Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II

After a long delay, the reluctant Cæsar set forwards 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 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 Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
in that city, while the Cæsar 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, 2311 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 Cæsar, and hurried away to Pola, [23b] 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
Cæsar 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 endeavored 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

23 (return) [ The Thebæan legions, which were then quartered at
Hadrianople, 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
Thebæan. 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 Thebæan legion in the Roman
armies. See Œuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.]

2311 (return) [ Pettau in Styria.—M ---- Rather to Flanonia. now
Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin.—M.]

24 (return) [ 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.]

25 (return) [ 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 honor, as
well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the
eunuchs, who endeavored 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 favor; 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 neighborhood of Milan,
till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
the place of his honorable 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 labors 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 behavior 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

26 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]

28 (return) [ 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 (return) [ 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 Cæsar 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 honor
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
favorite 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 Cæsar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32

30 (return) [ 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.]

31 (return) [ 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.]

32 (return) [ 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 endeavored, 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

33 (return) [ 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.]

34 (return) [ Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
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 Cæsar 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 Cæsar 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.

35 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x.
14.]

36 (return) [ Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
cum hastis clypei feriuntur, iræ 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 favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune
and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the Cæsar
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 Cæsar; 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

37 (return) [ 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.]

38 (return) [ 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 manû suâ
conscripserat, prælicenter disponens quid in convivio Cæsaris
impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]

39 (return) [ 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 præsecto plusquam
convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quæsitum
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.]

40 (return) [ 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 Rhætian 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
Æmilian 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]

41 (return) [ 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.]

The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey
excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans
some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first
idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he
had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed
the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to
embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a
remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the
invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one
obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by
his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of
the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria.
The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose,
and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness
was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least
a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile
to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed
about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of
art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611

42 (return) [ Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
of Hormisdas is recorded, “that one thing only had _displeased_
him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere.” If we
adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (_displicuisse_,
instead of _placuisse_,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]

43 (return) [ When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
Egyptian nation. See Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
iii. p. 69-243.]

44 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]

45 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
obelisk.]

46 (return) [ See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargæus on
Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Grævius’s Roman
Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]

4611 (return) [ It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32.—M]

The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers
were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent
monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities
of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the
field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the
preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
banks of the Danube; the Taifalæ, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large
plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal,
and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and
dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the
air, exclaimed with a loud voice, _Marha! Marha!_ 4711 a word of
defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They
rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal
throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but
the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed
him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous
surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the
Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of
the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were
reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although
Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their
chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved
that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting
attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this
splendid success, received the name of _Sarmaticus_ from the
acclamations of his victorious army. 48

47 (return) [ The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]

4711 (return) [ Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War.
Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.—M.]

48 (return) [ Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
vanity, and some truth]