were either unknown or
suspected. His want of experience might require the assistance of a wise
council; but the minute instructions which regulated the service of his
table, and the distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still
under the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he aspired
to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by the fear of
displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his marriage-bed were
blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia [39] herself, who, on this
occasion alone, seems to have been unmindful of the tenderness of her
sex, and the generosity of her character. The memory of his father and
of his brothers reminded Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions
were increased by the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the
summer which preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen
to deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus soon
discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in the Imperial
court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several of the principal
ministers, procured from him some recommendatory letters; and erasing
the whole of the contents, except the signature, filled up the vacant
parchment with matters of high and treasonable import. By the industry
and courage of his friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a
great council of the civil and military officers, held in the presence
of the emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already provoked the
indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so unjustly accused.
He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of Cologne, and his active
powers appeared to menace Italy with an invasion, and Milan with a
siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a general of equal rank, regained,
by an act of treachery, the favor which he had lost by his eminent
services in the East. Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the
injuries of a similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join
the standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous friend.
After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was assassinated: the
soldiers who, without any criminal intention, had blindly followed the
example of their leader, immediately returned to t