troops was introduced into the city, to suppress the emotions of the people. On the vigil of Easter, the solemn administration of baptism was rudely interrupted by the soldiers, who alarmed the modesty of the naked catechumens, and violated, by their presence, the awful mysteries of the Christian worship. Arsacius occupied the church of St. Sophia, and the archiepiscopal throne. The Catholics retreated to the baths of Constantine, and afterwards to the fields; where they were still pursued and insulted by the guards, the bishops, and the magistrates. The fatal day of the second and final exile of Chrysostom was marked by the conflagration of the cathedral, of the senate-house, and of the adjacent buildings; and this calamity was imputed, without proof, but not without probability, to the despair of a persecuted faction. 52
50 (return)
[ Palladius owns (p. 30) that if the people of
Constantinople had found Theophilus, they would certainly have thrown
him into the sea. Socrates mentions (l. vi. c. 17) a battle between the
mob and the sailors of Alexandria, in which many wounds were given, and
some lives were lost. The massacre of the monks is observed only by the
Pagan Zosimus, (l. v. p. 324,) who acknowledges that Chrysostom had a
singular talent to lead the illiterate multitude.]
51 (return)
[ See Socrates, l. vi. c. 18. Sozomen, l. viii. c. 20.
Zosimus (l. v. p 324, 327) mentions, in general terms, his invectives
against Eudoxia. The homily, which begins with those famous words, is
rejected as spurious. Montfaucon, tom. xiii. p. 151. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom xi. p. 603.]
52 (return)
[ We might naturally expect such a charge from Zosimus, (l.
v. p. 327;) but it is remarkable enough, that it should be confirmed by
Socrates, (l. vi. c. 18,) and the Paschal Chronicle, (p. 307.)]
Cicero might claim some merit, if his voluntary banishment preserved the peace of the republic; 53 but the submission of Chrysostom was the indispensable duty of a Christian and a subject. Instead of listening to his humble prayer, that he might be permitted to reside at Cyzicus, or Nicomedia, the inflexible empress assigned for his exile the remote and desolate town of Cucusus, among the ridges of Mount Taurus, in the Lesser Armenia. A secret hope was entertained, that the archbishop might perish in a difficult and dangerous march of seventy days, in the heat of summer, through the provinces of Asia Minor, where he was continually threatened by the hostile attacks of the Isaurians, and the more implacable fury of the monks. Yet Chrysostom arrived in safety at the place of his confinement; and the three years which he spent at Cucusus, and the neighboring town of Arabissus, were the last and most glorious of his life. His character was consecrated by absence and persecution; the faults of his administration were no longer remembered; but every tongue repeated the praises of his genius and virtue: and the respectful attention of the Christian world was fixed on a desert spot among the mountains of Taurus. From that solitude the archbishop, whose active mind was invigorated by misfortunes, maintained a strict and frequent correspondence 54 with the most distant provinces; exhorted the separate congregation of his faithful adherents to persevere in their allegiance; urged the destruction of the temples of Phoenicia, and the extirpation of heresy in the Isle of Cyprus; extended his pastoral care to the missions of Persia and Scythia; negotiated, by his ambassadors, with the Roman pontiff and the emperor Honorius; and boldly appealed, from a partial synod, to the supreme tribunal of a free and general council. The mind of the illustrious exile was still independent; but his captive body was exposed to the revenge of the oppressors, who continued to abuse the name and authority of Arcadius. 55 An order was despatched for the instant removal of Chrysostom to the extreme desert of Pityus: and his guards so faithfully obeyed their cruel instructions, that, before he reached the sea-coast of the Euxine, he expired at Comana, in Pontus, in the sixtieth year of his age. The succeeding generation acknowledged his innocence and merit. The archbishops of the East, who might blush that their predecessors had been the enemies of Chrysostom, were gradually disposed, by the firmness of the Roman pontiff, to restore the honors of that venerable name. 56 At the pious solicitation of the clergy and people of Constantinople, his relics, thirty years after his death, were transported from their obscure sepulchre to the royal city. 57 The emperor Theodosius advanced to receive them as far as Chalcedon; and, falling prostrate on the coffin, implored, in the name of his guilty parents, Arcadius and Eudoxia, the forgiveness of the injured saint. 58
53 (return)
[ He displays those specious motives (Post Reditum, c. 13,
14) in the language of an orator and a politician.]
54 (return)
[ Two hundred and forty-two of the epistles of Chrysostom
are still extant, (Opera, tom. iii. p. 528-736.) They are addressed to
a great variety of persons, and show a firmness of mind much superior to
that of Cicero in his exile. The fourteenth epistle contains a curious
narrative of the dangers of his journey.]
