The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

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СКАЧАТЬ but Priscus (p. 57 [p. 84]) has too plainly distinguished two persons of the name of Constantius, who, from the similar events of their lives, might have been easily confounded.

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      In the Persian treaty, concluded in the year 422, the wise and eloquent Maximin had been the assessor of Ardaburius (Socrates, l. vii. c. 20). When Marcian ascended the throne, the office of Great Chamberlain was bestowed on Maximin, who is ranked, in a public edict, among the four principal ministers of state (Novell. ad Calc. Cod. Theod. p. 31). He executed a civil and military commission in the Eastern provinces; and his death was lamented by the savages of Æthiopia, whose incursions he had repressed. See Priscus, p. 40, 41.

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      Priscus was a native of Panium in Thrace, and deserved, by his eloquence, an honourable place among the sophists of the age. His Byzantine history, which related to his own times, was comprised in seven books. See Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vi. p. 235, 236. Notwithstanding the charitable judgment of the critics, I suspect that Priscus was a Pagan.

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      The Huns themselves still continued to despise the labours of agriculture; they abused the privilege of a victorious nation; and the Goths, their industrious subjects who cultivated the earth, dreaded their neighbourhood, like that of so many ravenous wolves (Priscus, p. 45 [p. 108]). In the same manner the Sarts and Tadgics provide for their own subsistence, and for that of the Usbec Tartars, their lazy and rapacious sovereigns. See Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423, 455, &c.

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      It is evident that Priscus passed the Danube and the Theiss, and that he did not reach the foot of the Carpathian hills. Agria, Tokay, and Jazberin are situated in the plains circumscribed by this definition. M. de Buat (Histoire des Peuples, &c. tom. vii. p. 461) has chosen Tokay; Otrokosci (p. 180, apud Mascou, ix. 23), a learned Hungarian, has preferred Jazberin, a place about thirty-six miles westward of Buda and the Danube. [Jász-Berény.]

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      The royal village of Attila may be compared to the city of Karacorum, the residence of the successors of Zingis; which, though it appears to have been a more stable habitation, did not equal the size or splendour of the town and abbeys of St. Denys, in the thirteenth century (see Rubruquis, in the Histoire Générale des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 286). The camp of Aurengzebe, as it is so agreeably described by Bernier (tom. ii. p. 217-235), blended the manners of Scythia with the magnificence and luxury of Hindostan.

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      When the Moguls displayed the spoils of Asia, in the diet of Toncat, the throne of Zingis was still covered with the original black felt carpet on which he had been seated when he was raised to the command of his warlike countrymen. See Vie de Gengiscan, l. iv. c. 9.

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      [Eskam. ἐν ἠ γαμεɩ̂ν θυγατέρα Ἐσκὰμ ἐβούλετο. Milman asks whether this means “his own daughter, Eskam,” or “the daughter of Eskam.” The fact that Priscus passes no comment is in favour of the second interpretation.]

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      If we may believe Plutarch (in Demetrio, tom. v. p. 24 [c. 19]), it was the custom of the Scythians, when they indulged in the pleasures of the table, to awaken their languid courage by the martial harmony of twanging their bowstrings.

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      The curious narrative of this embassy, which required few observations, and was not susceptible of any collateral evidence, may be found in Priscus, p. 49-70 [fr. 8]. But I have not confined myself to the same order; and I had previously extracted the historical circumstances, which were less intimately connected with the journey, and business, of the Roman ambassadors.

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      M. de Tillemont has very properly given the succession of Chamberlains who reigned in the name of Theodosius. Chrysaphius was the last and, according to the unanimous evidence of history, the worst of these favourites (see Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 117-119. Mém. Ecclés. tom. xv. p. 438). His partiality for his godfather, the heresiarch Eutyches, engaged him to persecute the orthodox party.

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      This secret conspiracy and its important consequences may be traced in the fragments of Priscus, p. 37, 38, 39 [fr. 7; 8 ad init.], 54 [p. 82], 70, 71, 72 [p. 95, 96, 97]. The chronology of that historian is not fixed by any precise date; but the series of negotiations between Attila and the Eastern empire must be included between the three or four years which are terminated, ad 450, by the death of Theodosius.

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      Theodorus the Reader (see Vales. Hist. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 563) and the Paschal Chronicle mention the fall, without specifying the injury; but the consequence was so likely to happen, and so unlikely to be invented, that we may safely give credit to Nicephorus Callistus, a Greek of the fourteenth century.

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      Pulcheriæ nutu (says Count Marcellinus) suâ cum avaritiâ interemptus est. She abandoned the eunuch to the pious revenge of a son whose father had suffered at his instigation.

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      Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4. Evagrius, l. ii. c. 1. Theophanes, p. 90, 91. Novell. ad Calcem Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 30. The praises which St. Leo and the Catholics have bestowed on Marcian are diligently transcribed, by Baronius, as an encouragement for future princes.

      CHAPTER XXXV

      

       Invasion of Gaul by Attila — He is repulsed by Aetius and the Visigoths — Attila invades and evacuates Italy — The deaths of Attila, Aetius, and Valentinian the Third

      It was the opinion of Marcian that war should be avoided, as long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honourable peace; but it was likewise his opinion that peace cannot be honourable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war. This temperate courage dictated his reply to the demands of Attila, who insolently pressed the payment of the annual tribute. The emperor signified to the Barbarians that they must no longer insult the majesty of Rome, by the mention of a tribute; that he was disposed to reward with becoming liberality the faithful friendship of his allies; but that if they presumed to violate the public peace, they should feel that he possessed troops, and arms, and resolution, to repel their attacks. The same language, even in the camp of the Huns, was used by his ambassador Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliver the presents, till he had been admitted to a personal interview, displayed a sense of dignity, and a contempt of danger, which Attila was not prepared to expect from the degenerate Romans. ^{Ref. 057} He threatened to chastise the rash successor of Theodosius; but he hesitated whether he should first direct his invincible arms against the Eastern or the Western empire. While mankind awaited his decision with awful suspense, he sent an equal defiance to the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople, and his ministers saluted the two emperors with the same haughty declaration. “Attila, my Lord, and thy lord, commands thee to provide a palace for his immediate reception.” ^{Ref. 058} But, as the Barbarian despised, or affected to despise, the Romans of the East, whom he had so often vanquished, he soon declared СКАЧАТЬ