raefect Florentius, the oppressor of Gaul,
and the enemy of Julian, had employed a considerable part of his
inheritance, the fruit of rapine and corruption, to purchase the
friendship of Rufinus, and the high office of Count of the East. But the
new magistrate imprudently departed from the maxims of the court, and
of the times; disgraced his benefactor by the contrast of a virtuous and
temperate administration; and presumed to refuse an act of injustice,
which might have tended to the profit of the emperor's uncle. Arcadius
was easily persuaded to resent the supposed insult; and the praefect
of the East resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance, which he
meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed
with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles, from
Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the dead of
night, and spread universal consternation among a people ignorant of
his design, but not ignorant of his character. The Count of the fifteen
provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest malefactor, before
the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus. Notwithstanding the clearest evidence
of his integrity, which was not impeached even by the voice of an
accuser, Lucian was condemned, almost with out a trial, to suffer a
cruel and ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the
orders, and in the presence, of their master, beat him on the neck with
leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead; and when he fainted
under the violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter, to
conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant city. No
sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman act, the sole object of his
expedition, than he returned, amidst the deep and silent curses of a
trembling people, from Antioch to Constantinople; and his diligence was
accelerated by the hope of accomplishing, without delay, the nuptials of
his daughter with the emperor of the East. [12]

[Footnote 10: Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 12) praises one
of the laws of Theodosius addressed to the praefect Rufinus, (l. ix.
tit. iv. leg. unic.,) to discourage the prosecution of treasonable, or
sacrilegious, words. A tyrannical statute always proves the existence of
tyranny; but a laudable edict may only contain the specious professions,
or ineffectual wishes, of the prince, or his ministers. This, I am
afraid, is a just, though mortifying, canon of criticism