THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 044
The Death of Constantius
3-16. The Death of Constantius
Meanwhile Julian strained every nerve to raise more troops for the coming campaign. He was not yet strong enough to advance into Thrace to meet the forces under Count Martianus, and the news from the West forced him to realise how critical his position might become. Two legions and a cohort stationed in Sirmium he did not dare to trust and so gave the command that they should march to Gaul to take the place of those regiments which formed part of his own army. On the long journey the men's discontent grew to mutiny: refusing to advance, they occupied Aquileia and were supported by the inhabitants who had remained at heart loyal to Constantius. The danger was very real; the insurgents might form a nucleus of disaffection in Italy and thus imperil Julian's retreat. He gave immediate orders to Jovinus to return and to employ in the siege of Aquileia the whole of the main force now advancing through Italy.
In the East Constantius had marched to Edessa (spring 361), where he awaited information as to the plans of Sapor. It was only on the news of Julian's capture of the pass of Succi that he felt that the war in the West could be no longer postponed. At the same time Constantius learned of Sapor's retreat, since the auspices forbade the passage of the Tigris. The Roman army assembled at Hierapolis greeted the Emperor's harangue with enthusiasm, Arbitio was despatched in advance to bar Julian's progress through Thrace, and when Constantius had made provision in Autioch for the government of the East he started in person against the usurper.
Fever however attacked him in Tarsus and his illness was rendered still more serious by the violent storms of late autumn. At Mopsucrenae, in Cilicia, he died on 3 November 361 at the age of 44.
Ammianus Marcellinus has given us a definitive sketch of the character of Constantius. His faults are clear as day. To guard the Emperor from treason, Diocletian had made the throne unapproachable, but this severance of sovereign and people drove the ruler back on the narrow circle of his ministers. They were at once his informants and his advisers: their lord learned only that which they deemed it well for him to know. The Emperor was led by his favourites; Constantius possessed considerable influence, writes Ammianus in bitter irony, with his eunuch chamberlain Eusebius. The insinuations of courtiers ultimately sowed mistrust between his Caesar Julian and himself. They played upon the suspicious nature of the Emperor, their whispers of treason, fired him to senseless ferocity, and the services of brave men were lost to the Empire lest their popularity should endanger the monarch's peace.
Even loyal subjects grew to doubt whether the Emperor's safety were worth its fearful price. To maintain the extravagant pomp of his rapacious ministers and followers, the provinces laboured under an overwhelming weight of taxes and impositions which were exacted with merciless severity, while the public post was ruined by the constant journeyings of bishops from one council to another. Yet though these dark features of the reign of Constantius are undeniable, below his inhuman repression of those who had fallen under the suspicion of treason lay a deep conviction of the solemnity of the trust which had been handed down to him from father and grandfather.
For Constantius the consciousness that he was representative by the grace of Heaven of a hereditary dynasty carried with it its obligation, and the task of maintaining the greatness of Rome was subtly confused with the duty of self-preservation, since a usurper's reign would never be hallowed by the seal of a legitimate succession. With a sense of this responsibility Constantius always sought to appoint only tried men to important offices in the State, he consistently exalted the civil element at the expense of the military and rigidly maintained the separation between the two services which had been one of the leading principles of Diocletian's reforms. Sober and temperate, he possessed that power of physical endurance which was shared by so many of his house.
In his early years he served as lieutenant to his father alike in East and West and gained a wide experience of men and cities. Now on this frontier, now on that, he was constantly engaged in the Empire's defence; a soldier by necessity and no born general, he was twice hailed by his men with the title of Sarmaticus, and in the usurpations of Magnentius and of Julian he refused to hazard the safety of the provinces and loyally sacrificed all personal interests in face of the higher claims of his duty to the Roman world. He was naturally cold and self-contained; he fails to awake our affection or our enthusiasm, but we can hardly withhold our tribute of respect. He bore his burden of Empire with high seriousness; men were conscious in his presence of an overmastering dignity and of a majesty which inspired them with something akin to awe.
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