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After a long delay, the reluctant Caesar set forwards on his
journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Adrianople, he
traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions
from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the
people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the
circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned
him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was
met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices
of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty
sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the
provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations,
or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the
public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they
might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few
days at Adrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
in that city, while the Caesar himself, with only ten
post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.
In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into
rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances
of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his
guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to
accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and
remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside
at Petovio, * in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of
soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by
rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the
close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of
the ensigns of Caesar, and hurried away to Pola, ! in Istria, a
sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with
royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with
the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to
interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
Caesar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all
the criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which
he was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife,
exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with
partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor
was easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with
the life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed,
despatched, and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his
hands tied behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the
vilest malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the
cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and
endeavoured to recall the bloody mandate; but that the second
messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the
eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were
desirous of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of
the East. 25
Footnote 23: The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at
Adrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38,
edit. Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name
of Thebaean. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable
though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest
grounds to deny the existence of a Thenaean legion in the Roman
armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto
edition.
Footnote *: Pettau in Styria. - M
Footnote *: Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St.
Martin. - M.
Footnote 24: See the complete narrative of the journey and death
of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his
brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or
at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on
his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
justly have been deprived of the purple.
Footnote 25: Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch,
and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever
he found in the writings of the ancients.
Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all
the numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of
his royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his
retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a
strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above
seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same
ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his
eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His
looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant
curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he
had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26
But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honour, as
well as his life, against the ensnaring subtleties of the
eunuchs, who endeavoured to extort some declaration of his
sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and
resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
seeming approbation of his brother's murder. Julian most
devoutly ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of
the gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of
destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house
of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their
providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and
merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind
of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful
conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his
cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favour; and,
notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger
of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects
of a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was
advised to withdraw for a while into the neighbourhood of Milan,
till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
the place of his honourable exile. As he had discovered, from his
earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the
language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the
Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his
wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of
courts, he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a
free intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to
cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the
devotion of their royal pupil. Their labours were not
unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from
the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of
manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed,
insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as
citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students
might perhaps examine his behaviour with an eye of prejudice and
aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which
was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29
Footnote 26: See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian
himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and
just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period
which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.
Footnote 27: Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the
family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily
conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the
seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated
by the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.
Footnote 28: She was a native of Thessalonika, in Macedonia, of
a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls.
Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In
a divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her
praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.
Footnote 29: Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the
arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory
was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so
tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some
peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however,
that he then foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)
Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the
empress, resolute to achieve the generous design which she had
undertaken, was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The
death of the late Caesar had left Constantius invested with the
sole command, and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a
mighty empire. Before the wounds of civil discord could be
healed, the provinces of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of
Barbarians. The Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of
the Danube. The impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and
numbers of the wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their
craggy mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even
presumed, though without success, to besiege the important city
of Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman
legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory,
again threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the
emperor was indispensably required, both in the West and in the
East. For the first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged,
that his single strength was unequal to such an extent of care
and of dominion. 30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which
assured him that his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune,
would still continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened
with complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his
indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she
perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor's
mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite
characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed
her husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious
disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by
the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honour
a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands,
or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After
an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
favourite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and
it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with
Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the
title of Caesar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32
Footnote 30: Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum
se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c.
8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering
assurances of the courtiers.
Footnote 31: Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et
Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of
the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong
example of the innate difference of characters.
Footnote 32: Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
138.
Although the order which recalled him to court was probably
accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he
appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of
undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his
beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame,
and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from
the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that
he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavoured, by
the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34
Footnote 33: Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius,
Orat. x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had
signified their will by repeated visions and omens. His piety
then forbade him to resist.
Footnote 34: Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humour,
the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.
The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied
speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
of the republic, the necessity of naming a Caesar for the
administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
the tone of authority which his superior age and station
permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve,
by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who
surrounded the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their
sense of the merits of the representative of Constantius.
Footnote 35: See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop.
x. 14.
Footnote 36: Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
cum hastis clypei feriuntur, irae documentum est et doloris. . .
. . . Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
decebat.
The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot;
and during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a
verse of his favourite Homer, which he might equally apply to his
fortune and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the
Caesar spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months
of his Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe
captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the
loss of freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence
was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
such indeed as became the dignity of a Caesar; but it was filled
with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39
herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by
several of the principal ministers, procured from him some
recommendatory letters; and erasing the whole of the contents,
except the signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters
of high and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of
his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great
council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence
of the emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus,
a general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40
Footnote 37: The word purple which Homer had used as a vague
but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.
Footnote 38: He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manu sua
conscripserat, praelicenter disponens quid in convivio Caesaris
impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.
Footnote 39: If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum praesecto plusquam
convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quaesitum
venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our
physicians will determine whether there exists such a poison.
For my own part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity
imputed the effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.
Footnote 40: Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.
The protection of the Rhaetian frontier, and the persecution
of the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above
eighteen months after the departure of Julian. Before the
emperor returned into the East, he indulged his pride and
curiosity in a visit to the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded
from Milan to Rome along the Aemilian and Flaminian ways, and as
soon as he approached within forty miles of the city, the march
of a prince who had never vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the
appearance of a triumphal procession. His splendid train was
composed of all the ministers of luxury; but in a time of
profound peace, he was encompassed by the glittering arms of the
numerous squadrons of his guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming
banners of silk, embossed with gold, and shaped in the form of
dragons, waved round the person of the emperor. Constantius sat
alone in a lofty car, resplendent with gold and precious gems;
and, except when he bowed his head to pass under the gates of the
cities, he affected a stately demeanor of inflexible, and, as it
might seem, of insensible gravity. The severe discipline of the
Persian youth had been introduced by the eunuchs into the
Imperial palace; and such were the habits of patience which they
had inculcated, that during a slow and sultry march, he was never
seen to move his hand towards his face, or to turn his eyes
either to the right or to the left. He was received by the
magistrates and senate of Rome; and the emperor surveyed, with
attention, the civil honors of the republic, and the consular
images of the noble families. The streets were lined with an
innumerable multitude. Their repeated acclamations expressed
their joy at beholding, after an absence of thirty-two years, the
sacred person of their sovereign, and Constantius himself
expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected surprise that the
human race should thus suddenly be collected on the same spot.
The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient palace of
Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the people from
the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended, assisted with
unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and accepted the
crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had been prepared
for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal cities. His
short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing the monuments
of art and power which were scattered over the seven hills and
the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful majesty of the
Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla and
Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
splendor of unsullied beauty.
See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon
Footnote 41: For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.
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To cite original text:
Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794.
The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. (NY : Knopf, 1993), v. 2, pp. 208 - 217 .