actions of a minority, and the aspiring spirit of Jezdegerd, the
Persian monarch. Instead of tempting the allegiance of an ambitious
subject, by the participation of supreme power, he boldly appealed
to the magnanimity of a king; and placed, by a solemn testament,
the sceptre of the East in the hands of Jezdegerd himself. The royal
guardian accepted and discharged this honorable trust with unexampled
fidelity; and the infancy of Theodosius was protected by the arms and
councils of Persia. Such is the singular narrative of Procopius; and his
veracity is not disputed by Agathias, while he presumes to dissent from
his judgment, and to arraign the wisdom of a Christian emperor, who, so
rashly, though so fortunately, committed his son and his dominions to
the unknown faith of a stranger, a rival, and a heathen. At the distance
of one hundred and fifty years, this political question might be debated
in the court of Justinian; but a prudent historian will refuse to
examine the _propriety_, till he has ascertained the _truth_, of the
testament of Arcadius. As it stands without a parallel in the history
of the world, we may justly require, that it should be attested by the
positive and unanimous evidence of contemporaries. The strange novelty
of the event, which excites our distrust, must have attracted their
notice; and their universal silence annihilates the vain tradition of
the succeeding age.

The maxims of Roman jurisprudence, if they could fairly be transferred
from private property to public dominion, would have adjudged to the
emperor Honorius the guardianship of his nephew, till he had attained,
at least, the fourteenth year of his age. But the weakness of Honorius,
and the calamities of his reign, disqualified him from prosecuting
this natural claim; and such was the absolute separation of the two
monarchies, both in interest and affection, that Constantinople would
have obeyed, with less reluctance, the orders of the Persian, than those
of the Italian, court. Under a prince whose weakness is disguised by the
external signs of manhood and discretion, the most worthless favorites
may secretly dispute the empire of the palace; and dictate to submissive
provinces the commands of a master, whom they direct and despise. But
the ministers of a child, who is incapable of arming them with the
sanction of the royal name, must acquire and exercise an independent
authority. The great officers of the state and army, who had been