3-6. The Growth of the Hereditary Principle
The importance and significance of this unsuccessful bid for empire may easily be overlooked. A Roman civil official at the head of some discontented spirits at the Court hatches a plot against his sovereign, and in order to win the support of the army alienated by the contempt of Constans induces a barbarian general to declare himself Emperor. But though the Roman world was willing enough that Germans should fight the Empire's battles in their defence, they were not prepared to see another Maximin upon the throne; they refused to be reconciled to Magnentius even by the admitted justice of his rule. The lesson of his failure was well learned: the barbarian Arbogast caused not himself, but the Roman civilian Eugenius to be elected Emperor. Further, while in this struggle the eastern and western halves of the Empire are seen falling naturally and almost unconsciously asunder, the most powerful force working for unity is the dynastic sentiment: Constantius claims support as the legitimate successor of the house of Constantine and as the avenger of the death of his son. His claim is not merely as the chosen of senate or army but far more as the rightful heir to the throne.
This struggle throws into prominence the growth of the hereditary principle and the warmth of the response which it could evoke from the sympathies of the subjects of the Empire. No student of the history of the fourth century can indeed afford to neglect the battle of Mursa; contemporaries were staggered at the appalling loss of life, for while it is said that the Roman dead numbered 40,000 at Hadrianople in A.D. 378, at Mursa 54,000 are reported to have been slain. It is hardly too much to say that the defence of the Empire in the East was crippled by this blow, and it must have been largely through the slaughter at Mursa that Constantius was forced to make his fatal demand that the troops of Gaul should march against Persia. Neither must the military significance of the battle be forgotten: it lies in the fact that this was the first victory of the newly-formed heavy cavalry, and the result of the impact of their charge, which carried all before it, showed that it was no longer the legionary who was to play the most important part in the campaigns of the future.
Meanwhile in Antioch Gallus was ruling as an oriental despot; there was in his nature a strain of savagery, and his appointment as Caesar seems to have awakened within him a brutal lust for a naked display of unrestrained authority. His passions were only fed by the violence of Constantia. The unsuccessful plot of Magnentius to assassinate the Caesar aroused the latter's suspicions and a reign of terror began; judicial procedure was disregarded and informers honoured, men were condemned to death without trial and the members of the city council imprisoned; when the populace complained of scarcity it was suggested that the responsibility lay with Theophilus governor of Syria: the mob took the hint and the governor perished. The feeling of insecurity was rendered more intense by a rising among the Jews, who declared a certain Patricius their King, and by the raids of Saracens and Isaurians upon the countryside.
The loyalty of the East was jeopardised. The reports of Thalassius, the praetorian praefect, and of Barbatio, the Caesar's Count of the guard, at length moved Constantius to action. On the death of Thalassius (winter 353-4) Domitian was sent to Antioch as his successor, directions being given him that Gallus was to be persuaded to visit the Emperor in the West. The praefect's studied discourtesy and overbearing behaviour enraged the Caesar; Domitian was thrown into prison and the populace responding to the appeal of Gallus tore in pieces both the praefect and Montius the quaestor of the palace. The trials for treason which followed were but a parody of justice; fear and hate held sway in Antioch. Constantius himself now wrote to Gallus praying his presence in Milan.
In deep foreboding the Caesar started; on his journey the death of his wife, the Emperor's masterful sister, further dismayed him, and after passing through Constantinople his guard of honour became his gaolers; stripped of his purple by Barbatio in Poetovio, he was brought near Pola before a commission headed by Eusebius, the Emperor's chamberlain, and bidden to account for his administration in the East. The court came to the required conclusion, and Gallus was beheaded.
To obtain a deluxe leatherbound edition of THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, subscribe to Castalia History.
