Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/139

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 119 he was too weak to revenge his unfortunate colleague : and the valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul ; and the mind of Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the Western Empire. In this important crisis, the government of the East and the conduct of the Gothic war required the undivided attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a distant benefactor ; and the Imperial council embraced the wise and manly resolution of conferring an obligation rather than of yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the purple as the reward of virtue ; but, at the age of nineteen, it is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He attempted to weigh, with an im- partial hand, their various merits and defects ; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of the power and resources of the fiiture sovereign of the East, the situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The choice of Gratian was soon declai*ed in favour of an exile, whose father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction of his authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great Theo- dosius, a name celebrated in history and dear to the Catholic church,!*"' was summoned to the Imperial court, which had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens, the empei'or Gratian produced before the assembled troops his colleague and their master ; who, after a modest, perhaps a sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of Augustus. !0" The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and 10^ A life of Theodosius the Great was composed in the last century (Paris, 1679, in 4to ; 1680, in i2mo), to inflame the mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The author, Fl^chier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a cele- brated preacher ; and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit-eloquence ; but he takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from St. Ambrose and St. Augustin. [For recent works cp. Appendix i.] ^'"'The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius, are marked in Picatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12), Themistius (Orat. xiv. p. 182), Zosimus (1. iv. p. 231 [24]), Augustin (de Civitat. Dei, v. 25), Orosius (1. vii. c. 34), Sozomen (1. vii. c. 2), Socrates (1. v. c. 2), Theodoret (1. v. c. 5), Philostorgius (I. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393), the Epitome of Victor [48], and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius, and Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Tempomm of Scaliger. [Eunap. fr. 48.]