55 (return)
[ After the exile of Chrysostom, Theophilus published
an enormous and horrible volume against him, in which he perpetually
repeats the polite expressions of hostem humanitatis, sacrilegorum
principem, immundum daemonem; he affirms, that John Chrysostom had
delivered his soul to be adulterated by the devil; and wishes that
some further punishment, adequate (if possible) to the magnitude of his
crimes, may be inflicted on him. St. Jerom, at the request of his friend
Theophilus, translated this edifying performance from Greek into Latin.
See Facundus Hermian. Defens. pro iii. Capitul. l. vi. c. 5 published by
Sirmond. Opera, tom. ii. p. 595, 596, 597.]
56 (return)
[ His name was inserted by his successor Atticus in the
Dyptics of the church of Constantinople, A.D. 418. Ten years afterwards
he was revered as a saint. Cyril, who inherited the place, and the
passions, of his uncle Theophilus, yielded with much reluctance. See
Facund. Hermian. l. 4, c. 1. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p.
277-283.]
57 (return)
[ Socrates, l. vii. c. 45. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36. This
event reconciled the Joannites, who had hitherto refused to acknowledge
his successors. During his lifetime, the Joannites were respected, by
the Catholics, as the true and orthodox communion of Constantinople.
Their obstinacy gradually drove them to the brink of schism.]
58 (return)
[ According to some accounts, (Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D.
438 No. 9, 10,) the emperor was forced to send a letter of invitation
and excuses, before the body of the ceremonious saint could be moved
from Comana.]
Yet a reasonable doubt may be entertained, whether any stain of hereditary guilt could be derived from Arcadius to his successor. Eudoxia was a young and beautiful woman, who indulged her passions, and despised her husband; Count John enjoyed, at least, the familiar confidence of the empress; and the public named him as the real father of Theodosius the younger. 59 The birth of a son was accepted, however, by the pious husband, as an event the most fortunate and honorable to himself, to his family, and to the Eastern world: and the royal infant, by an unprecedented favor, was invested with the titles of Caesar and Augustus. In less than four years afterwards, Eudoxia, in the bloom of youth, was destroyed by the consequences of a miscarriage; and this untimely death confounded the prophecy of a holy bishop, 60 who, amidst the universal joy, had ventured to foretell, that she should behold the long and auspicious reign of her glorious son. The Catholics applauded the justice of Heaven, which avenged the persecution of St. Chrysostom; and perhaps the emperor was the only person who sincerely bewailed the loss of the haughty and rapacious Eudoxia. Such a domestic misfortune afflicted him more deeply than the public calamities of the East; 61 the licentious excursions, from Pontus to Palestine, of the Isaurian robbers, whose impunity accused the weakness of the government; and the earthquakes, the conflagrations, the famine, and the flights of locusts, 62 which the popular discontent was equally disposed to attribute to the incapacity of the monarch. At length, in the thirty-first year of his age, after a reign (if we may abuse that word) of thirteen years, three months, and fifteen days, Arcadius expired in the palace of Constantinople. It is impossible to delineate his character; since, in a period very copiously furnished with historical materials, it has not been possible to remark one action that properly belongs to the son of the great Theodosius.
59 (return)
[ Zosimus, l. v. p. 315. The chastity of an empress should
not be impeached without producing a witness; but it is astonishing,
that the witness should write and live under a prince whose legitimacy
he dared to attack. We must suppose that his history was a party libel,
privately read and circulated by the Pagans. Tillemont (Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. v. p. 782) is not averse to brand the reputation of
Eudoxia.]
60 (return)
[ Porphyry of Gaza. His zeal was transported by the order
which he had obtained for the destruction of eight Pagan temples of
that city. See the curious details of his life, (Baronius, A.D. 401, No.
17-51,) originally written in Greek, or perhaps in Syriac, by a monk,
one of his favorite deacons.]
61 (return)
[ Philostorg. l. xi. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 457.]
62 (return)
[ Jerom (tom. vi. p. 73, 76) describes, in lively colors,
the regular and destructive march of the locusts, which spread a dark
cloud, between heaven and earth, over the land of Palestine. Seasonable
winds scattered them, partly into the Dead Sea, and partly into the
Mediterranean.]
The historian Procopius 63 has indeed illuminated the mind of the dying emperor with a ray of human prudence, or celestial wisdom. Arcadius considered, with anxious foresight, the helpless condition of his son Theodosius, who was no more than seven years of age, the dangerous factions of a minority, and the aspiring spirit of Jezdegerd, the Persian monarch. Instead of tempting the allegiance of an ambitious subject, by the participation of supreme power, he boldly appealed to the magnanimity of a king; and placed, by a solemn testament, the sceptre of the East in the hands of Jezdegerd himself. The royal guardian accepted and discharged this honorable trust with unexampled fidelity; and the infancy of Theodosius was protected by the arms and councils of Persia. Such is the singular narrative of Procopius; and his veracity is not disputed by Agathias, 64 while he presumes to dissent from his judgment, and to arraign the wisdom of a Christian emperor, who, so rashly, though so fortunately, committed his son and his dominions to the unknown faith of a stranger, a rival, and a heathen. At the distance of one hundred and fifty years, this political question might be debated in the court of Justinian; but a prudent historian will refuse to examine the propriety, till he has ascertained the truth, of the testament of Arcadius. As it stands without a parallel in the history of the world, we may justly require, that it should be attested by the positive and unanimous evidence of contemporaries. The strange novelty of the event, which excites our distrust, must have attracted their notice; and their universal silence annihilates the vain tradition of the succeeding age.
