ilosophical toleration; whose
aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her distress, is not ashamed to
implore. He justly observes, that in the recent changes, both religions
had been alternately disgraced by the seeming acquisition of worthless
proselytes, of those votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass,
without a reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple,
and from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.
[10]

[Footnote 8: Athanasius (apud Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies the
number of the orthodox, who composed the whole world. This assertion was
verified in the space of thirty and forty years.]

[Footnote 9: Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iv.
p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369) expresses the
living sentiments of their respective factions.]

[Footnote 10: Themistius, Orat. v. p. 63-71, edit. Harduin, Paris, 1684.
The Abbe de la Bleterie judiciously remarks, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the general toleration; and Themistius
the establishment of the Catholic religion. Each of them turned away
from the object which he disliked, and wished to suppress the part of
the edict the least honorable, in his opinion, to the emperor.]

In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now returned to
Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred miles; in which
they had endured all the hardships of war, of famine, and of climate.
Notwithstanding their services, their fatigues, and the approach of
winter, the timid and impatient Jovian allowed only, to the men and
horses, a respite of six weeks. The emperor could not sustain the
indiscreet and malicious raillery of the people of Antioch. [11] He was
impatient to possess the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the
ambition of some competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance
of Europe. But he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his
authority was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic
Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp of
Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and Illyricum
to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation of the
Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had formerly
distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of Nisibis.
Malarich had declined an office to which he thought himself unequal;
and Lucillian was massacred at Rhei