The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

short and superficial life of St. Ambrose by his deacon Paulinus (Appendix ad edit. Benedict. p. i.-xv.) has the merit of original evidence. Tillemont (Mém. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 78-306) and the Benedictine editors (p. xxxi.-lxiii.) have laboured with their usual diligence.

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      Ambrose himself (tom. ii. epist. xxiv. p. 888-891) gives the emperor a very spirited account of his own embassy.

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      His own representation of his principles and conduct (tom. ii. epist. xx. xxi. xxii. p. 852-880) is one of the curious monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. It contains two letters to his sister Marcellina, with a petition of Valentinian, and the sermon de Basilicis non tradendis.

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      Retz had a similar message from the queen, to request that he would appease the tumult of Paris. It was no longer in his power, &c. A quoi j’ajoutai tout ce que vous pouvez vous imaginer de respect, de douleur, de regret, et de soumission, &c. (Mémoires, tom. i. p. 140). Certainly I do not compare either the causes or the men; yet the coadjutor himself had some idea (p. 84) of imitating St. Ambrose.

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      Sozomen alone (l. vii. c. 13) throws this luminous fact into a dark and perplexed narrative.

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      Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesiâ mori parata cum episcopo suo. . . . Nos adhuc frigidi excitabamur tamen civitate attonitâ atque turbatâ. Augustin. Confession l. ix. c. 7.

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      Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. ii. p. 78, 498. Many churches in Italy, Gaul, &c., were dedicated to these unknown martyrs, of whom St. Gervase seems to have been more fortunate than his companion.

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      Invenimus miræ magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca ætas ferebat. Tom. ii. epist. xxii. p. 875. [Mr. Hodgkin, who discusses the discovery, seems disposed to entertain the idea that Ambrose may have practised a pious fraud; i. 440.] The size of these skeletons was fortunately, or skilfully, suited to the popular prejudice of the gradual increase of the human stature; which has prevailed in every age since the time of Homer.

      Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.

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      Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin. Confes. l. ix. c. 7, de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 8. Paulin. in Vitâ St. Ambros., c. 14, in Append. Benedict. p. 4. The blind man’s name was Severus; he touched the holy garment, recovered his sight, and devoted the rest of his life (at least twenty-five years) to the service of the church. I should recommend this miracle to our divines if it did not prove the worship of relics, as well as the Nicene creed.

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      Paulin. in Vit. St. Ambros. c. 5 [15], in Append. Benedict. p. 5.

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      Tillemont, Mém. Ecclés. tom. x. p. 190, 750. He partially allows the mediation of Theodosius; and capriciously rejects that of Maximus, though it is attested by Prosper [not the true Prosper; but Chron. Gall. ap. Mommsen, Chron. Min. i. p. 648; cp. Rufin, 11. 16], Sozomen, and Theodoret.

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      The modest censure of Sulpicius (Dialog. iii. 15) inflicts a much deeper wound than the feeble declamation of Pacatus (xii. 25, 26).

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      Esto tutior adversus hominem, pacis involucro tegentem, was the wise caution of Ambrose (tom. ii. p. 891) after his return from his second embassy [ad 386-7].

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      Baronius (ad 387, No. 63) applies to this season of public distress some of the penitential sermons of the archbishop.

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      The flight of Valentinian and the love of Theodosius for his sister are related by Zosimus (l. iv. p. 263, 264 [c. 43]). Tillemont produces some weak and ambiguous evidence to antedate the second marriage of Theodosius (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 740), and consequently to refute ces contes de Zosime, qui seroient trop contraires à la piété de Théodose.

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      See Godefroy’s Chronology of the Laws, Cod. Theodos. tom. i. p. 119.

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      Besides the hints which may be gathered from chronicles and ecclesiastical history, Zos. (l. iv. p. 259-267 [c. 44-47]), Oros. (l. vii. c. 35) and Pacatus (in Pan. Vet. xii. 30-47) supply the loose and scanty materials of this civil war. Ambrose (tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 952, 953) darkly alludes to the well-known events of a magazine surprised, an action at Pœtovio, a Sicilian, perhaps a naval, victory, &c. Ausonius (p. 256, edit. Toll. [Ord. Urb. Nob. 66 sqq.]) applauds the peculiar merit, and good fortune, of Aquileia. [For the son of Maximus, Flavius Victor, see C.I.L. 5, 8032 and Eckhel, 8, 66. The victory in Sicilia must have been on sea, over the fleet of Andragathius; cp. Oros. loc. cit.]

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      Quam promptum laudare principem, tam tutum siluisse de principe (Pacat. in Pan. Vet. xii. 2). Latinus Pacatus Drepanius, a native of Gaul, pronounced this oration at Rome (ad 388). He was afterwards proconsul of Africa; and his friend Ausonius praises him as a poet, second only to Virgil. See Tillemont, Hist. des Emper. tom. v. p. 303.

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      See the fair portrait of Theodosius by the younger Victor; the strokes are distinct, and the colours are mixed. The praise of Pacatus is too vague: and Claudian always seems afraid of exalting the father above the son.

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      Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 955. [The interpretation of this passage is not certain. The daughters of an inimicus and the mother of a hostis are mentioned. Are the hostis and inimicus the same, viz., Maximus?] Pacatus. from the want of skill, or of courage, omits this glorious circumstance.

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      Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 20.

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      Zosimus, l. iv. p. 271, 272 [c. 50]. His partial evidence is marked by an air of candour and truth. He observes these vicissitudes of sloth and activity, not as a vice, but as a singularity, in the character of Theodosius.

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      This choleric temper is acknowledged, and excused, by Victor [Epit. 48] Sed habes (says Ambrose, in decent and manly language, to his sovereign) naturæ impetum, quem si quis lenire velit, cito vertes ad misericordiam: si quis stimulet, in magis exsuscitas, ut eum revocare vix possis (tom. ii. epist. ii. p. 998). Theod. (Claud. in iv. Cons. Hon. 266, &c.) exhorts his son to moderate his anger.

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      The Christians and Pagans agreed in believing that the sedition of Antioch was excited by the demons. A gigantic woman (says Sozomen, l. vii. c. 23) paraded the streets with a scourge in her hand. An old man (says Libanius, Orat. xii. p. 396 [or. xix. in Reiske’s ed., vol. 7, p. 626 seq.]) transformed himself into a youth, then a boy, &c.

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      Zosimus, in his short and disingenuous account (l. iv. p. 258, 259 [c. 41]), is certainly mistaken in sending Libanius himself to Constantinople. His own orations fix him at Antioch.

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      Libanius (Orat. i. p. 6, edit. Venet.) declares that, under such a reign, the fear of a massacre was groundless and absurd, especially in the emperor’s absence; for his presence, according to the eloquent slave, might have given a sanction to the most bloody acts.

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      Laodicea, on the sea-coast, sixty-five miles from Antioch (see Noris, Epoch. Syro-Maced. Dissert. iii. p. 230). The Antiochians were offended that the dependent city