lready
been observed, that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the
palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he
had accomplished, and whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of
the state bowed to the new favorite; and their tame and obsequious
submission encouraged him to insult the laws, and, what is still more
difficult and dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest
of the predecessors of Arcadius, the reign of the eunuchs had been
secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the
confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were confined
to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial bed-chamber. They
might direct, in a whisper, the public counsels, and blast, by their
malicious suggestions, the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious
citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of
empire, or to profane the public honors of the state. Eutropius was
the first of his artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of a
Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing
senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment, or to repeat
elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on horseback, at the head
of his troops, in the dress and armor of a hero. The disregard of custom
and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor does
Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design by any
superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life
had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises of
the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret
contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such
a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of
the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, perhaps, than
hatred, to a public character. The subjects of Arcadius were exasperated
by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, who so
perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject
condition of servitude; that before he entered the Imperial palace, he
had been successively sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had
exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and
at length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty. While
these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in
private conversation,