ge of Aquileia, which, on
this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame. Gregory Nazianzen
(Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to the wisdom of
Constantius, whose assured victory he announces with some appearance of
truth. Constantio quem credebat procul dubio fore victorem; nemo enim
omnium tunc ab hac constanti sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.]

But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel alternative
which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of being himself
destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius delivered the Roman
empire from the calamities of civil war. The approach of winter could
not detain the monarch at Antioch; and his favorites durst not oppose
his impatient desire of revenge. A slight fever, which was perhaps
occasioned by the agitation of his spirits, was increased by the
fatigues of the journey; and Constantius was obliged to halt at the
little town of Mopsucrene, twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired,
after a short illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
twenty-fourth of his reign. [42] His genuine character, which was
composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has been
fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and ecclesiastical
events. The long abuse of power rendered him a considerable object in
the eyes of his contemporaries; but as personal merit can alone deserve
the notice of posterity, the last of the sons of Constantine may
be dismissed from the world, with the remark, that he inherited the
defects, without the abilities, of his father. Before Constantius
expired, he is said to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it
seem improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his last
moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge. Eusebius, and
his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to prolong the reign of the
eunuchs, by the election of another emperor; but their intrigues were
rejected with disdain, by an army which now abhorred the thought of
civil discord; and two officers of rank were instantly despatched, to
assure Julian, that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his
service. The military designs of that prince, who had formed three
different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this fortunate
event. Without shedding the blood of his fellow-citizens, he escaped
the dangers of a doubtf