rs,
the most unfavorable opinion of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic
army. The letters were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers
were dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures,
the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of his soul.
The domestic connection, which might have reconciled the brother and the
husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by the death of that princess,
whose pregnancy had been several times fruitless, and was at last fatal
to herself. [21] The empress Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment
of her life, the warm, and even jealous, affection which she had
conceived for Julian; and her mild influence might have moderated the
resentment of a prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own
passions, and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign
invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private enemy:
he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and thought it
sufficient to signify the conditions which might entitle Julian and
his guilty followers to the clemency of their offended sovereign. He
required, that the presumptuous Caesar should expressly renounce the
appellation and rank of Augustus, which he had accepted from the rebels;
that he should descend to his former station of a limited and dependent
minister; that he should vest the powers of the state and army in the
hands of those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and
that he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which were
announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the Arian favorites
of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually consumed in a treaty
which was negotiated at the distance of three thousand miles between
Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as Julian perceived that his modest and
respectful behavior served only to irritate the pride of an implacable
adversary, he boldly resolved to commit his life and fortune to the
chance of a civil war. He gave a public and military audience to the
quaestor Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the
attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most flattering
deference, that he was ready to resign the title of Augustus, if he
could obtain the consent of those whom he acknowledged as the authors
of his elevation. The faint proposal was impetuously silenced; and the
acclamations of "Julian Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority