of Gibbon, which describes the abolition of paganism. On some points, to which we shall presently advert, there is considerable difference of opinion, but on the whole, a few pages of the English historian have already compressed the substance of several chapters of M. Beugnot. Still, the interest of the subject induces us to follow out the more diffuse commentary of M. Beugnot on the pregnant text of our historian :—

"At length behold an emperor who will not fear to avow himself the enemy of the state religion, and who, instead of environing it, though detesting it, with external respect, by two important acts prepares the way for the decided assaults which he is about to direct against it." The Christians were weary of the measured conduct of the emperors; they had scen with indignation years succeeding years, while the conversion of Constantine did not produce the precious fruits which had been promised. The temples remained open to all superstitions; the emperor bore the title and the insignia of the supreme pontiff; at the commencement of each year, the consuls, before they entered upon their functions, ascended the Capitol to sacrifice to Jupiter; the people yielded themselves up to their passion for games and festivals, instituted in honour of the gods; Paganism, in short, still governed the outward appearance of society. Constantine had slept in his tomb for thirty-eight years, . . . and Paganism is still the religion of the state; the pagan are still the national rites; the pontiffs sacrifice not in the name of a sect, but in the name of the whole human race (totius generis humani). It was this which gave so much security to the friends of the ancient worship. They bewailed not the ruin of their institutions, but the progress of impiety; they did not so much deplore the present as the threatening appearance of the future. St. Ambrose desired that their sorrow should be unlimited, and, according to his counsels, Gratian struck a blow against paganism which resounded from one end to the other of the Roman empire.'-Beugnot, vol. i. p. 319 and 327.

The leaders of the respective parties were men who might throw a lustre on this final conflict. Greatly inferior in learning, in eloquence, in accomplishments to the luminaries of the eastern church, the Basils and Gregory Nazianzens, Ambrose, at this period the head of the western church, excelled, undoubtedly, in that one quality necessary for the position which he filled, the power of governing men's minds. It was not merely over the young and feeble Gratian that the bishop of Milan exercised all that commanding priestly domination, more openly, but scarcely less effectively, displayed by the popes of later days; his religious vigour and dignity overawed the warlike and authoritative Theodosius. It is curious to contrast the different national character in the more distinguished Christian prelates of this and of the subsequent period. The Greek, with all his fervent piety and splendid eloquence, never ceased to be a Greek. The fanciful speculatist may be traced in Basil and Gregory, the rhetorician in Chrysos

tom.

tom. In the Roman, an eminently practical character prevails. Ambrose is a man of the world, ruder in speech, illogical in argument, but still pressing the main point upon his stunned and yielding hearers; while, with all the comprehensiveness of conception displayed by the City of God,' all his powerful controversial skill and address, Augustine governs by his direct sway over the passions; with the fervour of the African he has, as it were, the Roman's ambition, his dauntless spirit of invasion and the undoubting confidence of victory.

The more distinguished of the pagan party were men who extorted the respect even of their vehement adversaries. The leaders of a defensive minority are, in general, men of character as well as ability. The heads of a tyrannical majority, or of a small aggressive faction, compensate, in the eyes of their party, for the want of every virtue, by their power or their talent; but fidelity to a sinking cause almost of itself implies an honourable and conscientious dignity of character. M. Beugnot has developed with great success the virtues and commanding mind of Vettius Prætextatus.

'Prætextatus, after a youth and manhood of blameless dignity and acknowledged talent, was named Pretorian Prefect of Italy in 384. He set off for Rome, which he entered escorted by all the magistrates; he ascended the Capitol as it were in triumph, and delivered, in the presence of the senate, a discourse, exhorting the citizens to love and respect their sovereign. He was consul elect for the following year, but he died without adding that title to those which already adorned his name. His loss plunged Rome in affliction; the people were in the theatre when the news of his melancholy death was announced; they rushed out tumultuously, making the air ring with their lamentations.'-vol. i. p. 445.

