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19. When Sapor, king of Persia, had gained some advantages over the Romans, in the time of Constantius, and had taken some virgins, after the Christian manner devoted to God,' as Ammianus says, he gave orders that no man should hurt them, and that they should be per• mitted to perform their religious worship in their own way, without molestation.'

20. He also speaks of a bishop of the Christian law, in a castle besieged by Sapor, who went out to the king to persuade him to desist from his design upon the place. But he was suspected of informing the king where the castle was weakest, and might be attacked to the best 'advantage.'

21. In the beginning of the reign of Valentinian, Apronianus præfect of Rome condemned a person to death for the practice of some magical arts. But the executioner,' as Ammianus says, losing his hold, the criminal fled to a chapel of the Christian rite; but being presently taken thence, had his head cut off.'

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22. In the year 367, or 368, in the time of Valentinian, a German prince, named Rando,, surprised the city of Mentz, then without a garrison. And, as Ammianus says, finding the 'people engaged in celebrating a feast of the Christian rite, he plundered the place, and carried off without resistance the people of both sexes, and of every condition, with all their • effects.'

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23. Palladius, notary, or secretary of state, had been taken up by order of Valentinian for some offences. And,' says Ammianus, sensible of his guilt, early in the evening, when his keepers were absent, being gone to spend the night in a neighbouring church on a festival of the Christian rite, he hanged himself.' Tillemont thinks it might be the eve of Easter in 374.

24. I have now transcribed a great deal from Ammianus: nevertheles I hope not too much.. Many of the passages are important, as well as entertaining: some are curious. If any others are less material, they are still of some use: they serve to shew, that Christian people were then of some consequence. A heathen historian, writing of public affairs, could not decline to take notice of them; and for the most part he speaks civilly of them, and with marks of moderation.

Inventas tamen alias quoque virgines Christiano ritu cultui divino sacratas, custodiri intactas, et religioni servire solito more, nullo vetante, præcepit. Lib. xviii. cap. 10. fin.

b Verum secuto die otio communi adsensu post ærumnas multiplices attributo, cum magnus terror circumsisteret muros, Persæque paria formidarent; Christianæ legis Antistes exire se velle gestibus ostendebat et nutu : acceptâque fide, quod redire permitteretur incolumis, adusque tentoria Regis accessit. Ubi datâ copiâ dicendi quæ vellet, suadebat placido sermone discedere Persas ad sua.— Sed perstabat incassum hæc multaque similia disserendo, efferatâ vesania Regis obstante, non ante castrorum excidium digredi pertinaciter adjurantis. Perstrinxit tamen suspicio vana quædam, Episcopum, ut opinor, licet asseveratione vulgatâ multorum, quod clandestino colloquio Saporem docuerat, quæ monium appeteret membra, ut fragilia intrinsecus et invalida. L. xx. cap. 7.

Dum hæc in Oriente volubiles fatorum explicant sortes, Apronianus, regens Urbem æternam, judex integer et severus, inter curarum præcipua, quibus hæc Præfectura sæpe solicitatur, id primum operâ curabat enixâ, ut veneficos, qui tunc rarescebant, captos,indicatis consciis, morte multaret.

-Denique.- -Hilarinum aurigam convictum atque confessum--capitali animadversione damnavit; qui, laxius retinente carnifice, subito lapsus confugit ad ritûs Christiani sacrarium, abstractusque exinde illico abscissâ cervice consumptus est. L. xxvi. cap. 3. p. 488.

d Sub idem fere tempus Valentiniano ad expeditionem caute ut rebatur profecto, Alemannus regulus, Rando nomine, diu præstruens quod cogitabat, Moguntiacum præsidiis vacuum cum expeditis ad latrocinandum latenter irrepsit. Et quoniam casu Christiani ritûs invenit celebrari solennitatem, impræpedite cujusquemodi fortunæ virile et muliebre secus cum supellectili non parvâ indefensum abduxit. L. xxvii. cap. 10. p. 542.

e His literis ad Comitatum missis et lectis, Valentiniani jussu Meterius raptus suam esse confitetur epistolam : ideoque Palladius exhiberi præceptus, cogitans quas criminum coxerit moles, in statione primis tenebris observatâ custodum absentiâ, qui festo die Christiani ritûs in Ecclesiâ pernoctabant, innodato gutture laquei nexibus interiit. Lib. xxviii. cap. 6. p. 593. See L'Emp. Valentinien, art. xxvii. Tom. v. p. 196.

