denied and rigorously punished. His family, united by a triple alliance with the family of Theodosius, might envy the condition of the meanest peasant. The flight of his son Eucherius was intercepted, and the death of that innocent youth soon followed the divorce of Thermantia, who filled the place of her sister Maria, and who, like Maria, had remained a virgin in the Imperial bed.[1] The friends of Stilicho, who had escaped the massacre of Pavia, were persecuted by the implac- able revenge of Olympius, and the most exquisite cruelty was employed to extort the confession of a treasonable and sacrilegi- ous conspiracy. They died in silence : their firmness justified the choice,[2] and perhaps absolved the innocence, of their patron, and the despotic power which could take his life without a trial, and stiginatize his memory without a proof, has no jurisdiction over the impartial suffrage of posterity.[3] The services of Stilicho are great and manifest ; his crimes, as they are vaguely stated in the language of flattery and hatred, are obscure, at least, and improbable. About four months after his death an edict was published in the name of Honorius to restore the free communication of the two empires which had been so long in- terrupted by the public enemy.[4] The minister whose fame and fortune depended on the prosperity of the state was accused of betraying Italy to the Barbarians, whom he repeatedly vanquished at Pollentia, at Verona, and before the walls of Florence. His pretended design of placing the diadem on the head of his son Eucherius could not have been conducted without preparations or accomplices, and the ambitious father would not surely have left the future emperor, till the twentieth year of his age, in the humble station of tribune of the notaries. Even the religion of Stilicho was arraigned by the malice of his rival. The seasonable and almost miraculous deliverance was devoutly cele-
- ↑ Zosimus, 1. V. p. 333 [c. 28]. The marriage of a Christian with two sisters scandalizes Tillemont (Hist, des Empereurs, torn. v. p. 557), who expects, in vain, that Pope Innocent I. should have done something in the way either of censure or of dispensation.
- ↑ Two of his friends are honourably mentioned (Zosimus, 1. v. p. 346 [c. 35]) : Peter, chief of the school of notaries, and the great chamberlain Deuterius. Stilicho had secured the bedchamber, and it is surprising that, under a feeble prince, the bedchamber was not able to secure him.
- ↑ Orosius (1. vii. c. 38, p. 571, 572) seems to copy the false and furious manifestoes which were dispersed through the provinces by the new administration.
- ↑ See the Theodosian Code, 1. vii. tit. xvi. leg. i., 1. ix. tit. xlii. leg. 22. Stilicho is branded with the name of praedo piblicus, who employed his wealth ad omnem ditandam inquietandamque Barbariem. [Especially noteworthy is the measure of Stilicho, mentioned in C. Th. vii. 16, i, which closed the ports of Italy to all comers from the realm of Arcadius.]
