were forever united to the empire of the East.
The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now
separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective advantages of
territory, riches, populousness, and military strength, were fairly
balanced and compensated, in this final and permanent division of the
Roman empire. The hereditary sceptre of the sons of Theodosius appeared
to be the gift of nature, and of their father; the generals and
ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the royal infants;
and the army and people were not admonished of their rights, and of
their power, by the dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual
discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated
calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep
and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who still
reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their sovereigns,
beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who opposed, and the ministers
who abused, the authority of the throne.

Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of
Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and religious
faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation of every crime.
The strong impulse of ambition and avarice [1] had urged Rufinus to
abandon his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, [2] to advance
his fortune in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and ready
elocution, [3] qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of
the law; and his success in that profession was a regular step to the
most honorable and important employments of the state. He was raised, by
just degrees, to the station of master of the offices. In the exercise
of his various functions, so essentially connected with the whole system
of civil government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who soon
discovered his diligence and capacity in business, and who long
remained ignorant of the pride, the malice, and the covetousness of his
disposition. These vices were concealed beneath the mask of profound
dissimulation; [4] his passions were subservient only to the passions
of his master; yet in the horrid massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel
Rufinus inflamed the fury, without imitating the repentance, of
Theodosius. The minister, who viewed with proud indifference the rest
of mankind, never forgave the appearance of an injury; and his personal
enemies ha