Every prince who puts himself at the head of a party, and succeeds, is sure of being praised to all eternity, if the party lasts that time; and his adversaries may be assured that they will be treated by orators, poets, and preachers, as Titans who revolted against the gods. This is what happened to Octavius Augustus, when his good fortune made him defeat Brutus, Cassius, and Antony. It was the lot of Constantine, when Maxentius, the legitimate emperor, elected by the Roman senate and people, fell into the water and was drowned.

Theodosius had the same advantage. Woe to the vanquished! blessed be the victorious! — that is the motto of mankind. Theodosius was a Spanish officer, the son of a Spanish soldier of fortune. As soon as he was emperor he persecuted the anticonsubstantialists. Judge of the applauses, benedictions, and pompous eulogies, on the part of the consubstantialists! Their adversaries scarcely subsist any longer; their complaints and clamors against the tyranny of Theodosius have perished with them, and the predominant party still lavishes on this prince the epithets of pious, just, clement, wise, and great.

One day this pious and clement prince, who loved money to distraction, proposed laying a very heavy tax upon the city of Antioch, then the finest of Asia Minor. The people, in despair, having demanded a slight diminution, and not being able to obtain it, went so far as to break some statues, among which was one of the soldier, the emperor’s father. St. John Chrysostom, or golden mouth, the priest and flatterer of Theodosius, failed not to call this action a detestable sacrilege, since Theodosius was the image of God, and his father was almost as sacred as himself. But if this Spaniard resembled God, he should have remembered that the Antiochians also resembled Him, and that men formed after the exemplar of all the gods existed before emperors.

Finxit in effigiem moderantum cuncta deorum.

— Ovid, Met. i, b. 83.

Theodosius immediately sent a letter to the governor, with an order to apply the torture to the principal images of God who had taken part in this passing sedition; to make them perish under blows received from cords terminated with leaden balls; to burn some, and deliver others up to the sword. This was executed with all the punctuality of a governor who did his duty like a Christian, who paid his court well, and who would make his way there. The Orontes bore nothing but corpses to the sea for several days; after which, his gracious imperial majesty pardoned the Antiochians with his usual clemency, and doubled the tax.

How did the emperor Julian act in the same city, when he had received a more personal and injurious outrage? It was not a paltry statue of his father which they defaced............