CHAPTER XI

MANY INSTANCES OF REBELLION AND USURPATION OCCUR IN THE WEST. THE FAVOUR OF GOD MANIFESTED TOWARDS HONORIUS BY THE DEFEAT AND DEATH OF THE TYRANTS

DURING this period, many persons rebelled against Honorius, and seized the imperial authority in the West; but some of these tyrants were permitted to destroy each other, while others most unexpectedly fell under the power of the Roman arms, and in every case it was evidenced that the Divine favour rested in an especial manner upon Honorius. The soldiers in Britain were the first to rise up in sedition, and they proclaimed Mark as tyrant; afterwards, however, they slew Mark, and proclaimed Gratian. Within four months subsequently they killed Gratian and elected Constantine in his place, imagining that, on account of his name, he would be able to reduce the empire under his authority; and for no other reason than this, several other persons of the same name were advanced to power. Constantine passed over from Britain to Boulogne, a maritime city of Gaul, and after inducing all the troops in Gaul and Aquitaine to espouse his cause, he reduced to obedience the inhabitants of the regions extending to the mountains which divide Italy from Gaul, and which the Romans have named the Cottian Alps. He then sent his eldest son Constans, whom he had already nominated Cæsar, and whom he afterwards proclaimed emperor, into Spain. Constans, after making himself master of this province, and appointing governors over it, commanded that Didymus and Verinian, relatives of Honorius, should be loaded with chains and brought before him. Didymus and Verinian had long been on unfriendly terms, but a reconciliation was effected between them when they found themselves menaced by the same danger. They combined their forces, which consisted chiefly of armed peasants and slaves, committed some acts of hostility in Lusitania, attacked the troops that had been sent against them by the tyrant, and slew a great number of them.