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CHAP. LII.

VEGETIUS.

FLAVIUS VEGETIUS RENATUS wrote a treatise in five books, of the Art of War, dedicated to an emperor, by whose order it was composed. In most copies it is inscribed to Valentinian the Second; though some think, it was rather dedicated to Theodosius the First. Fabricius' is inclined to think him a Christian. As that is only a doubtful point, I suppose I ought to quote him among heathen writers, and at the year 390, which is some while before the death of Valentinian the Second, and five years before the death of Theodosius.

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He gives this account of the oath taken at that time by soldiers, when enlisted into the legions: They swear,' says he, by God, and by Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, and by the ⚫ emperor's majesty, who is to be loved and honoured by mankind in the next place after God.'

CHAP. LIII.

EUNAPIUS.

I. His time and works. II. Extracts from his history of the Roman Emperors. III. Extracts from his Lives of the Sophists and Philosophers. IV. Remarks upon the foregoing Extracts.

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I. EUNAPIUS was a native of Sardis in Lydia. He came from Asia to Athens, when he was about sixteen years of age, in the year of Christ 363 or 364, and therefore not till after the death of Julian: when likewise Proæresius, the Christian sophist, was returned to his chair, and had resumed his lectures. Under that celebrated sophist Eunapius studied five years. He wrote a book with this title, The Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, which was not finished till near the end of the fourth century: for which reason I place him at the year 396. In that' work he speaks of his having written the History of the Roman Emperors, and that he should write the same history again: that history, in the second edition of it, reached to the year 404, as it began in the year 268, with the reign of Claudius the second, who succeeded Gallienus. This may suffice for the history of this writer and his works.

II. I begin my extracts with the History of the emperors, of which we have remaining some

a Fabric. Bib. Lat. L. iii. cap. 12. T. i. p. 616. Tillem. H. Emp. Théodos. i. art. 92.

Fl. Vegetius Renatus videtur fuisse Christianus. Fabr. Bib. Lat. T. iii. p. 132. Hamb. 1722.

< Jurant autem per Deum, et per Christum, et per Spiritum Sanctum, et per Majestatem Imperatoris, quæ secundum Deum generi humano diligenda est et colenda. Veget. Institutio Rei Militaris. 1. ii. c. 5. Quemadmodum Legio constituatur.

Nec multo hoc junior Eunapius fuit. Nam Valentiniani, Valentis, et Gratiani temporibus vixit: sophista, idem medicus, ac historicus insignis, magni illius Proæresii discipulus,

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fragments only. Photius, in his Bibliotheque, gives this account of it: We have read,' says he, the Chronical History of Eunapius, in the new edition, in fourteen books. He begins his history with the reign of Claudius, where Dexippus's history concludes; and he ends with the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius, sons of Theodosius, about the time that the wife of Arcadius died [meaning Eudoxia.] This Eunapius was of Sardis in Lydia. As to religion he is impious, and a great admirer of the Greek customs. In his history he asperseth those who • adorned the empire by their piety, and especially the great Constantine. But he commends the impious, and above all the rest Julian the apostate: so that he seems to have written his history with the view of making an encomium upon him.' [He then commends his style, making however some exceptions.] 'He composed two works containing the same history, the ⚫ first and the second. In the first he has inserted many blasphemies against our holy Christian religion, and extols the Greek superstition, and often reproacheth the pious emperors. But in the second, which he also calls a new edition, he omits a great deal of the reproachful language, which he had before uttered against our religion. Nevertheless he has still left sufficient marks of his enmity to us.' So wrote Photius in the ninth century.

