the provinces of Noricum, Pannonia,
and Dalmatia still belonged to the Western empire; but the two large
dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia, which Gratian had intrusted to the
valor of Theodosius, were forever united to the empire of the East.
The boundary in Europe was not very different from the line which now
separates the Germans and the Turks; and the respective advantages of
territory, riches, populousness, and military strength, were fairly
balanced and compensated, in this final and permanent division of the
Roman empire. The hereditary sceptre of the sons of Theodosius appeared
to be the gift of nature, and of their father; the generals and
ministers had been accustomed to adore the majesty of the royal infants;
and the army and people were not admonished of their rights, and of
their power, by the dangerous example of a recent election. The gradual
discovery of the weakness of Arcadius and Honorius, and the repeated
calamities of their reign, were not sufficient to obliterate the deep
and early impressions of loyalty. The subjects of Rome, who still
reverenced the persons, or rather the names, of their sovereigns,
beheld, with equal abhorrence, the rebels who opposed, and the ministers
who abused, the authority of the throne.

Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of
Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and religious
faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation of every crime.
The strong impulse of ambition and avarice had urged Rufinus to abandon
his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, to advance his fortune
in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and ready elocution,
qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of the law; and his
success in that profession was a regular step to the most honorable and
important employments of the state. He was raised, by just degrees, to
the station of master of the offices. In the exercise of his various
functions, so essentially connected with the whole system of civil
government, he acquired the confidence of a monarch, who soon discovered
his diligence and capacity in business, and who long remained ignorant
of the pride, the malice, and the covetousness of his disposition. These
vices were concealed beneath the mask of profound dissimulation; his
passions were subservient only to the passions of his master; yet in the
horrid massacre of Thessalonica, the cruel Rufinus inflamed the fury,
without imi