Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/201

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 181 arms the violated majesty of the throne. But, as the second conquest of the West was a task of difficulty and danger, he dismissed, with splendid presents and an ambiguous answer, the ambassadors of Eugenius ; and almost two years were con- sumed in the preparations of the civil war. Before he formed Theodoiius any decisive resolution, the pious emperor was anxious to dis-w'*'** ° cover the will of Heaven ; and, as the progress of Christianity had silenced the oracles of Delphi and Dodona, he consulted an Egyptian monk, who possessed, in the opinion of the age, the gift of miracles and the knowledge of futurity. Eutropius, one of the favourite eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, embarked for Alexandria, from whence he sailed up the Nile as far as the city of Lycopolis, or of Wolves, in the remote pro- vince of Thebais.^15 j^ the neighbourhood of that city, and on the summit of a lofty mountain, the holy John ^1*^ had con- structed, with his own hands, an humble cell, in which he had dwelt above fifty years, without opening his door, without seeing the face of a woman, and without tasting any food that had been prepared by fire or any human art. Five days of the week he spent in prayer and meditation ; but on Saturdays and Sundays he regularly opened a small window, and gave audience to the crowd of suppliants who successively flowed from every part of the Christian world. The eunuch of Theo- dosius approached the window with respectful steps, proposed his questions concerning the event of the civil war, and soon returned with a favourable oracle, which animated the courage of the emperor by the assurance of a bloody but infallible victory.i^^ The accomplishment of the prediction was for- warded by all the means that human prudence could supply. The industry of the two master-generals, Stilicho and Timasius, was directed to recruit the numbers, and to revive the discipline, of the Roman legions. The formidable troops of Barbarians [stana May marched under the ensigns of their national chieftains. The ^^° ^^^ "5 Lycopolis is the modern Siut, or Osiot, a town of Said, about the size of St. Denys, which drives a profitable trade with the kingdom of Sennaar, and has a very convenient fountain, " cujus potu signa virginitatis eripiuntur ' . See D'Anville, Description de I'Egypte, p. i8i. Abulfeda, Descript. .^Egypt. p. 14, and the curious annotations, p. 25, 92, of his editor Michaelis. 116 The life of John of Lycopolis is described by his two friends, Ruiinus (1. ii. c. i. p. 449) and Palladius (Hist. Lausiac. c. 43, p. 738) in Rosweyde's great Collec- tion of the Vitag Patrum. [See Acta Sctorum, 27 Mart. iii. 693 sg^.] Tillemont (M(!ni. Ecclfe. torn. x. p. 718, 720) has settled the Chronology. 11'? Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 22. Claudian (in Eutrop. 1. i. 312) mentions the eunuch's journey : but he most contemptuously derides the Egyptian dreams and the oracles pf the Nile,