134 THE DECLINE AND FALL body of the young prince.^ The knowledge which they pain- fully communicated was displayed with ostentation and cele- brated with lavish praise. His soft and tractable disposition received the fair impression of their judicious precepts^ and the absence of passion might easily be mistaken for the strength of reason. His preceptors gradually rose to the rank and conse- quence of ministers of state ; - and, as they wisely dissembled their secret authority, he seemed to act with firmness, with propriety and with judgment, on the most important occasions of his life and reign. But the influence of this elaborate instruction did not penetrate beyond the surface ; and the skilful preceptors, Avho so accurately guided the steps of their royal pupil, could not infuse into his feeble and indolent charac- ter the vigorous and independent principle of action which renders the laborious pursuit of glory essentially necessary to the happiness, and almost to the existence, of the hero. As soon as time and accident had removed those faithful counsellors from the throne, the emperor of the West insensibly descended to the level of his natural genius ; abandoned the reins of government to the ambitious hands which were stretched for- wards to grasp them ; and amused his leisure with the most frivolous gratifications, A public sale of favour and injustice was instituted, both in the court and in the provinces, by the worthless delegates of his power, whose merit it was made (A.D. 380J sacrilege to question.^ The conscience of the credulous prince was directed by saints and bishops,^ who procured an Imperial edict to punish as a capital offence, the violation, the neglect, or 1 Valentinian was less attentive to the religion of his son, since he entrusted [c. A.D. 364] the education ofGratian to Ausonius, a professed Pagan {M6m. de I'Acaddmie des Inscriptions, torn. xv. p. 125-138). [But in his poem the Ephemeris (before 367 A.n. ; Schenkl, Pref. to his ed. of Ausonius in Nl. H. G.) he poses not only as a Christian, but as an orthodox Christian.] The poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age. 2[Decimus Magnus] Ausonius was successively promoted to the Praetorian prae- fecture of Italy (A.D. 377) and of Gaul (A.n. 378), cp. Aus. ii. 2, 42, praefectus Gallis et Libyre et Lalio, and was at length invested with the consulship (.v.D. 379). He expressed his gratitude in a servile and insipid piece of Hattery (Actio Gratiarum, p. 699-736) which has survived more worthy productions. [This statement as to the praefectures of Ausonius is not quite accurate, cp. Appendix i.]
- Disputare de principali judicio non oportet. Sacrilegii enim instar est
dubitare, an is dignus sit, qucni elegerit imperator. Codex Justinian. 1. ix. tit. xxix. leg. 3 [2, ed. Kriiger]. This convenient law was revived and promulgated after the death of Gratian by the feeble court of Milan.
- Ambrose composed, for his instruction, a theological treatise on the faith of
the Trinity; and Tillemont (Hist, des Empereurs, torn. v. p. 158, 169) ascribes to the archbishop the merit of Gratian's intolerant laws.
