Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/376

 358 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, neglected the opportunities of flight and of resistance ; " he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the tri- bune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier, disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by her impetuous passions ^. Hisdisgrace After a long delay, the reluctant Csesar set forwards A. D. 354 on his journey to the imperial court. From Antioch December, to Hadrianople, he traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and stately train ; and as he laboured to conceal his apprehensions from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was met by mi- nisters of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty sallies of his despair. The persons de- spatched to secure the provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations, or affected disdain ; and the troops whose station lay along the public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they might be tempted to ofl'er their swords for the service of a civil war^. After Gallus had been per- mitted to repose himself a few days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt in that city, while the Csesar himself, with only ten post-carriages, should hasten to the imperial residence y She had preceded her husband ; but died of a fever on the road, at a little place in Bithynia, called Ccenum Gallicanum. a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their services. Ammian. 1. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6. 20. 38. edit. Labb.) mentions three several le- gions which bore the name of Thebaean. The zeal of ;I. de ^'oltaire, to destroy a despicable though celebrated legend, has tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the existence of a Thebaean legion in the Roman armies. See (Euvres de V'ollaire, torn. xv. p. 414. quarto edition.
 * The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at Hadrianople, sent