Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/184

164 THE DECLINE AND FALL Defeat and death of M&xlmoB. A.D. 388, June Augiut by the tears of beauty ; his affections were insensibly engaged by the graces of youth and innocence ; the art of Justina managed and directed the impulse of passion ; and the celebra- tion of the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil war. The unfeeling critics, who consider every amorous weakness as an indelible stain on tlie memory of a great and orthodox emperor, are inclined, on this occasion, to dispute the suspicious evidence of the historian Zosimus. For my own part, I shall frankly confess that I am willing to find, or even to seek, in the revolutions of the world some traces of the mild and tender sentiments of domestic life ; and, amidst the crowd of fierce and ambitious conquerors, I can distinguish, with peculiar complacency, a gentle hero, who may be supposed to receive his armour from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king was secured by the faith of treaties ; the martial Barbarians were persuaded to follow the standard, or to respect the frontiers^ of an active and liberal monarch ; and the dominions of Theodosius, from the Euphrates to the Hadriatic, resounded with the preparations of war both by land and sea. The skilful disposition of the forces of the East seemed to mul- tiply their numbers, and distracted the attention of Maximus. He had reason to fear that a chosen body of troops, under the command of the intrepid Arbogastes, would direct their march along the banks of the Danube and boldly penetrate through the Rhaetian provinces into the centre of Gaul. A powerful fleet was equipped in the harbours of Greece and Epirus, with an apparent design that, as soon as a passage had been opened by a naval victory, Valentinian and his mother should land in Italy, proceed, without delay, to Rome, and occupy the majestic seat of religion and empire. In the meanwhile, Theodosius himself advanced at the head of a brave and disciplined army, to encounter his unworthy rival, who, after the siege of iEmona. had fixed his camp in the neighbourhood of Siscia, a city of Pannonia, strongly fortified by the broad and rapid stream of the Save. The veterans, who still remembered the long resistance and successive resources of the tyrant Magnentius, might prepare themselves for the labours of three bloody campaigns. But the contest with his successor, who, like him, had usurped the thi-one of the West, was easily decided in the term of two ambiguous evidence to antedate the second marriage of Theodosius (Hist, des Enipereurs, torn. v. p. 740), and consequently to refute ces contes de Zosinie, qui seroient trop contraires k la pi6t6 de Th^odose.