softened by the tears of beauty; his affections were insensibly
engaged by the graces of youth and innocence: the art of Justina
managed and directed the impulse of passion; and the celebration of
the royal nuptials was the assurance and signal of the civil war. The
unfeeling critics, who consider every amorous weakness as an indelible
stain on the memory of a great and orthodox emperor, are inclined, on
this occasion, to dispute the suspicious evidence of the historian
Zosimus. For my own part, I shall frankly confess, that I am willing
to find, or even to seek, in the revolutions of the world, some traces
of the mild and tender sentiments of domestic life; and amidst the
crowd of fierce and ambitious conquerors, I can distinguish, with
peculiar complacency, a gentle hero, who may be supposed to receive
his armor from the hands of love. The alliance of the Persian king was
secured by the faith of treaties; the martial Barbarians were
persuaded to follow the standard, or to respect the frontiers, of an
active and liberal monarch; and the dominions of Theodosius, from the
Euphrates to the Adriatic, resounded with the preparations of war both
by land and sea. The skilful disposition of the forces of the East
seemed to multiply their numbers, and distracted the attention of
Maximus. He had reason to fear, that a chosen body of troops, under
the command of the intrepid Arbogastes, would direct their march along
the banks of the Danube, and boldly penetrate through the Rhætian
provinces into the centre of Gaul. A powerful fleet was equipped in
the harbors of Greece and Epirus, with an apparent design, that, as
soon as the passage had been opened by a naval victory, Valentinian
and his mother should land in Italy, proceed, without delay, to Rome,
and occupy the majestic seat of religion and empire. In the mean
while, Theodosius himself advanced at the head of a brave and
disciplined army, to encounter his unworthy rival, who, after the
siege of Æmona, * had fixed his camp in the neighborhood of Siscia, a