Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/189

 OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 169 Antioch and the inhuman massacre of the people of Thes- salonica. The lively impatience of the inhabitants of Antioch was never The sediuon satisfied with their own situation, or with the character or con- a.d. 387 duct of their successive sovereigns. The Arian subjects of Theodosius deplored the loss of their churches ; and, as three rival bishops disputed the throne of Antioch, the sentence which decided their pretensions excited the murmurs of the two unsuccessful congregations. The exigencies of the Gothic war, and the inevitable expense that accompanied the conclusion of the peace, had constrained the emperor to aggravate the weight of the public impositions ; and the provinces of Asia, as they had not been involved in the distress, were the less inclined to continbute to the relief, of Europe. The auspicious period now approached of the tenth year of his reign ; a festival more grateful to the soldiers, who received a liberal donative, than to the subjects, whose voluntary offerings had been long since converted into an extraordinary and oppressive burthen. The edicts of taxation interrupted the repose and pleasures of Antioch ; and the tribunal of the magistrate was besieged by a suppliant crowd ; who, in pathetic, but, at first, in respectful language, solicited the redress of their grievances. They were gradually incensed by the pride of their haughty rulers, who treated their complaints as a criminal resistance ; their satirical wit de- generated into sharp and angry invectives ; and, from the subor- dinate powers of government, the invectives of the people in- sensibly rose to attack the sacred character of the emperor himself. Their fury, provoked by a feeble opposition, discharged Feb.M itself on the images of the Imperial family, which were erected as objects of public veneration in the most conspicuous places of the city. The statues of Theodosius, of his father, of his wife Flaccilla, of his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius, were insolently thrown down from their pedestals, broken in pieces, or dragged with contempt through the streets ; and the indignities which were offered to the representations of Imperial majesty, suffi- ciently declared the impious and treasonable wishes of the populace. The tumult was almost immediately suppressed by the arrival of a body of arcliers ; and Antioch had leisure to re- flect on the nature and consequences of her crime. ^^ According 8-' The Christians and Pagans agreed in believing that the sedition of Antioch was excited by the daemons. A gigantic woman (says Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 23) paraded the streets with a scourge in her hand. An old man (says Libanius, Orat. xii. p. 396 [or. xi.x. in Reiske's ed., voL 7, p. 626 seq.]) transformed himself into a youth, then a boy, &c.