Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/359

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 339 such an armament, which might have subverted or restored the greatest empires of the earth, the African usurper made a very faint and feeble impression on the provinces of his rival. As he marched from the port along the road which leads to the gates of Rome, he was encountered, terrified, and routed by one of the Imperial captains ; and the lord of this mighty host, deserting his fortune and his friends, ignominiously fled with a single ship. 1^1 When Heraclian landed in the harbour of Carthage, he found that the whole province, disdaining such an unworthy ruler, had returned to their allegiance. The rebel was be- headed in the ancient temple of Memory ; his consulship was abolished ; i^- and the remains of his private fortune, not ex- ceeding the moderate sum of four thousand pounds of gold, were granted to the brave Constantius, who had already defended the throne which he aftenvards shared with his feeble sovei'eign. Honorius viewed with supine indifference the calamities of Rome and Italy ; i°^ but the rebellious attempts of Attalus and Hei'ac- lian against his personal safety awakened, for a moment, the torpid instinct of his nature. He was pi'obably ignorant of the causes and events which preserved him from these impending dangers ; and, as Italy was no longer invaded by any foreign or domestic enemies, he peaceably existed in the palace of Ravenna, while the tyi*ants beyond the Alps were repeatedly vanquished in the name, and by the lieutenants, of the son of Theodosius.^^^ In the course of a busy and interesting narrative, I might pos- sibly forget to mention the death of such a prince, and I shall Chronicle of Marcellinus gives Heraclian 700 ships and 3000 men : the latter of these numbers is ridiculously corrupt, but the former would please me very much. 151 The Chronicle of Idatius affirms, without the least appearance of truth, that he advanced as far as Otriculum, in Umbria, where he was overthrown in a great battle, with the loss of fifty thousand men. 1''- See Cod. Theod. 1. xv. tit. iv. leg. 13. The legal acts performed in his name, even the manumission of slaves, were declared invalid till they had been formally repealed. 15^ I have disdained to mention a very foolish, and probably a false, report (Procop. de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 2) that Honorius was alarmed by the loss of Rome, till he understood that it was not a favourite chicken of that name, but only the capital of the world, which had been lost. Yet even this story is some evidence of the public opinion. i'"'-! The materials for the lives of all these tyrants are taken from six contempo- rary historians, two Latins and four Greeks: Orosius, 1. vii. c. 42, p. 581, 582, 583 ; Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus, apud Gregor. Turon. 1. ii. c. 9, in the historians of France, tom. ii. p. 165, 166; Zosimus, 1. vi. p. 370, 371 [2 sqi].' Olympiodorus, apud Phot. p. 180, 181, 184, 185 [fr. 12-19]; Sozomen, 1. i.. c. 12, 13, 14, 15 ; and Philostorgius, 1. -xii. c. 5, 6, with Godefroy's Dissertations, p. 477-481 ; besides the four Chronicles of Prosper Tiro, Prosper of Aquitain, Idatius, and Marcellinus.