63 (return)
[ Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 2, p. 8, edit.
Louvre.]
64 (return)
[ Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, 137. Although he confesses the
prevalence of the tradition, he asserts, that Procopius was the first
who had committed it to writing. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
vi. p. 597) argues very sensibly on the merits of this fable. His
criticism was not warped by any ecclesiastical authority: both Procopius
and Agathias are half Pagans. * Note: See St Martin's article on
Jezdegerd, in the Biographie Universelle de Michand.—M.]
The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be transferred from private property to public dominion, would have adjudged to the emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew, till he had attained, at least, the fourteenth year of his age. But the weakness of Honorius, and the calamities of his reign, disqualified him from prosecuting this natural claim; and such was the absolute separation of the two monarchies, both in interest and affection, that Constantinople would have obeyed, with less reluctance, the orders of the Persian, than those of the Italian, court. Under a prince whose weakness is disguised by the external signs of manhood and discretion, the most worthless favorites may secretly dispute the empire of the palace; and dictate to submissive provinces the commands of a master, whom they direct and despise. But the ministers of a child, who is incapable of arming them with the sanction of the royal name, must acquire and exercise an independent authority. The great officers of the state and army, who had been appointed before the death of Arcadius, formed an aristocracy, which might have inspired them with the idea of a free republic; and the government of the Eastern empire was fortunately assumed by the praefect Anthemius, 65 who obtained, by his superior abilities, a lasting ascendant over the minds of his equals. The safety of the young emperor proved the merit and integrity of Anthemius; and his prudent firmness sustained the force and reputation of an infant reign. Uldin, with a formidable host of Barbarians, was encamped in the heart of Thrace; he proudly rejected all terms of accommodation; and, pointing to the rising sun, declared to the Roman ambassadors, that the course of that planet should alone terminate the conquest of the Huns. But the desertion of his confederates, who were privately convinced of the justice and liberality of the Imperial ministers, obliged Uldin to repass the Danube: the tribe of the Scyrri, which composed his rear-guard, was almost extirpated; and many thousand captives were dispersed to cultivate, with servile labor, the fields of Asia. 66 In the midst of the public triumph, Constantinople was protected by a strong enclosure of new and more extensive walls; the same vigilant care was applied to restore the fortifications of the Illyrian cities; and a plan was judiciously conceived, which, in the space of seven years, would have secured the command of the Danube, by establishing on that river a perpetual fleet of two hundred and fifty armed vessels. 67
65 (return)
[ Socrates, l. vii. c. l. Anthemius was the grandson of
Philip, one of the ministers of Constantius, and the grandfather of the
emperor Anthemius. After his return from the Persian embassy, he was
appointed consul and Praetorian praefect of the East, in the year 405
and held the praefecture about ten years. See his honors and praises in
Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350. Tillemont, Hist. des Emptom. vi.
p. 1. &c.]
66 (return)
[ Sozomen, l. ix. c. 5. He saw some Scyrri at work near
Mount Olympus, in Bithynia, and cherished the vain hope that those
captives were the last of the nation.]
67 (return)
[ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xvi. l. xv. tit. i. leg. 49.]
