prince who felt that he was not unworthy to reign. He secretly invited the archbishop of Milan to undertake the office of a mediator, as the pledge of his sincerity and the guardian of his safety. He contrived to apprise the emperor of the East of his helpless situation; and he declared that, unless Theodosius could speedily march to his assistance, he must attempt to escape from the palace, or rather prison, of Vienna in Gaul, where he had imprudently fixed his residence in the midst of the hostile faction. But the hopes of relief were distant and doubtful; and, as every day furnished some new provocation, the emperor, without strength or counsel, too hastily resolved to risk an immediate contest with his powerful general. He received Arbogastes on the throne; and, as the count approached with some appearance of respect, delivered to him a paper, which dismissed him from all his employments. "My authority," replied Arbogastes with insulting coolness, "does not depend on the smile, or the frown, of a monarch"; and he contemptuously threw the paper on the ground.
[1] The indignant monarch snatched at the sword of one of the guards, which he struggled to draw from its scabbard; and it was not without some degree of violence that he was prevented from using the deadly weapon against his enemy, or against himself.
His death A.D. 392 May 15 A few days after this extraordinary quarrel, in which he had exposed his resentment and his weakness, the unfortunate Valentinian was found strangled in his apartment; and some pains were employed to disguise the manifest guilt of Arbogastes, and to persuade the world that the death of the young emperor had been the voluntary effect of his own despair.
[2] His body was conducted with decent pomp to the sepulchre of Milan; and the archbishop pronounced a funeral oration, to commemorate his virtue and his misfortunes.
[3] On this occasion, the humanity of Ambrose tempted him to make a singular breach in his theological system, and to comfort the weeping sisters of Valentinian, by
- ↑ [He tore it in bits with his nails, according to John of Antioch, loc. cit. ]
- ↑ Godefroy (Dissertat. ad. Philostorg. p. 429-434) has diligently collected all the circumstances of the death of Valentinian II. The variations and the ignorance of contemporary writers prove that it was secret. [Mr. Hodgkin discusses the evidence (Italy and her Invaders, i. p. 590, note F), which he thinks does not exclude the hypothesis of suicide, though he agrees that there was probably foul play. The passage in Epiphanius, De Mens. 20 (which gives the date) is the most important: (
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- ↑ De Obitu Valentinian. torn, ii. p. 1173-1196. He is forced to speak a discreet and obscure language; yet he is much bolder than any layman, or perhaps any other ecclesiastic, would have dared to be.
