.]

[Footnote 11:

--fluctibus auri Expleri sitis ista nequit--
*****
Congestae cumulantur opes; orbisque ruinas Accipit una domus.

This character (Claudian, in. Rufin. i. 184-220) is confirmed by Jerom,
a disinterested witness, (dedecus insatiabilis avaritiae, tom. i. ad
Heliodor. p. 26,) by Zosimus, (l. v. p. 286,) and by Suidas, who copied
the history of Eunapius.]

[Footnote 12:

--Caetera segnis;
Ad facinus velox; penitus regione remotas
Impiger ire vias.

This allusion of Claudian (in Rufin. i. 241) is again explained by the
circumstantial narrative of Zosimus, (l. v. p. 288, 289.)]

But Rufinus soon experienced, that a prudent minister should constantly
secure his royal captive by the strong, though invisible chain of habit;
and that the merit, and much more easily the favor, of the absent,
are obliterated in a short time from the mind of a weak and capricious
sovereign. While the praefect satiated his revenge at Antioch, a secret
conspiracy of the favorite eunuchs, directed by the great chamberlain
Eutropius, undermined his power in the palace of Constantinople. They
discovered that Arcadius was not inclined to love the daughter of
Rufinus, who had been chosen, without his consent, for his bride; and
they contrived to substitute in her place the fair Eudoxia, the daughter
of Bauto, [13] a general of the Franks in the service of Rome; and who
was educated, since the death of her father, in the family of the sons
of Promotus. The young emperor, whose chastity had been strictly guarded
by the pious care of his tutor Arsenius, [14] eagerly listened to the
artful and flattering descriptions of the charms of Eudoxia: he gazed
with impatient ardor on her picture, and he understood the necessity of
concealing his amorous designs from the knowledge of a minister who was
so deeply interested to oppose the consummation of his happiness. Soon
after the return of Rufinus, the approaching ceremony of the royal
nuptials was announced to the people of Constantinople, who prepared
to celebrate, with false and hollow acclamations, the fortune of his
daughter. A splendid train of eunuchs and officers issued, in hymeneal
pomp, from the gates of the palace; bearing aloft the diadem, the
robes, and the inestimable ornaments, of the future empress. The solemn
procession passed through the streets of the city, which were adorned
with garlands, and filled with spectators; but when it reached the