us
occasions of speaking or writing, on public business: her deliberations
were maturely weighed; her actions were prompt and decisive; and, while
she moved, without noise or ostentation, the wheel of government, she
discreetly attributed to the genius of the emperor the long tranquillity
of his reign. In the last years of his peaceful life, Europe was indeed
afflicted by the arms of war; but the more extensive provinces of Asia
still continued to enjoy a profound and permanent repose. Theodosius the
younger was never reduced to the disgraceful necessity of encountering
and punishing a rebellious subject: and since we cannot applaud the
vigor, some praise may be due to the mildness and prosperity, of the
administration of Pulcheria.

[Footnote 68: Sozomen has filled three chapters with a magnificent
panegyric of Pulcheria, (l. ix. c. 1, 2, 3;) and Tillemont (Memoires
Eccles. tom. xv. p. 171-184) has dedicated a separate article to the
honor of St. Pulcheria, virgin and empress. * Note: The heathen Eunapius
gives a frightful picture of the venality and a justice of the court of
Pulcheria. Fragm. Eunap. in Mai, ii. 293, in p. 97.--M.]

[Footnote 69: Suidas, (Excerpta, p. 68, in Script. Byzant.) pretends,
on the credit of the Nestorians, that Pulcheria was exasperated against
their founder, because he censured her connection with the beautiful
Paulinus, and her incest with her brother Theodosius.]

[Footnote 70: See Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 70. Flaccilla, the eldest
daughter, either died before Arcadius, or, if she lived till the year
431, (Marcellin. Chron.,) some defect of mind or body must have excluded
her from the honors of her rank.]

[Footnote 71: She was admonished, by repeated dreams, of the place
where the relics of the forty martyrs had been buried. The ground
had successively belonged to the house and garden of a woman of
Constantinople, to a monastery of Macedonian monks, and to a church
of St. Thyrsus, erected by Caesarius, who was consul A.D. 397; and
the memory of the relics was almost obliterated. Notwithstanding the
charitable wishes of Dr. Jortin, (Remarks, tom. iv. p. 234,) it is not
easy to acquit Pulcheria of some share in the pious fraud; which must
have been transacted when she was more than five-and-thirty years of
age.]

The Roman world was deeply interested in the education of its master. A
regular course of study and exercise was judiciously instituted; of the
military exercises of rid