OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

his enemies with the arms of truth, and affordedthe emperor the fairest pretence of exacting theforfeit of his purple, and of his life. 3

As long as the civil war suspended the fateof the Roman world, Constantius dissembledhis knowledge of the weak and cruel adminis-tration to which his choice had subjected theEast; and the discovery of some assassins, se-cretly dispatched to Antioch by the tyrant ofGaul, was employed to convince the public,that the emperor and the Caesar were united bythe same interest, and pursued by the same ene-mies.' But when the victory was decided infavour of Constantius , his dependent colleaguebecame less useful and less formidable. Everycircumstance of his conduct was severely andsuspiciously examined ; and it was privatelyresolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple,or at least to remove him from the indolentluxury of Asia to the hardships and dangers ofa German war. The death of Theophilus, con-sular of the province of Syria , who in a time ofscarcity had been massacred by the people ofAntioch , with the connivance, and almost at theinstigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, notonly as an act of wanton cruelty, but as a dan-gerous insult on the supreme majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank,

• See in Ammianns 0* xiv, c * 1-7) a ver y ample detail of the cruel-ties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272) insinuates, that a secretconspiracy had been formed against him; and Zosimus names (!«ii,p. 135) the persons engaged in it ; a minister of considerable rank, andtwo obscure agents, who were resolved to make their fortune.

' Zonaras , 1. xiii, tom. ii, p. 17, 18. The assassins had seduced ngreat number of legionaries; but their designs were diseoveied and re-vealed by an old woman in whose cottage they lodged

175

CHAP.

XIX.

Massacreof the im.perial mi-nisters,

A. D. 354.