Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/375

 ^ OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 357 voked a meeting of the civil and military officers: and CHAP. XIX. required them, in the name of their sovereign, to de- fend the person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash dechiration of war, the impatient temper of Callus was provoked to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and recom- mended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the prefect and the qua3stor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims, and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into the stream of the Orontes ''. After such a deed, whatever might have been the Dangerous designs of Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that callus!" ° he could assert his innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his de- fence the troops and treasures of the east, he suffered himself to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who, leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still appeared danger- ous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with professions of confidence and friendship ; exhort- ing the Caesar to discharge the duties of his high sta- tion, to relieve his colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the west by his presence, his coun- sels, and his arms. After so many reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust. But he had ^ Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full stream of the history of Ammia- nus, and need only refer to the seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book, rhiloslorgius, however, (1. iii. c. 28.) though partial to Gallus, should not be entirely overlooked.