Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/257

OF THE ROMxN EMPIRE 237 senate and people of Rome the judgment of the most illustrious eriminals.^^ Their trial was public and solemn ; but the judges, in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious jurisdiction, were impatient to punish the African magistrates, who had inter- cepted the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich and guilty province was impressed by the Imperial ministers, who had a visible interest to multiply the number of the accomplices of Gildo ; and, if an edict of Honorius seems to check the mali- cious industry of informers, a subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years, continues and renews the prosecution of the offences which had been committed in the time of the general rebellion. ^*^ The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first fury of the soldiers and the judges might derive some consola- tion from the tragic fate of his brother, who could never obtain his pardon for the extraordinary services which he had performed. After he had finished an important war in the space of a single winter, Mascezel was received at the court of Milan with loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret jealousy; 5 and his death, which, perhaps, was the effect of accident, has been con- sidered as the crime of Stilicho. In the passage of a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied the master-general of the West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river ; the officious haste of the attendants was restrained by a cruel and perfidious smile which they observed on the countenance of Stilicho ; and, while they delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel was irrecoverably drowned.^^ The joy of the African triumph was happily connected with Marriage the nuptials of the emperor Honorius and of his cousin Maria, of HonoirM.*'^ the daughter of Stilicho : and this equal and honourable alliance seemed to invest the powerful minister with the authority of a parent over his submissive pupil. The muse of Claudian was S5 Claudian (ii. Cons. Stilich. 99-119) describes their trial (tremuit quos Africa nuper, cemunt rostra reos) and applauds the restoration of the ancient constitution. It is here that he introduces the famous sentence, so familiar to the friends of despotism : . . . Nunquam libertas gratior exstat Quam sub rege pio . . . But the freedom which depends on royal piety scarcely deserves that appellation. ^ See the Theodosian Code, 1. ix. tit. xxxix. leg. 3, tit. .xl. leg. 19. 6 Stilicho, who claimed an equal share in all the victories of Theodosius and his son, particularly asserts that Africa was recovered by the wisdom of Ais counsels (see an inscription produced by Baronius). [Gruter, p. 412. See Appendix 13.] 53 I have softened the narrative of Zosimus, which, in its crude simplicity, i.s almost incredible (1. v. p. 303 [c. 11]). Orosius damns the victorious general (p. 538 [?> 33]) for violating the right of sanctuary.