XXV.

r

A. D. 364.

January 1.

to the city of Tyana, in Cappadocia. From CHAP. Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra, capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship *. Dadastana f, an obscure town, almost at an equal distance between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his journey and his life. After indulging himself with a plentiful, perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed.

Jovian.

Feb. 17.

The cause of this sudden death was vari- Death of ously understood. By some it was ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms, which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he was suffocated in his sleep by the vapour of charcoal; which extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome moisture of the fresh plaister 1. But the want of a regular inquiry into the death

of

*Cujus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in curuli sellà veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat. Augus tus and his successors respectfully solicited a dispensation of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never been dishonoured by an infant.

+ The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125 Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra. Wesseling. Itinerar. p. 142. The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, P. 574.

See Ammianus (xxv. 10.), Eutropius (x. 18.), who might likewise be present; Jerom (tom. i. p. 26. ad Heliodo rum), Orosius (vii. 31.), Sozomeit (1. vi. c. 6.), Zosimus (1. ii. p. 197, 198.), and Zonoras (tom. ii. I. xiii. p. 28, 29.). We cannot expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute differences.

XXV.

CHAP. of a prince, whose reign and person were soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt. The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred with his predecessors; and the sad procession was met on the road by his wife Charito, the daughter of count Lucillian; who still wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her tears in the embraces of an imperial husband. Her disappointment and grief were embittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness. Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of Nobilissimus, and the vain ensigns of the consulship. Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother expected, every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from her arms, to appease with his blood the suspicions of the reigning prince †.

After

* Ammianus, unmindful of his usual candour and good the death of the harmless Jovian to that of the sense, compares second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment of the popular faction.

+Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336. 344. edit. Montfaucon. The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors (including the Cæsar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural consolations have never wiped away Such vague

death.

gle tear.

a sin

*

XXV. 1

Vacancy throne,

of the

Feb. 17

26.

After the death of Jovian, the throne of the CHAP. Roman world remained ten days without a master. The ministers and generals still continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective functions'; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for the place of the election †. In a solemn assembly of the civil and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again unanimously offered to the præfect Sallust.

He enjoyed the glory of a se

cond refusal and when the virtues of the father were alleged in favour of his son, the præfect, with the firmness of a disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble age of the one, and the inexperienced youth of the other, were equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several candidates were proposed: and, after weighing the objections of character or situation, they were successively rejected: but, as soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that officer united the suffrages

Ten days appeared scarcely sufficient for the march and election. But it may be observed; 1. That the generals might command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves, their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at Ancyra.

† Ammianus, xxvi. 1. Zosimus, 1. iii. p. 198. Philostor gius, 1. viii. c. 8. and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334. Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the Præfect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count of the domestics, and the Patrician Datianus, whose pressing recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the election,

XXV.

Election

and charac

lentinian.

CHAP. Suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian* was the son of count Gratian, a native of ter of Va- Cibalis, in Pannonia, who, from an obscure condition, had raised himself, by matchless strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and Britain; from which he retired, with an ample fortune and suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear and, to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian preserved his own, and the public, esteem. The avocations of a military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of literature; he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he. was able, as often as the occasion prompted him,

to

* Ammianus (xxx. 7. 9.), and the younger Victor, have furnished the portrait of Valentinian; which naturally precedes and illustrates the history of his reign.

to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and CHAP, ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline

were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; and it should seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however, and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit

and in the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The celerity and success with which he executed an important commission, recommended him to the favour of Jovian; and to the honourable command of the second school, or company, of Targetteers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly summoned without guilt, and without intrigue, to assume,

in

*At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the emperor to the temple, he struck a priest, who had presumed to purify him with lustral water (Sozomen, 1. vi. c. 6. Theodoret, 1. iii. c. 15.). Such public defiance might become Valentinian; but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence. Zosimus, 1. iv. p. 200, 201.

Socrates, 1. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or Thebais (the first might be possible), is interposed by Sozomen (1. vi. c. 6.) and Philostorgius (1. vii. c. 7. with Godefroy's Disser tations, p. 293.).

XXV.