136 THE DECLINE AND FALL Revolt of Mazimus in Britain 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 Avas 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 causes the revolt of Britain was produced. Accident is commonly the parent of disorder ; the seed of rebellion happened to fall on a soil which was supposed to be more fruitful than any other in tyrants and usurpers ; '^ the legions of that sequestered island had been long famous for a spirit of presumption and arrogance ; '•* and the name of Maximus was proclaimed by the tumultuary but unanimous voice both of the soldiers and of the provincials. The emperor, or the rebel, for his title was not yet ascertained by fortune, was a native of Spain, the countryman, the fellow-soldier, and the rival of Theodosius, whose elevation he had not seen without some emotions of envy and resentment. The events of his life had long since fixed him in Bribiin ; and I should not be un- willing to find some evidence for the marriage which he is said to have contracted with the daughter of a wealthy lord of Caernarvonshire.^*^ But this provincial rank might justly be con- 7Zosimus(l. iv. p. 247 [c. 35]) and the younger Victor [?'^.] ascribe the revolu- tion to the favour of the Alani and the discontent of the Roman troops. Dum exercitum negligeret, et paucos ex Alanis, quos ingenti auro ad se transtulerat, anteferret veteri ac Romano militi. 8 Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, is a memorable expression used by Jerom in the Pelagian controversy, and variously tortured in the disputes of our national antiquaries. The revolutions of the last age appeared to justify the image of the sublime Bossuet, " cette isle, plus orageuse que les mers qui I'environ- nent ". ^ZosimUS says of the British soldiers, tuv aKKtov aTrairioi' irXeoi' av9aSei(f Koi Oufiw >/iic<o/u.eVous [til. .usonius describes Maximus as armigeri sub nomine lixa, Ord. tirb. nob. 1. 70]. 1" Helena the daughter of Eudda. Her chapel may still be seen at Caer- segont, now Caer-narvon (Carte's Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 168, from Rowland's
