Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/368

 CHAPTER XIX. CONSTANTIUS SOLE EMPEROR. — ELEVATION AND DEATH OF GALLUS. DANGER AND ELEVATION OF JULIAN. SARMATIAN AND PERSIAN WARS. VICTORIES OF JU- LIAN IN GAUL. Power ± HE divided provinces of the empire were again eunuchs, united by the victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his generals, and distrusted his ministers ; the triumph of his arms served only to establish the reign of the eunuchs over the Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of oriental jealousy and despotism", were introduced into Greece and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. Their progress was rapid ; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been abhorred as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen '^j were gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and of the emperors themselves ^. Restrained by the severe edicts of Domitian and Nerva ^, cherished cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is supposed to have reigned above nine- teen hundred years before Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia and Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deu- terou. xxiii. 1. See Goguel, Origines des Loix, etc. part i. 1. i. c. 3.  Eunuchum dixti velle te ; Quia solae utuntur his reginae /ferent. Eunuch, act i. scene 2. This play is translated from Menander, and the original must have ap- peared soon after the eastern conquests of Alexander. ' Miles. . spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat. Carm. v. 9. and Dacier ad loc. By the word spado, the Romans very forcibly expressed their abhorrence of this mutilated condition. The Greek appellation of eunuchs, which in- sensibly prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous sense. ^ We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch of Claudius, in whose favour the emperor prostituted some of the most honourable re- wards of military valour. See Sueton. in Claudio, c. 28. Posides em- ployed a great part of his wealth in building. Ut spado vincebat capitolia nostra Posides. Juvenal. Sat. xiv. 1. Ixvii. p. 1107. 1. Ixviii. p. 1119.
 * Ainmianus (1. xiv. c. 6.) imputes the first practice of castration to the
 * Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion. Cassius,