re, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was
tempered by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first
time, to the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with the tone
of authority which his superior age and station permitted him to assume;
and exhorting the new Caesar to deserve, by heroic deeds, that sacred
and immortal name, the emperor gave his colleague the strongest
assurances of a friendship which should never be impaired by time, nor
interrupted by their separation into the most distant climes. As soon as
the speech was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
shields against their knees; [36] while the officers who surrounded the
tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the merits of
the representative of Constantius.

[Footnote 35: See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x. 14.]

[Footnote 36: Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus illidentes;
quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra cum hastis clypei
feriuntur, irae documentum est et doloris... ... Ammianus adds, with
a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori reverentia servaretur, nec supra
modum laudabant nec infra quam decebat.]

The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and during
the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of his favorite
Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune and to his fears.
[37] The four-and-twenty days which the Caesar spent at Milan after his
investiture, and the first months of his Gallic reign, were devoted to
a splendid but severe captivity; nor could the acquisition of honor
compensate for the loss of freedom. [38] His steps were watched, his
correspondence was intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence,
to decline the visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former
domestics, four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his
physician, and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care
of a valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who studied
the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend. In the room of
these faithful servants, a household was formed, such indeed as became
the dignity of a Caesar; but it was filled with a crowd of slaves,
destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any attachment for their new
master, to whom, for the most part, they