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

this criticism, see vol. ii. Appendix 10.]

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      Ammianus, xx. l. The valour of Lupicinus, and his military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some thoughts of passing over into the island. [Constantius was doubtless ignorant of this danger.]

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      He granted them the permission of the cursus clavularis, or clabularis. These post-waggons are often mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred pounds’ weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.

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      [So quarto rightly (Zos. iii. 9); Smith’s text and others give bows!]

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      Most probably the palace of the baths (Thermarum), of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in the rue de la Harpe. The buildings covered a considerable space of the modern quarter of the University; and the gardens, under the Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins; whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love.

      Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis;

      Multiplici latebrâ scelerum tersura ruborem.

      . . . . pereuntis sæpe pudoris

      Celatura nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.

      (These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville [Altavilla or Auvilla, near Rouen], a Monk of St. Alban’s about the year 1190 [1184]. See Warton’s Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such thefts might be less pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground. Bonamy, Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 678-682.

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      Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse-collar, which the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a diadem.

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      An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces of the former, one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to about five pounds ten shillings of our money.

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      For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284 [p. 362-366, ed. Hertl.]), Libanius (Orat. Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius Bibliot. Græc. t. vii. p. 269-273), Ammianus (xx. 4), and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 151, 152, 153 [c. 9]), who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we might neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.

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      Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful expression, “consensu militum” (x. 15). Gregory Nazianzen, whose ignorance might excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, αὐθάδεια, ἀπόνοια, ἀσέβεια. Orat. iii. [= iv. ed. Migne] p. 67 [c. 26].

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      Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284 [p. 365, ed. H.]. The devout Abbé de la Bléterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to respect the devout protestations of a Pagan.

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      Ammian. xx. 5, with a note of Lindenbrogius on the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius (Epist. xvii. p. 384 [p. 496, ed. H.]), mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind of Cæsar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155 [c. 9]) relates a subsequent dream.

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      The difficult situation of the prince of a rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus (Hist. 1, 80-85). But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than Julian.

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      To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus, private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never existed.

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      See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286 [p. 367, 368]. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.

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      Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons; and Isocrates assures Philip that it would be easier to raise an army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume’s Essays, tom. i. p. 426, 427.

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      Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414 [p. 535, ed. H.]) gives a short description of Vesontio, or Besançon; a rocky peninsula almost encircled by the river Doux [Doubs]; once a magnificent city, filled with temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging however from its ruins.

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      Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was promoted from a Barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of Phœnicia. He still retained the same artful character (Ammian. xxi. 4): but, under the reign of Valens, he signalised his valour in the Armenian war (xxix. 1).

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      Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 155 [10].

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      Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the Via Nomentana, Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak apology to justify his hero from a very absurd charge: of poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother’s jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at Venice 1754 [by A. Bongiovanni], from a MS. in St. Mark’s library, p. 117-127 [Or. 36, ed. Reiske].) Elpidius, the Prætorian prefect of the East, to whose evidence the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius as effeminate and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is praised by Jerom (tom. i. p. 243), and his humanity by Ammianus (xxi. 6) [and Libanius praises him elsewhere, cp. Epp. 176 and 192].

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      Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario Christiani Epiphania dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam, solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras observes that it was on Christmas-day, and his assertion is not inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps Gaul celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the nativity and the baptism of their Saviour. The Romans, as ignorant as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn festival on the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or winter solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the Sun. See Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, l. xx. c. 4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manichéisme, tom. ii. p. 690-700.

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      The public and secret negotiations between Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from Julian himself (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286), Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276), Ammianus (xx. 9), Zosimus (l. iii. p. 154 [c. 9]) and even Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21, 22 [c. 10]), who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used some valuable materials.

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      Three