before him with the diligence of fear. From the summit of the Julian
Alps, he descended with such incredible speed into the plain of Italy,
that he reached Aquileia on the evening of the first day; and Maximus,
who found himself encompassed on all sides, had scarcely time to shut
the gates of the city. But the gates could not long resist the effort
of a victorious enemy; and the despair, the disaffection, the
indifference of the soldiers and people, hastened the downfall of the
wretched Maximus. He was dragged from his throne, rudely stripped of
the Imperial ornaments, the robe, the diadem, and the purple slippers;
and conducted, like a malefactor, to the camp and presence of
Theodosius, at a place about three miles from Aquileia. The behavior
of the emperor was not intended to insult, and he showed disposition
to pity and forgive, the tyrant of the West, who had never been his
personal enemy, and was now become the object of his contempt. Our
sympathy is the most forcibly excited by the misfortunes to which we
are exposed; and the spectacle of a proud competitor, now prostrate at
his feet, could not fail of producing very serious and solemn thoughts
in the mind of the victorious emperor. But the feeble emotion of
involuntary pity was checked by his regard for public justice, and the
memory of Gratian; and he abandoned the victim to the pious zeal of
the soldiers, who drew him out of the Imperial presence, and instantly
separated his head from his body. The intelligence of his defeat and
death was received with sincere or well-dissembled joy: his son
Victor, on whom he had conferred the title of Augustus, died by the
order, perhaps by the hand, of the bold Arbogastes; and all the
military plans of Theodosius were successfully executed. When he had
thus terminated the civil war, with less difficulty and bloodshed than
he might naturally expect, he employed the winter months of his
residence at Milan, to restore the state of the afflicted provinces;
and early in the spring he made, after the example of Constantine and