But the Romans had so long been accustomed to the authority of a monarch, that the first, even among the females, of the Imperial family, who displayed any courage or capacity, was permitted to ascend the vacant throne of Theodosius. His sister Pulcheria, 68 who was only two years older than himself, received, at the age of sixteen, the title of Augusta; and though her favor might be sometimes clouded by caprice or intrigue, she continued to govern the Eastern empire near forty years; during the long minority of her brother, and after his death, in her own name, and in the name of Marcian, her nominal husband. From a motive either of prudence or religion, she embraced a life of celibacy; and notwithstanding some aspersions on the chastity of Pulcheria, 69 this resolution, which she communicated to her sisters Arcadia and Marina, was celebrated by the Christian world, as the sublime effort of heroic piety. In the presence of the clergy and people, the three daughters of Arcadius 70 dedicated their virginity to God; and the obligation of their solemn vow was inscribed on a tablet of gold and gems; which they publicly offered in the great church of Constantinople. Their palace was converted into a monastery; and all males, except the guides of their conscience, the saints who had forgotten the distinction of sexes, were scrupulously excluded from the holy threshold. Pulcheria, her two sisters, and a chosen train of favorite damsels, formed a religious community: they denounced the vanity of dress; interrupted, by frequent fasts, their simple and frugal diet; allotted a portion of their time to works of embroidery; and devoted several hours of the day and night to the exercises of prayer and psalmody. The piety of a Christian virgin was adorned by the zeal and liberality of an empress. Ecclesiastical history describes the splendid churches, which were built at the expense of Pulcheria, in all the provinces of the East; her charitable foundations for the benefit of strangers and the poor; the ample donations which she assigned for the perpetual maintenance of monastic societies; and the active severity with which she labored to suppress the opposite heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches. Such virtues were supposed to deserve the peculiar favor of the Deity: and the relics of martyrs, as well as the knowledge of future events, were communicated in visions and revelations to the Imperial saint. 71 Yet the devotion of Pulcheria never diverted her indefatigable attention from temporal affairs; and she alone, among all the descendants of the great Theodosius, appears to have inherited any share of his manly spirit and abilities. The elegant and familiar use which she had acquired, both of the Greek and Latin languages, was readily applied to the various occasions of speaking or writing, on public business: her deliberations were maturely weighed; her actions were prompt and decisive; and, while she moved, without noise or ostentation, the wheel of government, she discreetly attributed to the genius of the emperor the long tranquillity of his reign. In the last years of his peaceful life, Europe was indeed afflicted by the arms of war; but the more extensive provinces of Asia still continued to enjoy a profound and permanent repose. Theodosius the younger was never reduced to the disgraceful necessity of encountering and punishing a rebellious subject: and since we cannot applaud the vigor, some praise may be due to the mildness and prosperity, of the administration of Pulcheria.
68 (return)
[ Sozomen has filled three chapters with a magnificent
panegyric of Pulcheria, (l. ix. c. 1, 2, 3;) and Tillemont (Memoires
Eccles. tom. xv. p. 171-184) has dedicated a separate article to the
honor of St. Pulcheria, virgin and empress. * Note: The heathen Eunapius
gives a frightful picture of the venality and a justice of the court of
Pulcheria. Fragm. Eunap. in Mai, ii. 293, in p. 97.—M.]
69 (return)
[ Suidas, (Excerpta, p. 68, in Script. Byzant.) pretends,
on the credit of the Nestorians, that Pulcheria was exasperated against
their founder, because he censured her connection with the beautiful
Paulinus, and her incest with her brother Theodosius.]
70 (return)
[ See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 70. Flaccilla, the eldest
daughter, either died before Arcadius, or, if she lived till the year
431, (Marcellin. Chron.,) some defect of mind or body must have excluded
her from the honors of her rank.]
71 (return)
[ She was admonished, by repeated dreams, of the place
where the relics of the forty martyrs had been buried. The ground
had successively belonged to the house and garden of a woman of
Constantinople, to a monastery of Macedonian monks, and to a church
of St. Thyrsus, erected by Caesarius, who was consul A.D. 397; and
the memory of the relics was almost obliterated. Notwithstanding the
charitable wishes of Dr. Jortin, (Remarks, tom. iv. p. 234,) it is not
easy to acquit Pulcheria of some share in the pious fraud; which must
have been transacted when she was more than five-and-thirty years of
age.]
The Roman world was deeply interested in the education of its master. A regular course of study and exercise was judiciously instituted; of the military exercises of riding, and shooting with the bow; of the liberal studies of grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy: the most skilful masters of the East ambitiously solicited the attention of their royal pupil; and several noble youths were introduced into the palace, to animate his diligence by the emulation of friendship. Pulcheria alone discharged the important task of instructing her brother in the arts of government; but her precepts may countenance some suspicions of the extent of her capacity, or of the purity of her intentions. She taught him to maintain a grave and majestic deportment; to walk, to hold his robes, to seat himself on his throne, in a manner worthy of a great prince; to abstain from laughter; to listen with condescension; to return suitable answers; to assume, by turns, a serious or a placid countenance: in a word, to represent with grace and dignity the external figure of a Roman emperor. But Theodosius 72 was never excited to support the weight and glory of an illustrious name: and, instead of aspiring to support his ancestors, he degenerated (if we may presume to measure the degrees of incapacity) below the weakness of his father and his uncle. Arcadius and Honorius had been assisted by the guardian care of a parent, whose lessons were enforced by his authority and example. But the unfortunate prince, who is born in the purple, must remain a stranger to the voice of truth; and the son of Arcadius was condemned to pass his perpetual infancy encompassed only by a servile train of women and eunuchs. The ample leisure which he acquired by neglecting the essential duties of his high office, was filled by idle amusements and unprofitable studies. Hunting was the only active pursuit that could tempt him beyond the limits of the palace; but he most assiduously labored, sometimes by the light of a midnight lamp, in the mechanic occupations of painting and carving; and the elegance with which he transcribed religious books entitled the Roman emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or a fair writer. Separated from the world by an impenetrable veil, Theodosius trusted the persons whom he loved; he loved those who were accustomed to amuse and flatter his indolence; and as he never perused the papers that were presented for the royal signature, the acts of injustice the most repugnant to his character were frequently perpetrated in his name. The emperor himself was chaste, temperate, liberal, and merciful; but these qualities, which can only deserve the name of virtues when they are supported by courage and regulated by discretion, were seldom beneficial, and they sometimes proved mischievous, to mankind. His mind, enervated by a royal education, was oppressed and degraded by abject superstition: he fasted, he sung psalms, he blindly accepted the miracles and doctrines with which his faith was continually nourished. Theodosius devoutly worshipped the dead and living saints of the Catholic church; and he once refused to eat, till an insolent monk, who had cast an excommunication on his sovereign, condescended to heal the spiritual wound which he had inflicted. 73
72 (return)
[ There is a remarkable difference between the two
ecclesiastical historians, who in general bear so close a resemblance.
