cret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the
confidence of the prince; but their ostensible functions were confined
to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial bed-chamber. They
might direct, in a whisper, the public counsels, and blast, by their
malicious suggestions, the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious
citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of
empire, [4] or to profane the public honors of the state. Eutropius was
the first of his artificial sex, who dared to assume the character of
a Roman magistrate and general. [5] Sometimes, in the presence of the
blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment, or to
repeat elaborate harangues; and, sometimes, appeared on horseback, at
the head of his troops, in the dress and armor of a hero. The disregard
of custom and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor
does Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design by
any superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of
life had not introduced him to the study of the laws, or the exercises
of the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret
contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such
a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of
the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, perhaps, than
hatred, to a public character. The subjects of Arcadius were exasperated
by the recollection, that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, [6] who so
perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject
condition of servitude; that before he entered the Imperial palace, he
had been successively sold and purchased by a hundred masters, who had
exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and
at length dismissed him, in his old age, to freedom and poverty.
[7] While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps
exaggerated, in private conversation, the vanity of the favorite was
flattered with the most extraordinary honors. In the senate, in the
capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were erected, in
brass, or marble, decorated with the symbols of his civil and military
virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title of the third founder of
Constantinople. He was promoted to the rank of patrician, which began
to signify in a popular, and even legal, acceptation, the father of the
emperor; and the last y