of the criminal intimacy
between his wife and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his
tribunal the following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently
informed himself of the time and place of the assignation, mounted his
horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the guilty couple,
punished the soldier with instant death, and silenced the complaints of
the husband by presenting him, the next morning, with the head of the
adulterer. The abilities of Aetius and Boniface might have been usefully
employed against the public enemies, in separate and important commands;
but the experience of their past conduct should have decided the real
favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy season
of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained her cause
with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of Africa had
essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion. The same rebellion
had been supported by the zeal and activity of Aetius, who brought an
army of sixty thousand Huns from the Danube to the confines of Italy,
for the service of the usurper. The untimely death of John compelled him
to accept an advantageous treaty; but he still continued, the subject
and the soldier of Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a
treasonable, correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose retreat had
been purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal promises. But Aetius
possessed an advantage of singular moment in a female reign; he was
present: he besieged, with artful and assiduous flattery, the palace
of Ravenna; disguised his dark designs with the mask of loyalty and
friendship; and at length deceived both his mistress and his absent
rival, by a subtle conspiracy, which a weak woman and a brave man could
not easily suspect. He had secretly persuaded [11] Placidia to recall
Boniface from the government of Africa; he secretly advised Boniface to
disobey the Imperial summons: to the one, he represented the order as
a sentence of death; to the other, he stated the refusal as a signal
of revolt; and when the credulous and unsuspectful count had armed the
province in his defence, Aetius applauded his sagacity in foreseeing the
rebellion, which his own perfidy had excited. A temperate inquiry into
the real motives of Boniface would have restored a faithful servant to
his duty and to the republic; but the arts of Aetius still continued
to betray and to inflame, and the count was urged, b