Sozomen (l. ix. c. 1) ascribes to Pulcheria the government of the
empire, and the education of her brother, whom he scarcely condescends
to praise. Socrates, though he affectedly disclaims all hopes of favor
or fame, composes an elaborate panegyric on the emperor, and cautiously
suppresses the merits of his sister, (l. vii. c. 22, 42.) Philostorgius
(l. xii. c. 7) expresses the influence of Pulcheria in gentle and
courtly language. Suidas (Excerpt. p. 53) gives a true character of
Theodosius; and I have followed the example of Tillemont (tom. vi. p.
25) in borrowing some strokes from the modern Greeks.]
73 (return)
[ Theodoret, l. v. c. 37. The bishop of Cyrrhus, one of the
first men of his age for his learning and piety, applauds the obedience
of Theodosius to the divine laws.]
The story of a fair and virtuous maiden, exalted from a private condition to the Imperial throne, might be deemed an incredible romance, if such a romance had not been verified in the marriage of Theodosius. The celebrated Athenais 74 was educated by her father Leontius in the religion and sciences of the Greeks; and so advantageous was the opinion which the Athenian philosopher entertained of his contemporaries, that he divided his patrimony between his two sons, bequeathing to his daughter a small legacy of one hundred pieces of gold, in the lively confidence that her beauty and merit would be a sufficient portion. The jealousy and avarice of her brothers soon compelled Athenais to seek a refuge at Constantinople; and, with some hopes, either of justice or favor, to throw herself at the feet of Pulcheria. That sagacious princess listened to her eloquent complaint; and secretly destined the daughter of the philosopher Leontius for the future wife of the emperor of the East, who had now attained the twentieth year of his age. She easily excited the curiosity of her brother, by an interesting picture of the charms of Athenais; large eyes, a well-proportioned nose, a fair complexion, golden locks, a slender person, a graceful demeanor, an understanding improved by study, and a virtue tried by distress. Theodosius, concealed behind a curtain in the apartment of his sister, was permitted to behold the Athenian virgin: the modest youth immediately declared his pure and honorable love; and the royal nuptials were celebrated amidst the acclamations of the capital and the provinces. Athenais, who was easily persuaded to renounce the errors of Paganism, received at her baptism the Christian name of Eudocia; but the cautious Pulcheria withheld the title of Augusta, till the wife of Theodosius had approved her fruitfulness by the birth of a daughter, who espoused, fifteen years afterwards, the emperor of the West. The brothers of Eudocia obeyed, with some anxiety, her Imperial summons; but as she could easily forgive their unfortunate unkindness, she indulged the tenderness, or perhaps the vanity, of a sister, by promoting them to the rank of consuls and praefects. In the luxury of the palace, she still cultivated those ingenuous arts which had contributed to her greatness; and wisely dedicated her talents to the honor of religion, and of her husband. Eudocia composed a poetical paraphrase of the first eight books of the Old Testament, and of the prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah; a cento of the verses of Homer, applied to the life and miracles of Christ, the legend of St. Cyprian, and a panegyric on the Persian victories of Theodosius; and her writings, which were applauded by a servile and superstitious age, have not been disdained by the candor of impartial criticism. 75 The fondness of the emperor was not abated by time and possession; and Eudocia, after the marriage of her daughter, was permitted to discharge her grateful vows by a solemn pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Her ostentatious progress through the East may seem inconsistent with the spirit of Christian humility; she pronounced, from a throne of gold and gems, an eloquent oration to the senate of Antioch, declared her royal intention of enlarging the walls of the city, bestowed a donative of two hundred pounds of gold to restore the public baths, and accepted the statues, which were decreed by the gratitude of Antioch. In the Holy Land, her alms and pious foundations exceeded the munificence of the great Helena, and though the public treasure might be impoverished by this excessive liberality, she enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople with the chains of