But it is curious to observe the manner in which the various pagan religions had mingled themselves up, and centred, as it were, all their dignities in the person of Prætextatus. In an inscription, discovered about the close of the last century, he is described as Augur, Pontifex Vestæ, Pontifex Solis, Quindecimvir, Curialis Herculis, Sacratus Libero et Eleusiniis, Hierophanta, Neocorus, Tauroboliatus, Pater patrum. The last of these titles implies a high distinction in the Mithriac worship. Those who calmly survey the controversy of the rival orators, who assailed and defended paganism, cannot but award to the heathen Symmachus, as Heyne has done, the praise of superior reasoning powers, of arrangement and style, over the rude vehemence of Ambrose, and the dull verse of Prudentius. But the one poured carelessly forth the language of excitement on minds already excited; the other coldly argued to passive and unawakened ears. The vain superiority of the writer shows the hopelessness

of

of the cause. To Gratian and Theodosius, with Ambrose by their side, Symmachus in vain used the language of ancient Rome to awaken those sentiments of Roman patriotism which might shrink at the downfall of Mars and Quirinus.

The first act of Gratian was a contemptuous refusal to contaminate himself with the insignia of an idolatrous priesthood. Up to the time of his accession, the emperor, the Christian emperor, had assumed, as a matter of course, the supremacy over the religion as well as over the state of Rome. He had been formally arrayed in the robes of the sovereign pontiff. By rejecting a solemn deputation sent from Rome to perform this customary ceremonial, the emperor announced that paganism could no more expect the deferential respect, or even the protection of the civil power. The transition from the disdainful refusal of protection to active hostility could not but be rapid; strength and numbers might command that toleration which could be no longer expected from the wisdom or the justice of the prevalent Christianity. It had long murmured against the tacit connivance at idolatry; it had thundered into the ears of the too quiescent rulers those passages of the Old Testament which proscribe all compromise with deities of wood and stone. Still it might have been thought that the first directly hostile measure of the Christian emperor would have selected any other victim out of the synod of the heathen gods, than that which was first chosen-that the image of the goddess Victory, which was supposed to secure the dominion of Rome, would have been the last to be ignominiously dragged from its pedestal-that the temples would have been first closed, and sacrifices prohibited, before this last act of insult had been offered at once to the glory and the religion of Rome. But the pain inflicted by the wound shows that it was well aimed; the importance attached to the removal of the statue of Victory from the forum proves that it was considered by the fears of one party, as it was intended by the hostility of the other, as the signal for the final destruction of paganism. Constantius, indeed, though he had calmly surveyed the other monuments of Roman superstition, admired their majesty, read the inscriptions over their porticos, had nevertheless given orders for the removal of this statue. Is it improbable (the whole account of the transaction is remarkably vague and uncircumstantial) that Constantius, acting in the spirit of his father, who collected a vast number of the best pagan statues to adorn his new capital, might intend to transport Victory to Constantinople? At all events, this famous statue had been replaced by Julian, and maintained its inviolated majesty during the succeeding reigns.

The order issued by Gratian for the removal of the altar and statue of Victory from the bosom of the senate-house fell like a thunderbolt

among

among the partisans of the ancient worship. This violence, exercised against the most venerable of all the institutions of the empire, appeared to the pagans a crime no less enormous than that of which Constantine had been guilty. Rome rung with the clamours of the senate. Prætextatus complained loudly, and determined his colleagues to send a deputation to the emperor, not only to solicit the re-establishment of the altar of Victory, but likewise the restitution of their estates to the pontiffs. The Christian senators united on their side, and declared that, if their colleagues obtained satisfaction, they would henceforth abstain from appearing in the senate. The pope Damasus sent their protest to St. Ambrose, who forwarded it to the emperor, so that when the eloquent Symmachus, at the head of the deputation, presented himself to address Gratian, he was refused admission into the palace, with a cold answer, that the deputation did not represent the senate. Humbled by this refusal, the deputation did not press its suit, but returned to Rome.'-Beugnot, vol. i. p. 413.