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If that work of Eunapius were now extant, undoubtedly we should find in it a good deal of railing. But the loss of it is the less regretted by those learned men who have a curiosity to know what he had said, because it is supposed that Zosimus has copied a good deal out of him, and moreover we shall see a good deal of the temper of Eunapius in his Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists, which remain.

III. To that work therefore I now proceed. And I intend to take those passages which contain any express mention of the Christians, or any material references to their affairs; in which will be many proofs of that zeal for Gentilism, which Photius observed in his history of the emperors.

1. This work begins with the life of Plotinus. The next is that of Porphyry. After whom follows Jamblichus, then Edesius, in all three and twenty.

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2. In his life of Ædesius, who was a Cappadocian, he writes to this purpose: At length,' says he, Ædesius became little inferior to his master Jamblichus, setting aside the inspiration ' which belonged to Jamblichus. For of that I have nothing to write, perhaps, because ⚫ Ædesius concealed it, by reason of the times. For then Constantine was emperor, who threw ⚫ down the most celebrated temples, and set up the structures of the Christians. For this 'reason it is likely the chief of his scholars,' that is of the scholars of Jamblichus, might affect • a kind of mysterious silence, and priestly taciturnity. Whence it came to pass that the writer of this, who from his youth was a scholar of Chrysanthius, spent wellnigh twenty years with him before he was acquainted with the true doctrine. So difficult a matter has it been to bring ⚫ down to our time the philosophy of Jamblichus.'

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3. After which he proceeds, in the same life, to give an account of the death of Sopater, another celebrated Platonic philosopher, who attended on Constantine, as Eunapius says, to ⚫ check and govern by reason the warm temper of that emperor, and who was for a considerable

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Ανεγνώσθη Ευναπια χρονικής ιστορίας, της μετα Δεξιππον νεας εκδόσεως. -Ph. p. 169.

• Δυσσεβης δε την θρησκίαν ων, τα Ελληνων γαρ ετιμα. Τις μεν ευσέβεια την βασιλειαν κοσμήσαντας, παντι τρόπῳ, και ανεδην κακιζων διασύρει, και μαλισα γε τον μεγαν ΚωνSavTIVOV. p. 169. m. c Ibid.

Impulsu hujus Chrysanthii scripsit de Vitis Sophistarum opus elegans ac venustum; sed in quo passim prodat, quam Christiano nomini fuerit infestus. Idem res gestas Cæsarum, exinde orsus, ubi desierat Herodianus, ad sua usque tempora produxit―Eo ex opere solum de Legationibus fragmentum, beneficio Andreæ Schotti, lucem vidit. Reliqua extare dicuntur in Bibliothecâ Venetâ. Eo autem æquiori animo istis daremus, quod Zosimum habemus. Nam easdem res Eunapius et Zosimus tractârunt, et ita tractârunt, ut Zosimus Eunapium prope descripsisse visus sit. &c. Voss. de Hist. Gr. 1. 2. cap. 18.

* I know not of any good edition of that work. I have two: one, Antverpiæ, ex officinâ Chr. Plantini, 1568; the other, Coloniæ Allobrogum, apud Sam. Crispinum. 1616. J. A.

Fabricius seems sometimes to refer to an edition of Eunapius
made by himself. Porphyrii vitam composuit e veteribus Eu-
napius, ad quem nonnulla annotavi. Bib. Gr. Tom. 4. p. 181.
But from the learned Reimar, de Vitâ et scriptis J. A. Fa-
bricii. p. 209, we learn, that, though Fabricius had begun an
edition of this author, it was never finished. Eunapii vitæ
Philosophorum ac Sophistarum Collatæ cum vi. Codd. MSS.
a Marquardo Gudio, Græce et Latine, cum notis Fabricii-
Tria hujus folia usque ad p. 48. typis exscripta, sunt in 8.,
sed typographo moras nectente, quarum vel maxime im-
patiens erat vir excitati ingenii, editionem abrupit, nec
ipsum opus perfecit. I several years ago was informed
that a learned German, whose name I do not remember, was
preparing a new edition of Eunapius. In which I make no
question there would be many valuable improvements. But
I have not yet heard that it is finished. I therefore shall refer
to the edition, before mentioned, in 1616.
Eunap. Vit. Ædes. p. 33, 34.
Ib. p. 34. m.

