e avidity for those amusements,
that every consideration of fear, or suspicion, was disregarded by the
numerous spectators. As soon as the assembly was complete, the soldiers,
who had secretly been posted round the Circus, received the signal,
not of the races, but of a general massacre. The promiscuous carnage
continued three hours, without discrimination of strangers or natives,
of age or sex, of innocence or guilt; the most moderate accounts state
the number of the slain at seven thousand; and it is affirmed by some
writers that more than fifteen thousand victims were sacrificed to the
names of Botheric. A foreign merchant, who had probably no concern in
his murder, offered his own life, and all his wealth, to supply the
place of one of his two sons; but, while the father hesitated with equal
tenderness, while he was doubtful to choose, and unwilling to condemn,
the soldiers determined his suspense, by plunging their daggers at the
same moment into the breasts of the defenceless youths. The apology of
the assassins, that they were obliged to produce the prescribed number
of heads, serves only to increase, by an appearance of order and design,
the horrors of the massacre, which was executed by the commands of
Theodosius. The guilt of the emperor is aggravated by his long and
frequent residence at Thessalonica. The situation of the unfortunate
city, the aspect of the streets and buildings, the dress and faces of
the inhabitants, were familiar, and even present, to his imagination;
and Theodosius possessed a quick and lively sense of the existence of
the people whom he destroyed.

The respectful attachment of the emperor for the orthodox clergy, had
disposed him to love and admire the character of Ambrose; who united
all the episcopal virtues in the most eminent degree. The friends and
ministers of Theodosius imitated the example of their sovereign; and
he observed, with more surprise than displeasure, that all his secret
counsels were immediately communicated to the archbishop; who acted from
the laudable persuasion, that every measure of civil government may
have some connection with the glory of God, and the interest of the true
religion. The monks and populace of Callinicum, an obscure town on
the frontier of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism, and by that of
their bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventicle of the Valentinians,
and a synagogue of the Jews. The seditious prelate was condemned, by the
magistrat