St. Peter, the right arm of St. Stephen, and an undoubted picture of the Virgin, painted by St. Luke. 76 But this pilgrimage was the fatal term of the glories of Eudocia. Satiated with empty pomp, and unmindful, perhaps, of her obligations to Pulcheria, she ambitiously aspired to the government of the Eastern empire; the palace was distracted by female discord; but the victory was at last decided, by the superior ascendant of the sister of Theodosius. The execution of Paulinus, master of the offices, and the disgrace of Cyrus, Praetorian praefect of the East, convinced the public that the favor of Eudocia was insufficient to protect her most faithful friends; and the uncommon beauty of Paulinus encouraged the secret rumor, that his guilt was that of a successful lover. 77 As soon as the empress perceived that the affection of Theodosius was irretrievably lost, she requested the permission of retiring to the distant solitude of Jerusalem. She obtained her request; but the jealousy of Theodosius, or the vindictive spirit of Pulcheria, pursued her in her last retreat; and Saturninus, count of the domestics, was directed to punish with death two ecclesiastics, her most favored servants. Eudocia instantly revenged them by the assassination of the count; the furious passions which she indulged on this suspicious occasion, seemed to justify the severity of Theodosius; and the empress, ignominiously stripped of the honors of her rank, 78 was disgraced, perhaps unjustly, in the eyes of the world. The remainder of the life of Eudocia, about sixteen years, was spent in exile and devotion; and the approach of age, the death of Theodosius, the misfortunes of her only daughter, who was led a captive from Rome to Carthage, and the society of the Holy Monks of Palestine, insensibly confirmed the religious temper of her mind. After a full experience of the vicissitudes of human life, the daughter of the philosopher Leontius expired, at Jerusalem, in the sixty-seventh year of her age; protesting, with her dying breath, that she had never transgressed the bounds of innocence and friendship. 79
74 (return)
[ Socrates (l. vii. c. 21) mentions her name, (Athenais, the
daughter of Leontius, an Athenian sophist,) her baptism, marriage, and
poetical genius. The most ancient account of her history is in John
Malala (part ii. p. 20, 21, edit. Venet. 1743) and in the Paschal
Chronicle, (p. 311, 312.) Those authors had probably seen original
pictures of the empress Eudocia. The modern Greeks, Zonaras, Cedrenus,
&c., have displayed the love, rather than the talent of fiction. From
Nicephorus, indeed, I have ventured to assume her age. The writer of
a romance would not have imagined, that Athenais was near twenty eight
years old when she inflamed the heart of a young emperor.]
75 (return)
[ Socrates, l. vii. c. 21, Photius, p. 413-420. The Homeric
cento is still extant, and has been repeatedly printed: but the claim
of Eudocia to that insipid performance is disputed by the critics. See
Fabricius, Biblioth. Graec. tom. i. p. 357. The Ionia, a miscellaneous
dictionary of history and fable, was compiled by another empress of
the name of Eudocia, who lived in the eleventh century: and the work is
still extant in manuscript.]
76 (return)
[ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 438, 439) is copious and
florid, but he is accused of placing the lies of different ages on the
same level of authenticity.]
77 (return)
[ In this short view of the disgrace of Eudocia, I have
imitated the caution of Evagrius (l. i. c. 21) and Count Marcellinus,
(in Chron A.D. 440 and 444.) The two authentic dates assigned by the
latter, overturn a great part of the Greek fictions; and the celebrated
story of the apple, &c., is fit only for the Arabian Nights, where
something not very unlike it may be found.]
78 (return)
[ Priscus, (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 69,) a contemporary, and
a courtier, dryly mentions her Pagan and Christian names, without adding
any title of honor or respect.]
79 (return)
[ For the two pilgrimages of Eudocia, and her long residence
at Jerusalem, her devotion, alms, &c., see Socrates (l. vii. c. 47) and
Evagrius, (l. i. c. 21, 22.) The Paschal Chronicle may sometimes deserve
regard; and in the domestic history of Antioch, John Malala becomes a
writer of good authority. The Abbe Guenee, in a memoir on the fertility
of Palestine, of which I have only seen an extract, calculates the gifts
of Eudocia at 20,488 pounds of gold, above 800,000 pounds sterling.]
