Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/250

 230 THE DECLINE AND FALL tration by a siiiffular edict, which estabUshed the exclusive right of the treasury over the spoils of Rufinus ; and silenced, under heavy penalties, the presumptuous claims of the subjects of the Eastern empire, who had been injured by his rapacious tyranny. ^^ Even Stilicho did not derive from the murder of his rival the fruit which he had proposed ; and, though he gratified his revenge, his ambition was disappointed. Under the name of a favourite, the weakness of Arcadius required a master ; but he natui-ally preferred the obsequious arts of the eunuch Eutro- pius, who had obtained his domestic confidence ; and the emperor contemplated, with terror and aversion, the stem genius of a foreign warrior. Till they were divided by the jealousy of power, the sword of Gainas and the charms of Eudoxia supported the favour of the great chamberlain of the palace ; the perfidious Goth, who was appointed master-general of the East, betrayed, without scruple, the interest of his bene- factor ; and the same troops who had so lately massacred the enemy of Stilicho were engaged to support, against him, the independence of the throne of Constantinople. The favourites of Arcadius fomented a secret and irreconcileable war against a formidable hero who aspired to govern and to defend the two empires of Rome and the two sons of Theodosius. They in- cessantly laboured, by dark and treacherous machinations, to deprive him of the esteem of the prince, the respect of the people, and the friendship of the Barbarians. The life of Stilicho was repeatedly attempted by the dagger of hired assassins ; and a decree was obtained, from the senate of Con- stantinople, to declare him an enemy of the republic and to confiscate his ample possessions in the provinces of the East. At a time when the only hope of delaying the ruin of the Roman name depended on the firm union, and reciprocal aid, of all the nations to whom it had been gradually communicated, the subjects of Arcadius and Honorius were instructed, by their respective masters, to view each other in a foreign, and even hostile, light ; to rejoice in their mutual calamities, and to em- brace, as their faithful allies, the Barbarians whom they excited to invade the territories of their countrymen.^*' The natives of Italy affected to despise the servile and effensinate Greeks of '^See the Thcodosian Code, 1. i.x. tit. xlii. leg. 14, 15. The new ministers attempted, with inconsistent avarice, to seize the spoils of their predecessor and to provide for their own future security. ^ See Claudian (i. Cons. Stilich. 1. i. 275, 292, 296, 1. ii. 83) and Zosimus (1. v. p. 302 [c. 11]).