Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/360

 340 THE DECLINE AXD FALL Revolutions of Oaul and Spain. A.D. 409-413 [Vienne] therefore take the precaution of observing, in this place, that he survived the last sieja^e of Rome about thirteen years. The usur])ation of Constantine, who received the purple from the legions of Britain, had been successful ; and seemed to be secure. His title was acknowledged, from the wall of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules ; and, in the midst of the public disorder, he shared the dominion, and the plunder, of Gaul and Spain with the tribes of Barbarians, whose destructive progress was no longer checked by the Rhine or Pyrenees. Stained with the blood of the kinsmen of Honorius, he extorted from the court of Ravenna, with which he secretly corresponded, the ratification of his rebellious claims. Constantine engaged him- self by a solemn promise to deliver Italy from the Goths ; ad- vanced as far as the banks of the Po ; and, after alarming rather than assisting his pusillanimous ally, hastily returned to the palace of Aries, to celebrate, with intemperate luxury, his vain and ostentatious triumph. But this transient prosperity was soon interrupted and destroyed by the revolt of count Gerontius, the bravest of his generals ; who, during the absence of his son Constans, a prince already invested with the Imperial purple, had been left to command in the provinces of Spain. For some reason of which we are ignorant, Gerontius, instead of assuming the diadem, placed it on the head of his friend Maximus,!^^ who fixed his residence at TaiTagona, while the active count pressed forwards, through the Pyrenees, to surprise the two emperors, Constantine and Constans, before they could prepare for their defence. The son was made prisoner at 'ienna and immediately put to death ; and the unfortunate youth had scarcely leisure to deplore the elevation of his family, which had tempted or com- pelled him saci-ilegiously to desert the peaceful obscurity of the monastic life. The father maintained a siege within the walls of Aries ; but those walls must have yielded to the assailants had not the city been unexpectedly relieved by the approach of an Italian army. The name of Honorius, the proclamation of a lawful emperor, astonished the contending parties of the rebels. Gerontius, abandoned by his own troops, escaped to the con- fines of Spain ; and rescued his name from oblivion by the Roman courage which appeared to animate the last moments of his life. In the middle of the night, a great body of his per- fidious soldiers surrounded and attacked his house, which he 155 [A dependent friend. Olympiodorus, fr. i6, has toj' iavroii n-oiia, which doubt- less means his "servant, " not his " son ".j