Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/336

 316 THE DECLINE AND FALL the domestics the great chamberlam was shamefully beaten to death with sticks before the eyes of the astonished emperor ; and the subsequent assassination of Allobieh in the midst of a public procession is the only circumstance of his life in which Honorius discovered the faintest symptom of courage or resent- ment. Yet, before they fell, Eusebius and Allobieh had con- tributed their part to the ruin of the empire by opposing the conclusion of a treaty which Jovius, from a selfish and perhaps a criminal motive, had negotiated with Alaric in a personal inter- [Ariminum] view undcr the walls of Rimini. During the absence of Jovius the emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation nor his character could enable him to support : and a letter signed with the name of Honorius was immediately dispatched to the Praetorian prefect, granting him a fi'ee permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the militiTV' honours of Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian. This letter was im- prudently communicated to Alaric himself ; and the Goth, who in the whole transaction had behaed with temper and decency, expressed in the most outrageous language his lively sense of the insult so wantonly offered to his person and to his nation. The confei'ence of Rimini was hastily interrupted ; and the praefect Jovius on his return to Ravenna was compelled to adopt, and even to encourage, the fashionable opinions of the court. By his advice and example the principal officers of the state and army were obliged to swear that, without listening, in iniif cir- cumstances, to (uuf condition of peace, they would still persevere in perpetual and implacable war against the enemy of the re- public. This rash engagement opposed an insuperable bar to all future negotiation. The ministers of Honorius were heard to declare that, if they had only invoked the name of the Deity, they would consult the public safety and trust their souls to the mercy of Heaven ; but they had sworn by the sacred head of the emperor himself ; they had touched in solemn ceremony that august seat of majesty and wisdom ; and the violation of their oath would expose them to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion. ^'•' 8* Zos. 1. V. p. 367, 368, 369 [48, 49]. This custom of swearing by the head, or life, or safety, or genius of the sovereign was of the highest antiquity, both in Egypt (Genesis, xhi. 15) and Scythia. It was soon transferred by flattery to the Caesars ; and TertuUian complains that it was the only oath which the Romans of his time affected to reverence. See an elegant Dissertation of the Abb6 Massieu on the Oaths of the Ancients, in the Mt^m. de lAcad^mie des Inscriptions, torn. 1. p. 208, 209.