a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the complaints cf the injured provinces, to accumulate immense treasures by the sale of justice and of honours; to disgrace the most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had purchased at their hands the powers of oppression,(9) and to gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian, possessed some' credit with this haughty favourite.(10) By his artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honour of the house of Constantine.

When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve, and the latter about six years of age; and, as the eldest was thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty.(11)* Different cities of lonia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of their exile and education; but, as soon as their growing years excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum, near Cæsarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six years' confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a suspicious tyrant.(12) Their prison was an ancient palace, the residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant, the buildings stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition of the most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their melancholy hours in the company of slaves, devoted to the commands of a tyrant, who had already injured them beyond the hope of reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Cesar, and to cement this political connexion by his marriage with the princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to their respective stations. Constantius continued his march toward the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch, from whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five great diocesses of the eastern præfecture.(13) In this fortunate change, the new Cesar was not unmindful of his brother Julian, who obtained

(9) Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his sovereign in choosing the governors of the provinces, and the generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very bold observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to attack the ministers than the master himself. "Uti verum absolvam brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis atrox nihil."

(10) Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius potuit. Ammian. I. xviii. c. 4.

(11) Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90,) reproaches the apostate with his ingratitude toward Mark, bishop of Arethusa, who had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a church.

(12) The most authentic account of the education and adventures of Julian, is contained in the epistle or manifesto which he himself addressed to the senate and people of Athens. Libanius (Orat. Parentalis,, on the side of the Pagans, and Socrates (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of Christians, had preserved several interesting circumstances.

(13) For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus, and the two Victors. According to Philostor gius (1. iv. c. 1), Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were, the guarantee, of this Bolemn engagement. He supported that character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv p. 1120,) thinks it very improbable that a heretic should have possessed such

virtue.

the honours of his rank, the appearances of liberty, and the restitution of an ample patrimony.(14)

The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Cesar was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne, he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had endured, disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who approached his person, or were subject to his power. (15) Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one of the infernal furies, tormented with an insatiate thirst of human blood.(16) Instead of employing her influence to insinuate the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the fierce passions of her husband, and as she retained the vanity, though she had renounced the gentleness of her sex, a pear necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an innocent and virtuous nobleman.(17) The cruelty of Gallus was sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies and informers: and the Cesar bimself, concealed in a plebeian habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was diffused through the capital of Syria. The Prince of the East, as if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment, the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing by their secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his only support, the affection of the people; while he furnished the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his purple, and of his life.(18)

[A. D. 354.] As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world, Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel administration to which his choice had subjected the East: and the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that the emperor and the Cesar were united by the same interest, and pursued by the same enemies.(19) But when the victory was decided in favour of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular

(14) Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of Bithynia and Ionia.

(15) See Julian ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom in Chron. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of Eutropius, who wrote his abridgement about fifteen years after the death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either to flatter or to depreciate his character. "Multis incivilibus gestis Gallus Cesar... vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset."

(16) Megera quidem mortalis, inflammatrix sævientis assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. I. xiv. c. 1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer him to misrepresent facts or cha racters, but his love of ambitious ornaments frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of expression.

(17) His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law; who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his love. Ammian. 1. Σίν. c. 1.

(18) See in Ammianus (I. xiv. c. 1. 7,) a very ample detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272,) insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him; and Zosimus names (1. ii. p. 135,) the persons engaged in it; a minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents who were resolved to make their fortune.

(19) Zonaras, 1. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins had seduced a great number of legionaries; but their designs were discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose cottage they lodged.

of the province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank, Domitian, the Oriental præfect, and Montius, quæstor of the palace, were empowered by a special commission* to visit and reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave toward Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the ⚫ invitation of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the præfect disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin, as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several days in sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to the pressing solicitations of Gallus, the præfect condescended to take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Cesar should immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject, expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the imprudent behaviour of Montius, a statesman, whose art and experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his disposition.(20) The quæstor reproached Gallus in haughty language, that a prince, who was scarcely authorized to remove a municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Prætorian præfect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers; and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the præfect and the quæstor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a thousand insults, and a thousand wounds, on these unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of the Orontes.(21) After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his defence the troops and treasures of the East, be suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the Cesar to discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust. But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a

(20) In the present text of Ammianus; we read, Asper, quidem, sed ad lenitatem propensior; which forms a sentence of contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old nianuscript, Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word vafer. If we venture to change lenitatem into levitatem, this alteration of a single letter will render the whole passage clear and consistent.

(21) Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book. Philostorgius, however 1. iii. c. 26), though partial to Gallus, should not be entirely overlooked.

rough soldier, disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of that princess com-
pleted the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions.(22)
After a long delay, the reluctant Cesar set forward on his journey to the
Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide extent
of his dominions with a numerous and stately train; and as he laboured to con-
ceal 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 impend-
ing 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 studi-
ously 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 Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the
most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that
city, while the Cesar 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 rash-
ness, 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 Petovia in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of soldiers, who could
Reither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by rewards, expected the arrival of
his illustrious victim. In the close of the evening he was arrested, ignomini-
ously stripped of the ensigns of Cesar, and hurried away to Polat 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 impla-
cable 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 Cesar sunk 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 examina
tion. 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)

(22) She had preceded her husband; but died of a fever on the road, at a little place in Bithynia, called
Conum Gallicanum.

(23) The Thebaan legions, which were then quartered at Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus,
with a tender of their services. Ammian. 1. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6. 20. 38. edit. Labb.) mentions
three several legions which bore the name of Thebaan. The zeal of M. de Voltaire, to destroy a despi-
cable though celebrated legend, has tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the existence of a
Thebean legion in the Roman armies. See Ouvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.

(24) See the complete narrative of the journey and death of Gallus in Ammianus, I. 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.

(25) Philostorgius, 1. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, 1. xiii. tom. ii. p. 19. But the former was partial toward an Arian monarch, and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever he found in the writing of the ancients.

TH

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 lonia, 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 while 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, be 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 sentiments 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. [A. D. 355.] 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 amidst 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 school of Athens, a general prepossession in favour of his virtues and talents, which was soon diffused over the Roman world.(29)

(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.

(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 beer detached and translated by the Abbé de la Bleterie. Vei de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408

(28) She was a native of Thessalonica 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.

(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 fellowstudent 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, 123).