The gentle mind of Theodosius was never inflamed by the ambition of conquest, or military renown; and the slight alarm of a Persian war scarcely interrupted the tranquillity of the East. The motives of this war were just and honorable. In the last year of the reign of Jezdegerd, the supposed guardian of Theodosius, a bishop, who aspired to the crown of martyrdom, destroyed one of the fire-temples of Susa. 80 His zeal and obstinacy were revenged on his brethren: the Magi excited a cruel persecution; and the intolerant zeal of Jezdegerd was imitated by his son Varanes, or Bahram, who soon afterwards ascended the throne. Some Christian fugitives, who escaped to the Roman frontier, were sternly demanded, and generously refused; and the refusal, aggravated by commercial disputes, soon kindled a war between the rival monarchies. The mountains of Armenia, and the plains of Mesopotamia, were filled with hostile armies; but the operations of two successive campaigns were not productive of any decisive or memorable events. Some engagements were fought, some towns were besieged, with various and doubtful success: and if the Romans failed in their attempt to recover the long-lost possession of Nisibis, the Persians were repulsed from the walls of a Mesopotamian city, by the valor of a martial bishop, who pointed his thundering engine in the name of St. Thomas the Apostle. Yet the splendid victories which the incredible speed of the messenger Palladius repeatedly announced to the palace of Constantinople, were celebrated with festivals and panegyrics. From these panegyrics the historians 81 of the age might borrow their extraordinary, and, perhaps, fabulous tales; of the proud challenge of a Persian hero, who was entangled by the net, and despatched by the sword, of Areobindus the Goth; of the ten thousand Immortals, who were slain in the attack of the Roman camp; and of the hundred thousand Arabs, or Saracens, who were impelled by a panic terror to throw themselves headlong into the Euphrates. Such events may be disbelieved or disregarded; but the charity of a bishop, Acacius of Amida, whose name might have dignified the saintly calendar, shall not be lost in oblivion. Boldly declaring, that vases of gold and silver are useless to a God who neither eats nor drinks, the generous prelate sold the plate of the church of Amida; employed the price in the redemption of seven thousand Persian captives; supplied their wants with affectionate liberality; and dismissed them to their native country, to inform their king of the true spirit of the religion which he persecuted. The practice of benevolence in the midst of war must always tend to assuage the animosity of contending nations; and I wish to persuade myself, that Acacius contributed to the restoration of peace. In the conference which was held on the limits of the two empires, the Roman ambassadors degraded the personal character of their sovereign, by a vain attempt to magnify the extent of his power; when they seriously advised the Persians to prevent, by a timely accommodation, the wrath of a monarch, who was yet ignorant of this distant war. A truce of one hundred years was solemnly ratified; and although the revolutions of Armenia might threaten the public tranquillity, the essential conditions of this treaty were respected near fourscore years by the successors of Constantine and Artaxerxes.
80 (return)
[ Theodoret, l. v. c. 39 Tillemont. Mem. Eccles tom. xii.
356-364. Assemanni, Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396, tom. iv. p. 61.
Theodoret blames the rashness of Abdas, but extols the constancy of his
martyrdom. Yet I do not clearly understand the casuistry which prohibits
our repairing the damage which we have unlawfully committed.]
81 (return)
[ Socrates (l. vii. c. 18, 19, 20, 21) is the best author
for the Persian war. We may likewise consult the three Chronicles, the
Paschal and those of Marcellinus and Malala.]
Since the Roman and Parthian standards first encountered on the banks of the Euphrates, the kingdom of Armenia 82 was alternately oppressed by its formidable protectors; and in the course of this History, several events, which inclined the balance of peace and war, have been already related. A disgraceful treaty had resigned Armenia to the ambition of Sapor; and the scale of Persia appeared to preponderate. But the royal race of Arsaces impatiently submitted to the house of Sassan; the turbulent nobles asserted, or betrayed, their hereditary independence; and the nation was still attached to the Christian princes of Constantinople. In the beginning of the fifth century, Armenia was divided by the progress of war and faction; 83 and the unnatural division precipitated the downfall of that ancient monarchy. Chosroes, the Persian vassal, reigned over the Eastern and most extensive portion of the country; while the Western province acknowledged the jurisdiction of Arsaces, and the supremacy of the emperor Arcadius. 8111 After the death of Arsaces, the Romans suppressed the regal government, and imposed on their allies the condition of subjects. The military command was delegated to the count of the Armenian frontier; the city of Theodosiopolis 84 was built and fortified in a strong situation, on a fertile and lofty ground, near the sources of the Euphrates; and the dependent territories were ruled by five satraps, whose dignity was marked by a peculiar habit of gold and purple. The less fortunate nobles, who lamented the loss of their king, and envied the honors of their equals, were provoked to negotiate their peace and pardon at the Persian court; and returning, with their followers, to the palace of Artaxata, acknowledged Chosroes 8411 for their lawful sovereign. About thirty years afterwards, Artasires, the nephew and successor of Chosroes, fell under the displeasure of the haughty and capricious nobles of Armenia; and they unanimously desired a Persian governor in the room of an unworthy king. The answer of the archbishop Isaac, whose sanction they earnestly solicited, is expressive of the character of a superstitious people. He deplored the manifest and inexcusable vices of Artasires; and declared, that he should not hesitate to accuse him before the tribunal of a Christian emperor, who would punish, without destroying, the sinner. "Our king," continued Isaac, "is too much addicted to licentious pleasures, but he has been purified in the holy waters of baptism. He is a lover of women, but he does not adore the fire or the elements. He may deserve the reproach of lewdness, but he is an undoubted Catholic; and his faith is pure, though his manners are flagitious. I will never consent to abandon my sheep to the rage of devouring wolves; and you would soon repent your rash exchange of the infirmities of a believer, for the specious virtues of a heathen." 85 Exasperated by the firmness of Isaac, the factious nobles accused both the king and the archbishop as the secret adherents of the emperor; and absurdly rejoiced in the sentence of condemnation, which, after a partial hearing, was solemnly pronounced by Bahram himself. The descendants of Arsaces were degraded from the royal dignity, 86 which they had possessed above five hundred and sixty years; 87 and the dominions of the unfortunate Artasires, 8711 under the new and significant appellation of Persarmenia, were reduced into the form of a province. This usurpation excited the jealousy of the Roman government; but the rising disputes were soon terminated by an amicable, though unequal, partition of the ancient kingdom of Armenia: 8712 and a territorial acquisition, which Augustus might have despised, reflected some lustre on the declining empire of the younger Theodosius.
