The emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon dismissed the
tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and exasperated by the insolence
of his rival, whose departure from the palace might have been the signal
of a civil war, boldly followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid
Priulf dead at his feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful
champion of Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he
had not been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial
guards. [135] Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which disgraced the
palace and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the impatient Goths could
only be restrained by the firm and temperate character of Theodosius,
the public safety seemed to depend on the life and abilities of a single
man. [136]

[Footnote 133: Constantinople was deprived half a day of the public
allowance of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic soldier: was the
guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p. 394, edit. Morel.]

[Footnote 134: Zosimus, l. iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and
ridiculous story of the adventurous prince, who roved the country with
only five horsemen, of a spy whom they detected, whipped, and killed in
an old woman's cottage, &c.]

[Footnote 134a: Eunapius.--M.]

[Footnote 135: Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22) with
Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances and names must
undoubtedly be applied to the same story. Fravitta, or Travitta, was
afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and still continued his faithful services
to the eldest son of Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
v. p. 467.)]

[Footnote 136: Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube jusqu'au
Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armee; et ne repasserent le
Danube, que pour abandonner l'affreuse solitude qu'ils avoient faite,
(Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479. Considerations sur les Causes
de la Grandeur et de la Decadence des Romains, c. xvii.) The president
Montesquieu seems ignorant that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens,
never abandoned the Roman territory. It is now thirty years, says
Claudian, (de Bello Getico, 166, &c., A.D. 404,) Ex quo jam patrios
gens haec oblita Triones, Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit
Threicio funesta solo--the error is inexcusable; since it disguises
the principal and immediate cause of the fall of the Wes