History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3

Edward Gibbon · 1782 (written); 1845 (revised)

passage 27 of 469 · Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I. > Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part II. (10/11)

in brief

Gibbon begins a portrait of Ambrose of Milan as an energetic churchman whose family background and rapid rise from public office to archbishop led him to direct emperors and shape politics, especially after the deaths of emperors and threats to Italy.

assured, that the execution of his penal edicts was seldom enforced; and that the pious emperor appeared less desirous to punish, than to reclaim, or terrify, his refractory subjects. 50

48 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6—23, with Godefroy’s commentary on each law, and his general summary, or Paratitlon, tom vi. p. 104-110.]

49 (return) [ They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish Passover, on the fourteenth day of the first moon after the vernal equinox; and thus pertinaciously opposed the Roman Church and Nicene synod, which had fixed Easter to a Sunday. Bingham’s Antiquities, l. xx. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 309, fol. edit.]

50 (return) [ Sozomen, l. vii. c. 12.]

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topics: counsel and advisers to rulers · empire and the rule of provinces · forms of government

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3 · Edward Gibbon · 1782–1845