History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
confined the person of Gildo in a dungeon; and his own despair saved him
from the intolerable torture of supporting the presence of an injured
and victorious brother. The captives and the spoils of Africa were
laid at the feet of the emperor; but more sincere, in the midst of
prosperity, still affected to consult the laws of the republic; and
referred to the senate and people of Rome the judgment of the most
illustrious criminals. Their trial was public and solemn; but the
judges, in the exercise of this obsolete and precarious jurisdiction,
were impatient to punish the African magistrates, who had intercepted
the subsistence of the Roman people. The rich and guilty province was
oppressed by the Imperial ministers, who had a visible interest to
multiply the number of the accomplices of Gildo; and if an edict
of Honorius seems to check the malicious industry of informers, a
subsequent edict, at the distance of ten years, continues and renews the
prosecution of the offences which had been committed in the time of the
general rebellion. The adherents of the tyrant who escaped the first
fury of the soldiers, and the judges, might derive some consolation from
the tragic fate of his brother, who could never obtain his pardon for
the extraordinary services which he had performed. After he had finished
an important war in the space of a single winter, Mascezel was received
at the court of Milan with loud applause, affected gratitude, and secret
jealousy; and his death, which, perhaps, was the effect of passage of
a bridge, the Moorish prince, who accompanied the master-general of the
West, was suddenly thrown from his horse into the river; the officious
haste of the attendants was on the countenance of Stilicho; and while
they delayed the necessary assistance, the unfortunate Mascezel was
irrecoverably drowned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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