Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/246

 226 THE DECLINE AND FALL the soldiers of the pay and jrratifications which they deserved or claimed from the liberality of the state.'-- The valour and conduct which he afterwards displayed in the defence of Italy against the arms of Alaric and Kada<raisus may justify the fame of his early achievements ; and, in an age less attentive to the laws of honour or of pride, the Roman generals might yield the pre-eminence of rank to the ascendant of superior genius. -^ He lamented and revenged the murder of Promotus, his rival and his friend ; and the massacre of many thousands of the flying Bastarnit is represented by the poet as a bloody sacrifice which the Roman Achilles offered to the manes of another Patroclus. The virtues and victories of Stilicho deserved the hatred of Rufinus ; and the arts of calumny might have been successful, if the tender and vigilant Serena had not protected her husband against his domestic foes, whilst he vanquished in the field the enemies of the empire. ^^ Theodosius continued to support an unworthy minister, to whose diligence he delegated the govern- ment of the palace and of the East ; but, when he marched against the tyrant Eugenius, he associated his faithful general to the labours and glories of the civil war ; and, in the last moments of his life, the dying monarch recommended to Stilicho the care of his sons, and of the republic.-^ The ambition and the abili- ties of Stilicho were not unequal to the important trust ; and he claimed the guardianship of the two empires during the minority of Arcadius and Honorius.-" The first measure of his adminis- "The beautiful lines of Claudian (in i. Cons. Stilich. ii. 113) display his genius ; but the integrity of Stilicho (in the military administration) is much more firmly established by the unwilling evidence of Zosimus (I. v. p. 345 [c. 34]). 2^' ... Si bellica moles [nubes] Ingrueret, quamvis annis et jure minori, Cedere grandasvos equitum peditumque magistros Adspiceres. Claudian, Laus Seren. p. 196, &c. A modern general would deem their submission either heroic patriotism or abject servility. !" Compare the poem on the first consulship (i. 9S[94]-ii5) with the Laus Serena; (227-237 [236], where it unfortunately breaks off). 'e may perceive the deep inveterate malice of Rufinus. 25. . . Qncmfiatribus osii Discedens clipeumque _leg. clipeuni] defensoremque dedisti. Yet the nomination (iv. Cons. Hon. 443) was private (iii. Cons. Hon. 142), cunctos discedere . . . jubet ; and may therefore be suspected. Zosimus and Suidas apply to Stilicho and Rufinus the same equal title of "En-iTpon-oi, guardians, or procurators. 26 The Roman law distinguishes two sorts of minority, which expired at the age of fourteen and of twenty-five. The one was subject to the tutor, or guardian, of the person ; the other to the curator, or trustee, of the estate (Heineccius, Antiquitat. Rom. ad Jurisprudent, pertinent. L i. tit. .xxii. xxiii. p. 218-232). But these legal ideas were never accurately transferred into the constitution of an ielective monarchy.