himself the friend and pupil of the soldiers; many of his hours were
spent in the familiar conversation of the camp; and the health, the
comforts, the rewards, the honors, of his faithful troops, appeared to
be the objects of his attentive concern. But, after Gratian more
freely indulged his prevailing taste for hunting and shooting, he
naturally connected himself with the most dexterous ministers of his
favorite amusement. A body of the Alani was received into the military
and domestic service of the palace; and the admirable skill, which
they were accustomed to display in the unbounded plains of Scythia,
was exercised, on a more narrow theatre, in the parks and enclosures
of Gaul. Gratian admired the talents and customs of these favorite
guards, to whom alone he intrusted the defence of his person; and, as
if he meant to insult the public opinion, he frequently showed himself
to the soldiers and people, with the dress and arms, the long bow, the
sounding quiver, and the fur garments of a Scythian warrior. The
unworthy spectacle of a Roman prince, who had renounced the dress and
manners of his country, filled the minds of the legions with grief and
indignation. Even the Germans, so strong and formidable in the armies
of the empire, affected to disdain the strange and horrid appearance
of the savages of the North, who, in the space of a few years, had
wandered from the banks of the Volga to those of the Seine. A loud and
licentious murmur was echoed through the camps and garrisons of the
West; and as the mild indolence of Gratian neglected to extinguish the
first symptoms of discontent, the want of love and respect was not
supplied by the influence of fear. But the subversion of an
established government is always a work of some real, and of much
apparent, difficulty; and the throne of Gratian was protected by the
sanctions of custom, law, religion, and the nice balance of the civil
and military powers, which had been established by the policy of
Constantine. It is not very important to inquire from what cause the