ellent princes," says the venerable matron,
"fathers of your country! pity and respect my age, which has hitherto
flowed in an uninterrupted course of piety. Since I do not repent,
permit me to continue in the practice of my ancient rites. Since I am
born free, allow me to enjoy my domestic institutions. This religion has
reduced the world under my laws. These rites have repelled Hannibal from
the city, and the Gauls from the Capitol. Were my gray hairs reserved
for such intolerable disgrace? I am ignorant of the new system that I am
required to adopt; but I am well assured, that the correction of old age
is always an ungrateful and ignominious office." The fears of the people
supplied what the discretion of the orator had suppressed; and the
calamities, which afflicted, or threatened, the declining empire, were
unanimously imputed, by the Pagans, to the new religion of Christ and of
Constantine.

But the hopes of Symmachus were repeatedly baffled by the firm and
dexterous opposition of the archbishop of Milan, who fortified the
emperors against the fallacious eloquence of the advocate of Rome.
In this controversy, Ambrose condescends to speak the language of a
philosopher, and to ask, with some contempt, why it should be thought
necessary to introduce an imaginary and invisible power, as the cause
of those victories, which were sufficiently explained by the valor and
discipline of the legions. He justly derides the absurd reverence for
antiquity, which could only tend to discourage the improvements of
art, and to replunge the human race into their original barbarism.
From thence, gradually rising to a more lofty and theological tone,
he pronounces, that Christianity alone is the doctrine of truth and
salvation; and that every mode of Polytheism conducts its deluded
votaries, through the paths of error, to the abyss of eternal perdition.
Arguments like these, when they were suggested by a favorite bishop, had
power to prevent the restoration of the altar of Victory; but the same
arguments fell, with much more energy and effect, from the mouth of
a conqueror; and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph at the
chariot-wheels of Theodosius. In a full meeting of the senate, the
emperor proposed, according to the forms of the republic, the important
question, Whether the worship of Jupiter, or that of Christ, should
be the religion of the Romans. The liberty of suffrages, which
he affected to allow, was destroyed by th