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time in great favour with him, so as to excite the envy of many of the courtiers. At length, by Constantine's order, he was put to death.' Our author imputes his death to Ablabius, præfect of the prætorium. It is not certain when it happened. Tillemont inclines to the year 333. Nor do we clearly discern what was the occasion of it. I may take some farther notice of this Sopater hereafter in my extracts from Zosimus.

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4. In the same life he speaks of Eustathius, another scholar of Jamblichus, and intimate friend of Ædesius, whom he greatly commends upon divers accounts, and particularly for his eloquence: Which,' as he says, was so charming, that the emperor [Constantine], though fond of the books of the Christians, was desirous to see him.'

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Eustathius married Sosipatra, who surpassed her husband, though he was so considerable.' She left behind her three sons: the names of two of them need not to be mentioned; but the third, whose name was Antoninus, was not unworthy of his parents.' He, choosing for the place of his abode one of the mouths of the Nile, called Canobus, wholly applied himself to the learning there taught, and endeavoured to fulfil his mother's prediction concerning him. all the youth of sound judgment, and that were studious of philosophy, resorted to him: and the temple was full of young priests. At that time he was not accounted more than a man, and conversed among men. Yet he foretold to all his disciples that, after his death, there 'would be no temples, but that the magnificent and sacred temple of Serapis would be laid in ruinous heaps, and that fabulous confusion, and unformed darkness, would tyrannize over the best parts of the earth. All which things time has brought to pass, and his prediction has • obtained the credit of an oracle.'

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Afterwards of the same Antoninus, he says: But he made no show of divine converse, nor of any thing above the common apprehensions of men: suspecting, perhaps, the emperor's 'inclinations, which lay another way.' But that there was somewhat divine in him was not * long after made manifest: for he was no sooner departed out of this world but the worship of the gods at Alexandria was abolished, and the priests were dispersed.' And not only the sacred worship was abolished: but the sacred fabrics were thrown down; and all things had the same end with the vanquished giants in the fables of the poets. And the temples at ⚫ Canobus underwent the same fate, Theodosius then reigning, Theophilus presiding over the • affair, Euetius at the same time governor of civil affairs [or præfect,] and Romanus general of the soldiery: who, having never so much as heard of war, vented all their anger against stones and statues, and levelled the temple of Serapis to the ground; and rifling away the consecrated oblations, they gained a complete, though never contested and bloodless, victory. For they fought so valiantly with statues and consecrated donatives, that they not only overcame them, but plundered them, and carried them away. And it was a part of their discipline, that what'ever they stole they kept concealed. They only carried not away the foundations of the temple, by reason of the weight of the stones which rendered them not easy to be removed. Thus these warlike and courageous champions, overwhelming all things with confusion and ' disorder, and lifting up hands to heaven, not stained with blood indeed, but foully defiled with avarice, gave out that they had overcome the gods, and boasted of their sacrilege and impiety. Then they introduced into the sacred places a sort of people called monks, men it is true as to their outward shape, but in their lives swine, who openly suffered, and did ten thousand. wicked and abominable things. Nevertheless to them it seemed to be an act of piety to ⚫ trample under foot the reverence due to the sacred places. For every one that wore a black 'coat, and was content to make a sordid figure in public, had a right to exercise a tyrannical authority. Such a reputation for virtue had this sort of men attained. But" of these things I have already spoken in the Universal History. These monks also were settled at Canobus; who, instead of deities conceived in our minds, compelled men to worship slaves, and those

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⚫ not of the better sort neither. For picking up and salting the bones and skulls of those whom for many crimes justice had put to death, they carried them up and down and shewed them for gods, and kneeled before them, and lay prostrate at their tombs, covered over with filth and dust. These were some of them (called martyrs and ministers and intercessors with the gods) slaves that had served dishonestly, and been beaten with whips, and still bore in their corpses the scars of their villanies. And yet the earth brings forth such gods as these. This highly advanced the reputation of Antoninus's foresight: forasmuch as he had told every body that the temples would be turned into sepulchres.'

