stantine, with his hands tied behind his back,
was beheaded in prison like the vilest malefactor. [24] Those who are
inclined to palliate the cruelties of Constantius, assert that he soon
relented, and endeavored to recall the bloody mandate; but that the
second messenger, intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the
eunuchs, who dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous
of reuniting to their empire the wealthy provinces of the East. [25]

[Footnote 23: The Thebaean legions, which were then quartered at
Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit. Labb.)
mentions three several legions which bore the name of Thebaean. The zeal
of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable though celebrated legion, has
tempted him on the slightest grounds to deny the existence of a Thenaean
legion in the Roman armies. See Oeuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414,
quarto edition.]

[Footnote 23a: Pettau in Styria.--M]

[Footnote 23b: Rather to Flanonia. now Fianone, near Pola. St.
Martin.--M.]

[Footnote 24: See the complete narrative of the journey and death of
Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his brother
was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or at least to
excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on his enemies; but
seems at last to acknowledge that he might justly have been deprived of
the purple.]

[Footnote 25: Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p.
19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch, and the latter
transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever he found in the
writings of the ancients.]

Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the numerous
posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his royal birth
involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his retirement in the happy
country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a strong guard to the court
of Milan; where he languished above seven months, in the continual
apprehension of suffering the same ignominious death, which was daily
inflicted almost before his eyes, on the friends and adherents of
his persecuted family. His looks, his gestures, his silence, were
scrutinized with malignant curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted
by enemies whom he had never offended, and by arts to which he was
a stranger. [26] But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly
acquire