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

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

passage 87 of 469 · Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I. > act of injustice, which might have tended to the profit of the

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in brief

Rufinus travels from Constantinople to Antioch, detains Lucian on scant evidence, orders his brutal beating and concealment of his death, then returns toward Constantinople to arrange his daughter’s marriage plans.

emperor’s uncle. Arcadius was easily persuaded to resent the supposed insult; and the præfect of the East resolved to execute in person the cruel vengeance, which he meditated against this ungrateful delegate of his power. He performed with incessant speed the journey of seven or eight hundred miles, from Constantinople to Antioch, entered the capital of Syria at the dead of night, and spread universal consternation among a people ignorant of his design, but not ignorant of his character. The Count of the fifteen provinces of the East was dragged, like the vilest malefactor, before the arbitrary tribunal of Rufinus. Notwithstanding the clearest evidence of his integrity, which was not impeached even by the voice of an accuser, Lucian was condemned, almost with out a trial, to suffer a cruel and ignominious punishment. The ministers of the tyrant, by the orders, and in the presence, of their master, beat him on the neck with leather thongs armed at the extremities with lead; and when he fainted under the violence of the pain, he was removed in a close litter, to conceal his dying agonies from the eyes of the indignant city. No sooner had Rufinus perpetrated this inhuman

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topics: conspiracy and assassination · courts, trials, and pleading · crime and punishment

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