Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/389

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 369 of Tribigild ; confessed his own inability to prosecute the war ; and extorted the permission of negotiating with his in- vincible adversar}^ The conditions of peace were dictated by the haughty rebel ; and the peremptory demand of the head of Eutropius revealed the author and the design of this hostile conspiracy. The bold satirist, who has indulged his discontent by the Fau of Entro- partial and passionate censure of the Christian emperors,^' violates the dignity rather than the truth of history, by com- paring the son of Theodosius to one of those harmless and simple animals who scarcely feel that they are the property of their shepherd. Two passions, however, fear and conjugal affection, awakened the languid soul of Arcadius : he was terrified by the threats of a victorious Barbarian ; and he yielded to the tender eloquence of his wife Eudoxia, who, with a flood of artificial tears, presenting her infant children to their father, implored his justice for some real or imaginary insult which she imputed to the audacious eunuch. ^^ The emperor's hand was directed to sign the condemnation of Eutropius ; the magic spell, which during four years had bound the prince and the people, was instantly dissolved ; and the acclamations that so lately hailed the merit and fortune of the favourite were converted into the clamours of the soldiers and the people, who reproached his crimes and pressed his immediate execution. In this hour of distress and despair his only refuge was in the sanctuary of the church, whose privileges he had wisely, or profanely, attempted to circumscribe ; and the most eloquent of the saints, John Chrysostom, enjoyed the triumph of pro- tecting a prostrate minister, whose choice had raised him to the ecclesiastical throne of Constantinople. The archbishop, ascending the pulpit of the cathedral, that he might be dis- tinctly seen and heard by an innumerable crowd of either sex and of every age, pronounced a seasonable and pathetic discourse on the forgiveness of injuries and the instability of human greatness. The agonies of the pale and affrighted wretch, who lay grovelling under the table of the altar, exhibited a solemn and instructive spectacle ; and the orator, who Avas after- wards accused of insulting the misfortunes of Eutropius, laboured to excite the contempt, that he might assuage the fury, of the 28 This anecdote, which Philostorgius alone has preserved (1. xi. c. 6, and Gothofred. Dissertat. p. 451-456), is curious and important ; since it connects the ^ revolt of the Goths with the secret intrig'ues of the palace. VOL. III. 24