Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/379

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 361 the most effectual instrument of their providence, he CHAP, gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous friend- ' ship of the empress Eusebia*, a woman of beauty and merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness, Julian was ad- mitted into the imperial presence : he pleaded his cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with fa- vour; and, notwithstanding the efibrts of his enemies, who urged the danger of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder sentiment of Eusebia pre- vailed in the council. But the effects of a second in- terview were dreaded by the eunuchs ; and Julian was advised to withdraw for a while into the neighbourhood of Milan, till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for the place of his honourable exile. He is sent As he had discovered from his earliest youth a pro- *^ j^ ^T^' pensity, or rather passion, for the language, the man- May. ners, the learning, and the religion of the Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the trea- chery of courts, he spent six months amidst the groves of the academy, in a free intercourse with the philoso- phers of the age, who studied to cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the devotion of their royal pupil. Their labours were not unsuccess- ful ; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard, which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has discovered and exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed, insensibly engaged related. It forms the conclusion of the seventh oration, from whence it lias been detached and translated by the abb^ de la Bleterie, Vie de Jo- vien, tom. ii. p. 385 — 408. «= She was a native of Thessalonica in Macedonia, of a noble family, and the daughter as well as sister of consuls. Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a divided age, the historians of all par- ties agree in her praises. See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750 — 754.