So writes Eunapius, with great freedom, as all will allow, under a Christian emperor.
However there are some other remarks which may be not improperly made here.

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The demolition of the temples, which Eunapius here speaks of, was made by order of the emperor Theodosius the first, in the year 389, as some think; or as others in the year 391. Eunapius says that Theophilus presided in this affair. Which is very agreeable to what Socrates says of Theophilus, then bishop of Alexandria. At his request the emperor's edict was obtained; and he was also intrusted with the execution of it. And instead of Euetius, governor of civil affairs,' or præfect of Egypt, it has been observed that Eunapius should have said Euagrius.'

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5. In the life of Proæresius he says, When Julian was emperor, being excluded from the 'schools, because he seemed to be a Christian, he applied to Hierophantes, [or the high-priest of Eleusinium] who had a skill of discerning futurity, that he might inquire of the gods whether this state of things would last. And understanding that it would not, he was the 'more easy.'

By Jerom, in his Chronicle, we are informed that Proæresius was an Athenian sophist: and that when Julian's edict was published, forbidding Christians to teach the polite arts, Proaresius resigned his chair at Athens, though Julian was willing to allow him by a special privilege to continue there.

For certain therefore Proæresius was a Christian. Nor does the expression of Eunapius, because he seemed to be a Christian,' imply any doubt of it. The truth therefore of his making any inquiry of the gods concerning futurity may be questioned. Tillemont was of opinion that this story needs not be received.

6. In this place Eunapius tells us that when he was sixteen years of age he came to Athens, and entered himself among the scholars of Proæresius, who loved him as if he had been his own son. With him Eunapius stayed five years, and then returned to Lydia; soon after which Proæresius died,' as may be supposed, in the year 368, when he was about ninetytwo years of age. For when Eunapius came to be with him, he was in the eighty-seventh year of his age. And as Proæresius resigned the chair of rhetoric in the time of Julian, it must be supposed that he resumed it after the death of that emperor, in the year 363, about which time our Eunapius came to Athens, and studied five years under him. There is extant a letter of Julian to Proæresius, filled with high compliments upon his eloquence. And I would observe here, in favour of Eunapius, that though he was a zealous Gentile, he has once and again spoken very honourably of Proæresius, as a very amiable, as well as eloquent, man, and in great reputation upon that account. Eunapius, therefore, notwithstanding his bigotry, was not wholly destitute of candour.

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7. Chrysanthius, as we have seen above, was one of Eunapius's" masters. He was descended

Μάρτυρες γεν εκαλεντο και διακονοι τίνες, και πρεσβεις των αιτήσεων παρα των θεων. κ. λ. p. 6. ead. vit.

b Vid. Tillem. Theodos. i. art. 51. et note 40. Pagi ann. 389. num. xv.

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Basnag. ann. 391. num. ix. x. Vid. et Pagi. ann. 389. num. xii.

Socrat. 1 5. c. xvi. p. 274. C. Conf. Sozom. 1. 7. c. xv. • Secundo, loco horum verborum: Ευετιε δε την πολιτικήν

aрxny aрxortos, legendum Evaypie: ac vertendum, Evagrio res civiles administrante.' Evagrius itaque non præfectus Urbi, ut perperam vertit Junius, sed præfectus Augustalis, &c. Pagi ann. 389. n. xiv.

* Ιελιανο δε βασιλεύοντος, τόπων το παιδεύειν εξειργόμενος, εδοκει γαρ είναι Χρισιανος, συνόρων τον Ιεροφαντην ώσπερ Δελα

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