Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/250

CHAP. VII.
_____ceived, and the honours of the empire sold without his knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the most worthless of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object except the glory of his sovereign, and the happiness of the people. A.D. 240. Administration of Misitheus.It should seem that love and learning introduced Misitheus to the favour of Gordian. The young prince married the daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his father-in-law to the first offices of the empire. Two admirable letters that passed between them are still extant. The minister, with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs^[1], and still more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past conduct ; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of a monarch, from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labour to conceal the truth^[2].

The Persian war. A.D. 242.The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of letters, not of arms ; yet such was the versatile genius of that great man, that, when he was appointed pretorian prefect, he discharged the military duties of his place with vigour and abihty. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person into the east. On his approach with a great army, the Persians withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the

1. Hist. August, p. 161. From some hints in the two letters, I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the palace without some degree of gentle violence, and that young Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.
2. Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiae dignum parentela sua putavit ; et praefectum statim fecit; post quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.