82 (return)
[ This account of the ruin and division of the kingdom of
Armenia is taken from the third book of the Armenian history of Moses of
Chorene. Deficient as he is in every qualification of a good historian,
his local information, his passions, and his prejudices are strongly
expressive of a native and contemporary. Procopius (de Edificiis, l.
iii. c. 1, 5) relates the same facts in a very different manner; but I
have extracted the circumstances the most probable in themselves, and
the least inconsistent with Moses of Chorene.]
83 (return)
[ The western Armenians used the Greek language and
characters in their religious offices; but the use of that hostile
tongue was prohibited by the Persians in the Eastern provinces, which
were obliged to use the Syriac, till the invention of the Armenian
letters by Mesrobes, in the beginning of the fifth century, and the
subsequent version of the Bible into the Armenian language; an
event which relaxed to the connection of the church and nation with
Constantinople.]
84 (return)
[ Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 59, p. 309, and p. 358.
Procopius, de Edificiis, l. iii. c. 5. Theodosiopolis stands, or rather
stood, about thirty-five miles to the east of Arzeroum, the modern
capital of Turkish Armenia. See D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii.
p. 99, 100.]
8111 (return)
[ The division of Armenia, according to M. St. Martin,
took place much earlier, A. C. 390. The Eastern or Persian division was
four times as large as the Western or Roman. This partition took place
during the reigns of Theodosius the First, and Varanes (Bahram) the
Fourth. St. Martin, Sup. to Le Beau, iv. 429. This partition was but
imperfectly accomplished, as both parts were afterwards reunited under
Chosroes, who paid tribute both to the Roman emperor and to the Persian
king. v. 439.—M.]
8411 (return)
[ Chosroes, according to Procopius (who calls him
Arsaces, the common name of the Armenian kings) and the Armenian
writers, bequeathed to his two sons, to Tigranes the Persian, to Arsaces
the Roman, division of Armenia, A. C. 416. With the assistance of the
discontented nobles the Persian king placed his son Sapor on the throne
of the Eastern division; the Western at the same time was united to
the Roman empire, and called the Greater Armenia. It was then that
Theodosiopolis was built. Sapor abandoned the throne of Armenia to
assert his rights to that of Persia; he perished in the struggle, and
after a period of anarchy, Bahram V., who had ascended the throne
of Persia, placed the last native prince, Ardaschir, son of Bahram
Schahpour, on the throne of the Persian division of Armenia. St. Martin,
v. 506. This Ardaschir was the Artasires of Gibbon. The archbishop Isaac
is called by the Armenians the Patriarch Schag. St. Martin, vi. 29.—M.]
85 (return)
[ Moses Choren, l. iii. c. 63, p. 316. According to the
institution of St. Gregory, the Apostle of Armenia, the archbishop
was always of the royal family; a circumstance which, in some degree,
corrected the influence of the sacerdotal character, and united the
mitre with the crown.]
86 (return)
[ A branch of the royal house of Arsaces still subsisted
with the rank and possessions (as it should seem) of Armenian satraps.
See Moses Choren. l. iii. c. 65, p. 321.]
87 (return)
[ Valarsaces was appointed king of Armenia by his brother
the Parthian monarch, immediately after the defeat of Antiochus Sidetes,
(Moses Choren. l. ii. c. 2, p. 85,) one hundred and thirty years before
Christ. Without depending on the various and contradictory periods of
the reigns of the last kings, we may be assured, that the ruin of the
Armenian kingdom happened after the council of Chalcedon, A.D. 431, (l.
iii. c. 61, p. 312;) and under Varamus, or Bahram, king of Persia, (l.
iii. c. 64, p. 317,) who reigned from A.D. 420 to 440. See Assemanni,
Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii. p. 396. * Note: Five hundred and eighty.
St. Martin, ibid. He places this event A. C 429.—M.——Note: According
to M. St. Martin, vi. 32, Vagharschah, or Valarsaces, was appointed king
by his brother Mithridates the Great, king of Parthia.—M.]
8711 (return)
[ Artasires or Ardaschir was probably sent to the castle
of Oblivion. St. Martin, vi. 31.—M.]
8712 (return)
[ The duration of the Armenian kingdom according to M. St.
Martin, was 580 years.—M]