But there was still another measure of Gratian, which, if it did not so openly insult, weakened, in a much greater degree, the interests of paganism. A law was passed which confiscated at once all the estates belonging to the temples; the church property of the pagans was seized without remorse or scruple. The privileges and immunities of the priesthood were at the same time swept away; even the Vestal virgins were not respected; they no longer received those marks of honour which had been paid during the long centuries of Roman greatness. Their fate seems to have excited the strongest commiseration among the pagans, while the Christian writers, already deeply infected with monastic opinions, added bitter taunts to their acclamations of triumph. The small number of the sacred virgins, the occasional delinquencies, (it is remarkable that almost the last act of pagan pontifical authority was the capital punishment of an unchaste vestal ;) above all, the privilege which they possessed, and sometimes claimed, of marriage after a certain period of service, and at a time of life when, according to the Christian notion, all such unholy desires should have been long since extinct; all these defects in the ancient institution were detailed in the language of reproachful contempt- If the state is to reward virginity, the Christians might have claims which would exhaust the treasury.' Such was part of the argument of St. Ambrose, when the question concerning the privileges and the property of the heathen priesthood was actually debated before the new emperor Valentinian II.

By the confiscation of the sacerdotal property, which had hitherto maintained the priests in opulence, and the sacrifices in splendour, the pagan priesthood had become stipendiaries of the state, the immediate step to their total abolition. A certain annona was still charged on the public funds for the maintenance

of

of the public ceremonial. This was not abrogated until the final triumph of Christianity under Theodosius: for heathenism made yet more than one desperate, though feeble, struggle to resume the ascendency. On the murder of Valentinian II., Arbogastes the Gaul, not as yet daring to present the yet untried example of a barbarian invested with the imperial purple, placed a rhetorician, Eugenius, on the throne. M. Beugnot, who certainly neglects no opportunity of detecting the influence of the pagan party, has endeavoured, not altogether successfully, to connect the former usurpation of Maximus with a religious reaction. But that such reaction took place on the accession of Eugenius there can be no doubt. Gibbon, in his account of the wars, has passed lightly over this singular fact-he admits it, indeed, in a subsequent chapter.

"The pagans of the west, without contributing to the elevation of Eugenius, disgraced by their partial attachment the cause and character of the usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed that he aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostacy; that, by his permission, the altar of Victory was again restored; and that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules were displayed in the field against the invincible standard of the cross.'-Decline and Fall, vol. v. p. 120.

We see no reason for questioning these remarkable incidents because they rest on the authority of ecclesiastical writers. It is certain that Flavianus, the head of the pagan party, was nominated to the consulate. Another historian of the empire has related the total and sudden revolution in these words:

"The protection of Arbogastes and Flavianus restored to the idolatry of the west all the strength which it had lost. Throughout Italy the temples were reopened; Rome re-established her gods; the smoke of sacrifice ascended from all quarters; everywhere victims were slain, their entrails consulted, and omens announced the victory of Eugenius. All the preparations for the war were infected with superstition. Amidst the fortifications made in the Julian Alps the statues of Jupiter the thunderer were placed, and they were armed against Theodosian by magic rites. Eugenius had the weakness to permit the images of the gods to be painted on his banners, and the statue of Hercules to be carried at the head of his army.'-Le Beau, Histoire du Bas Empire, vol. v. p. 40.

Ambrose quitted his dwelling at Milan on the approach of Eugenius. The emperor's followers were said to have boasted in that city that they would speedily turn the church into a stable, and press the clergy for soldiers. Eugenius had no difficulty in consenting to the reinstatement of the altar of Victory and the other rites of paganism; but, as in other cases, it was not so easy to restore the confiscated property of the temples. They had become of considerable financial importance, but the authority of Arbogastes