OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 161 reluctant confessions of several daemoniacs, appeared to justify the faith and sanctity of Ambrose ; and the truth of those miracles is attested by Ambrose himself, by his secretary Paulinus, and by his proselyte, the celebrated Augustin, who, at that time, professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The reason of the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of Justina and her Arian court ; who derided the theatrical representations which were exhibited by the contrivance, and at the expense, of the archbishop. "^ Their eifect, however, on the minds of the people was rapid and irresistible ; and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself unable to contend with the favourite of heaven. The powers likewise of the earth interposed in the defence of Ambi-ose ; the disinterested advice of Theodosius was the general result of piety and friendship ; and the mask of religious zeal concealed the hostile and ambitious designs of the tyrant of Gaul."^ The reign of Maximus might have ended in peace andMaximtu prosperity, could he have contented himself with the possession a.d. ^, ^ of three ample countries, which now constitute the three most flourishing kingdoms of modem Europe. But the aspiring usurper, whose sordid ambition was not dignified by the love of glory and of arms, considered his actual forces as the in- struments only of his future greatness, and his success was the immediate cause of his destruction. The wealth which he extorted "^ from the oppressed provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain was employed in levying and maintaining a formidable army of Barbarians, collected, for the most part, from the fiercest nations of Germany. The conquest of Italy was the object of his hopes and preparations; and he secretly meditated the ruin of an innocent youth, whose government was abhorred and despised by his Catholic subjects. But, as Maximus wished to occupy, without resistance, the passes of the Alps, he received, with perfidious smiles, Domninus of Syria, the ambas- sador of Valentinian, and pressed him to accept the aid of a considerable body of troops for the service of a Pannonian war. The penetration of Ambrose had discovered the snares ^Paulin. in Vit. St. Ambros. c. 5 [15], in Append. Benedict, p. 5. 72Tillemont, M^m. EccWs. torn. x. p. 190, 750. He partially allows the mediation of Theodosius ; and capriciously rejects that of Maximus, though it is attested by Prosper [not the true Prosper ; but Chron. Gall. ap. Mommsen, Chron. Min. i. p. 648 ; cp. Rufin, 11. 16], Sozomen, and Theodoret. 73 The modest censure of Sulpicius ( Dialog, iii. 15) inflicts a much deeper wound than the feeble declamation of Pacatus (xii. 25, 26). VOL. III. 11
