d forfeited, in his opinion, the merit of all public services.
Promotus, the master-general of the infantry, had saved the empire
from the invasion of the Ostrogoths; but he indignantly supported the
preeminence of a rival, whose character and profession he despised; and
in the midst of a public council, the impatient soldier was provoked
to chastise with a blow the indecent pride of the favorite. This act
of violence was represented to the emperor as an insult, which it was
incumbent on his dignity to resent. The disgrace and exile of Promotus
were signified by a peremptory order, to repair, without delay, to
a military station on the banks of the Danube; and the death of that
general (though he was slain in a skirmish with the Barbarians) was
imputed to the perfidious arts of Rufinus. [5] The sacrifice of a hero
gratified his revenge; the honors of the consulship elated his vanity;
but his power was still imperfect and precarious, as long as
the important posts of praefect of the East, and of praefect of
Constantinople, were filled by Tatian, [6] and his son Proculus; whose
united authority balanced, for some time, the ambition and favor of
the master of the offices. The two praefects were accused of rapine and
corruption in the administration of the laws and finances. For the
trial of these illustrious offenders, the emperor constituted a special
commission: several judges were named to share the guilt and reproach
of injustice; but the right of pronouncing sentence was reserved to the
president alone, and that president was Rufinus himself. The father,
stripped of the praefecture of the East, was thrown into a dungeon; but
the son, conscious that few ministers can be found innocent, where an
enemy is their judge, had secretly escaped; and Rufinus must have
been satisfied with the least obnoxious victim, if despotism had not
condescended to employ the basest and most ungenerous artifice. The
prosecution was conducted with an appearance of equity and moderation,
which flattered Tatian with the hope of a favorable event: his
confidence was fortified by the solemn assurances, and perfidious
oaths, of the president, who presumed to interpose the sacred name of
Theodosius himself; and the unhappy father was at last persuaded to
recall, by a private letter, the fugitive Proculus. He was instantly
seized, examined, condemned, and beheaded, in one of the suburbs of
Constantinople, with a precipitation which disappointed the cl