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.

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 Æthiopia, 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 Mémoires 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.]