Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The situation and
character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures; and the policy of
the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite his antagonists, and to
separate the forces of Illyricum from the cause of rebellion. It was
an easy task to deceive the frankness and simplicity of Vetranio, who,
fluctuating some time between the opposite views of honor and interest,
displayed to the world the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly
engaged in the snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged
him as a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that
he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and appoint
a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective provinces;
where they might pledge their friendship by mutual vows of fidelity, and
regulate by common consent the future operations of the civil war. In
consequence of this agreement, Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica,
at the head of twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of
infantry; a power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the
Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his rival,
who, depending on the success of his private negotiations, had seduced
the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio. The chiefs, who
had secretly embraced the party of Constantius, prepared in his favor a
public spectacle, calculated to discover and inflame the passions of the
multitude. The united armies were commanded to assemble in a large
plain near the city. In the centre, according to the rules of ancient
discipline, a military tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from
whence the emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions,
to harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and Barbarians,
with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the squadrons of cavalry, and
the cohorts of infantry, distinguished by the variety of their arms and
ensigns, formed an immense circle round the tribunal; and the attentive
silence which they preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of
clamor or of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly,
the two emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public
affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of
Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts of
rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult circum