4.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133) from all
antiquity their virtues and vices.]

[Footnote 54: The younger Victor asserts, that he was valde timidus: yet
he behaved, as almost every man would do, with decent resolution at the
head of an army. The same historian attempts to prove that his anger was
harmless. Ammianus observes, with more candor and judgment, incidentia
crimina ad contemptam vel laesam principis amplitudinem trahens, in
sanguinem saeviebat.]

[Footnote 55: Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturae calore propensior. ..
poenas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii. 7]

[Footnote 56: I have transferred the reproach of avarice from Valens to
his servant. Avarice more properly belongs to ministers than to kings;
in whom that passion is commonly extinguished by absolute possession.]

[Footnote 57: He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a tone of
pleasantry: "Abi, Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi mutari provinciam
cupit." A boy, who had slipped too hastily a Spartan bound; an
armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that wanted some grains of the
legitimate weight, &c., were the victims of his fury.]

[Footnote 58: The innocents of Milan were an agent and three apparitors,
whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal summons. Ammianus
(xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who had been unjustly executed
were worshipped as martyrs by the Christians. His impartial silence does
not allow us to believe, that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt
alive for an act of oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) * Note:
Ammianus does not say that they were worshipped as martyrs. Onorum
memoriam apud Mediolanum colentes nunc usque Christiani loculos ubi
sepulti sunt, ad innocentes appellant. Wagner's note in loco. Yet if
the next paragraph refers to that transaction, which is not quite clear.
Gibbon is right.--M.]

[Footnote 59: Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire Innoxiam. Ammian.
xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]

Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
Empire.--Part III.

But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens was not
agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the tyrant resumed the
sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the father of his country. The
dispassionate judgment of the Western emperor could clearly perceive,
and accurately pursue, his own and the public interest; and the
sovereign of the East