roductive of much more dreadful consequences. That great city, the
metropolis of all the Illyrian provinces, had been protected from
the dangers of the Gothic war by strong fortifications and a numerous
garrison. Botheric, the general of those troops, and, as it should seem
from his name, a Barbarian, had among his slaves a beautiful boy, who
excited the impure desires of one of the charioteers of the Circus.
The insolent and brutal lover was thrown into prison by the order
of Botheric; and he sternly rejected the importunate clamors of the
multitude, who, on the day of the public games, lamented the absence of
their favorite; and considered the skill of a charioteer as an object
of more importance than his virtue. The resentment of the people was
imbittered by some previous disputes; and, as the strength of the
garrison had been drawn away for the service of the Italian war, the
feeble remnant, whose numbers were reduced by desertion, could not save
the unhappy general from their licentious fury. Botheric, and several
of his principal officers, were inhumanly murdered; their mangled bodies
were dragged about the streets; and the emperor, who then resided at
Milan, was surprised by the intelligence of the audacious and wanton
cruelty of the people of Thessalonica. The sentence of a dispassionate
judge would have inflicted a severe punishment on the authors of the
crime; and the merit of Botheric might contribute to exasperate the
grief and indignation of his master. The fiery and choleric temper of
Theodosius was impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry;
and he hastily resolved, that the blood of his lieutenant should
be expiated by the blood of the guilty people. Yet his mind still
fluctuated between the counsels of clemency and of revenge; the zeal of
the bishops had almost extorted from the reluctant emperor the promise
of a general pardon; his passion was again inflamed by the flattering
suggestions of his minister Rufinus; and, after Theodosius had
despatched the messengers of death, he attempted, when it was too late,
to prevent the execution of his orders. The punishment of a Roman city
was blindly committed to the undistinguishing sword of the Barbarians;
and the hostile preparations were concerted with the dark and perfidious
artifice of an illegal conspiracy. The people of Thessalonica were
treacherously invited, in the name of their sovereign, to the games of
the Circus; and such was their insatiat