polished eastern half of the Roman world. "The weight of the universe," he is represented as saying, "is too great for the hands of a feeble mortal." So he associated with him as his colleague in empire his brother Valens, who was indeed grateful for the honour conferred on him, but who seems to have had no great and worthy qualities. The choice, in fact, as the event proved, was altogether an unfortunate one, and ended in a deplorable calamity. Hitherto the theory had been that the empire should have a single head. Now at last, in the year 364, it was finally and once for all divided, the division being formally executed by the two brothers near Nissa, a name which we have before had occasion to mention. Valentinian was to be the emperor of the West, Valens of the East, and on this understanding they took leave of each other. And now a result, for which circumstances had long been preparing the way and which on the whole could not be regretted, was thus at last accomplished.
Valens is for two reasons a well-known name. To the readers of ecclesiastical history he is the furious Arian and savage persecutor of the orthodox or Athanasian party. To those who follow with interest the declining fortunes of Rome's empire, he figures as one of the most unfortunate of her rulers, perishing as he did in as fatal a reverse as ever befell the Roman arms. It was in the reign of Valens, from 364 to 378, that the Huns first appeared in Europe, and drove before them the Goths, then in some degree a civilized and Christian people, to the banks of the Danube. We must bear in
