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The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Volume 3
Edward Gibbon

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 3
Edward Gibbon

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 3

Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.

Part I.

Death Of Gratian. - Ruin Of Arianism. - St. Ambrose. - First
Civil War, Against Maximus. - Character, Administration, And
Penance Of Theodosius. - Death Of Valentinian II. - Second Civil
War, Against Eugenius. - Death Of Theodosius.

The fame of Gratian, before he had accomplished the
twentieth year of his age, was equal to that of the most
celebrated princes. His gentle and amiable disposition endeared
him to his private friends, the graceful affability of his
manners engaged the affection of the people: the men of letters,
who enjoyed the liberality, acknowledged the taste and eloquence,
of their sovereign; his valor and dexterity in arms were equally
applauded by the soldiers; and the clergy considered the humble
piety of Gratian as the first and most useful of his virtues.
The victory of Colmar had delivered the West from a formidable
invasion; and the grateful provinces of the East ascribed the
merits of Theodosius to the author of his greatness, and of the
public safety. Gratian survived those memorable events only four
or five years; but he survived his reputation; and, before he
fell a victim to rebellion, he had lost, in a great measure, the
respect and confidence of the Roman world.
The remarkable alteration of his character or conduct may
not be imputed to the arts of flattery, which had besieged the
son of Valentinian from his infancy; nor to the headstrong
passions which the that gentle youth appears to have escaped. A
more attentive view of the life of Gratian may perhaps suggest
the true cause of the disappointment of the public hopes. His
apparent virtues, instead of being the hardy productions of
experience and adversity, were the premature and artificial
fruits of a royal education. The anxious tenderness of his
father was continually employed to bestow on him those
advantages, which he might perhaps esteem the more highly, as he
himself had been deprived of them; and the most skilful masters
of every science, and of every art, had labored to form the mind
and body of the young prince. ^1 The knowledge which they
painfully communicated was displayed with ostentation, and
celebrated with lavish praise. His soft and tractable
disposition received the fair impression of their judicious
precepts, and the absence of passion might easily be mistaken for
the strength of reason. His preceptors gradually rose to the
rank and consequence of ministers of state: ^2 and, as they
wisely dissembled their secret authority, he seemed to act with
firmness, with propriety, and with judgment, on the most
important occasions of his life and reign. But the influence of
this elaborate instruction did not penetrate beyond the surface;
and the skilful preceptors, who so accurately guided the steps of
their royal pupil, could not infuse into his feeble and indolent
character the vigorous and independent principle of action which
renders the laborious pursuit of glory essentially necessary to
the happiness, and almost to the existence, of the hero. As soon
as time and accident had removed those faithful counsellors from
the throne, the emperor of the West insensibly descended to the
level of his natural genius; abandoned the reins of government to
the ambitious hands which were stretched forwards to grasp them;
and amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications. A
public sale of favor and injustice was instituted, both in the
court and in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his
power, whose merit it was made sacrilege to question. ^3 The
conscience of the credulous prince was directed by saints and
bishops; ^4 who procured an Imperial edict to punish, as a
capital offence, the violation, the neglect, or even the
ignorance, of the divine law. ^5 Among the various arts which had
exercised the youth of Gratian, he had applied himself, with
singular inclination and success, to manage the horse, to draw
the bow, and to dart the javelin; and these qualifications, which
might be useful to a soldier, were prostituted to the viler
purposes of hunting. Large parks were enclosed for the Imperial
pleasures, and plentifully stocked with every species of wild
beasts; and Gratian neglected the duties, and even the dignity,
of his rank, to consume whole days in the vain display of his
dexterity and boldness in the chase. The pride and wish of the
Roman emperor to excel in an art, in which he might be surpassed
by the meanest of his slaves, reminded the numerous spectators of
the examples of Nero and Commodus, but the chaste and temperate
Gratian was a stranger to their monstrous vices; and his hands
were stained only with the blood of animals. ^6 The behavior of
Gratian, which degraded his character in the eyes of mankind,
could not have disturbed the security of his reign, if the army
had not been provoked to resent their peculiar injuries. As long
as the young emperor was guided by the instructions of his
masters, he professed himself the friend and pupil of the
soldiers; many of his hours were spent in the familiar
conversation of the camp; and the health, the comforts, the
rewards, the honors, of his faithful troops, appeared to be the
objects of his attentive concern. But, after Gratian more freely
indulged his prevailing taste for hunting and shooting, he
naturally connected himself with the most dexterous ministers of
his favorite amusement. A body of the Alani was received into
the military and domestic service of the palace; and the
admirable skill, which they were accustomed to display in the
unbounded plains of Scythia, was exercised, on a more narrow
theatre, in the parks and enclosures of Gaul. Gratian admired
the talents and customs of these favorite guards, to whom alone
he intrusted the defence of his person; and, as if he meant to
insult the public opinion, he frequently showed himself to the
soldiers and people, with the dress and arms, the long bow, the
sounding quiver, and the fur garments of a Scythian warrior. The
unworthy spectacle of a Roman prince, who had renounced the dress
and manners of his country, filled the minds of the legions with
grief and indignation. ^7 Even the Germans, so strong and
formidable in the armies of the empire, affected to disdain the
strange and horrid appearance of the savages of the North, who,
in the space of a few years, had wandered from the banks of the
Volga to those of the Seine. A loud and licentious murmur was
echoed through the camps and garrisons of the West; and as the
mild indolence of Gratian neglected to extinguish the first
symptoms of discontent, the want of love and respect was not
supplied by the influence of fear. But the subversion of an
established government is always a work of some real, and of much
apparent, difficulty; and the throne of Gratian was protected by
the sanctions of custom, law, religion, and the nice balance of
the civil and military powers, which had been established by the
policy of Constantine. It is not very important to inquire from
what cause the revolt of Britain was produced. Accident is
commonly the parent of disorder; the seeds of rebellion happened
to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more fruitful than any
other in tyrants and usurpers; ^8 the legions of that sequestered
island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption and
arrogance; ^9 and the name of Maximus was proclaimed, by the
tumultuary, but unanimous voice, both of the soldiers and of the
provincials. The emperor, or the rebel, - for this title was not
yet ascertained by fortune, - was a native of Spain, the
countryman, the fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius whose
elevation he had not seen without some emotions of envy and
resentment: the events of his life had long since fixed him in
Britain; and I should not be unwilling to find some evidence for
the marriage, which he is said to have contracted with the
daughter of a wealthy lord of Caernarvonshire. ^10 But this
provincial rank might justly be considered as a state of exile
and obscurity; and if Maximus had obtained any civil or military
office, he was not invested with the authority either of governor
or general. ^11 His abilities, and even his integrity, are
acknowledged by the partial writers of the age; and the merit
must indeed have been conspicuous that could extort such a
confession in favor of the vanquished enemy of Theodosius. The
discontent of Maximus might incline him to censure the conduct of
his sovereign, and to encourage, perhaps, without any views of

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