ear of the fourth century was polluted by the
consulship of a eunuch and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy
[8] awakened, however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate
consul was rejected by the West, as an indelible stain to the annals of
the republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus,
the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate,
[9] sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two
administrations.

[Footnote 3: Barthius, who adored his author with the blind superstition
of a commentator, gives the preference to the two books which Claudian
composed against Eutropius, above all his other productions, (Baillet
Jugemens des Savans, tom. iv. p. 227.) They are indeed a very elegant
and spirited satire; and would be more valuable in an historical light,
if the invective were less vague and more temperate.]

[Footnote 4: After lamenting the progress of the eunuchs in the Roman
palace, and defining their proper functions, Claudian adds,

A fronte recedant.
Imperii.
---In Eutrop. i. 422.

Yet it does not appear that the eunuchs had assumed any of the efficient
offices of the empire, and he is styled only Praepositun sacri cubiculi,
in the edict of his banishment. See Cod. Theod. l. leg 17.

Jamque oblita sui, nec sobria divitiis mens
In miseras leges hominumque negotia ludit
Judicat eunuchus.......
Arma etiam violare parat......

Claudian, (i. 229-270,) with that mixture of indignation and humor which
always pleases in a satiric poet, describes the insolent folly of the
eunuch, the disgrace of the empire, and the joy of the Goths.

Gaudet, cum viderit, hostis,
Et sentit jam deesse viros.]

[Footnote 6: The poet's lively description of his deformity (i. 110-125)
is confirmed by the authentic testimony of Chrysostom, (tom. iii. p.
384, edit Montfaucon;) who observes, that when the paint was washed away
the face of Eutropius appeared more ugly and wrinkled than that of an
old woman. Claudian remarks, (i. 469,) and the remark must have been
founded on experience, that there was scarcely an interval between the
youth and the decrepit age of a eunuch.]

[Footnote 7: Eutropius appears to have been a native of Armenia or
Assyria. His three services, which Claudian more particularly describes,
were these: 1. He spent many years as the catamite of Ptolemy, a groom
or soldier of the Imperial stables. 2. Ptolemy ga