15.

But why do I try to heal a sorrow which has already, I suppose, been assuaged by time and reason? Why do I not rather unfold to you—they are not far to seek—the miseries of our rulers and the calamities of our time? He who has lost the light of life is not so much to be pitied as he is to be congratulated who has escaped from such great evils. Constantius, ¹ the patron of the Arian heresy, was hurrying to do battle with his enemy [^145] when he died at the village of Mopsus and to his great vexation left the empire to his foe. Julian ², the betrayer of his own soul, the murderer of a Christian army, felt in Media the hand of the Christ whom he had previously denied in Gaul. Desiring to annex new territories to Rome, he did but lose annexations previously made. Jovian ³ had but just tasted the sweets of sovereignty when a coal-fire suffocated him: a good instance of the transitoriness of human power. Valentinian ⁴ died of a broken blood vessel, the land of his birth laid waste, and his country unavenged. His brother Valens ⁵ defeated in Thrace by the Goths, was buried where he died. Gratian, betrayed by his army and refused admittance by the cities on his line of march, became the laughing-stock of his foe; and your walls, Lyons, still bear the marks of that bloody hand. ⁶ Valentinian was yet a youth—I may say, a mere boy—when, after flight and exile and the recovery of his power by bloodshed, he was put to death ⁷ not far from the city which had witnessed his brother’s end. And not only so but his lifeless body was gibbeted to do him shame. What shall I say of Procopius, of Maximus, of Eugenius, ⁸ who while they held sovereign sway were a terror to the nations, yet stood one and all as prisoners in the presence of their conquerors, and—cruellest wound of all to the great and powerful—felt the pang of an ignominious slavery before they fell by the edge of the sword.

[^145] : Julian.