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But existing parties left no room for anything but vague and spacious charity. If we may say neither of one essence nor of like essence, nor yet unlike, the only course open is to say like, and forbid nearer definition. This was the plan of the new Homoean party formed by Acacius in the East, Ursacius and Valens in the West. Parties began to group themselves afresh.
On the death of Athanasius, the Homoousian party chose Peter as his successor in the bishopric, overlooking Lucius, the Arian bishop, whose election had been approved by the emperors Julian, Jovian, and Valens. But as the Egyptian church had lost its great champion, the emperor ventured to re-assert his authority.
On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, the emperor Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were encamped about twelve miles from the city.
Valens at once gave an Arian meaning to the anathemas of Phoebadius. 'Not a creature like other creatures. Then creature he is. 'Not from nothing. Quite so: from the will of the Father. 'Eternal. Of course, as regards the future.
The character of Ulphilas recommended him to the esteem of the Eastern court, where he twice appeared as the minister of peace; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths, who implored the protection of Valens; and the name of Moses was applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted his people through the deep waters of the Danube to the Land of Promise.
As the forces of Constantinople were driven back by the victorious armies of the Persians, the emperors had lost, among other fortresses, the capital of Arabia Nabataæ, that curious rocky fastness that well deserved the name of Petra, and which had been garrisoned by Romans from the reign of Trajan till that of Valens.
These brave legionaries, encompassed and betrayed, fell a sacrifice to ministerial folly; their general, Valens, with a hundred soldiers, escaped from the field of battle; and one of the ambassadors, who could no longer claim the protection of the law of nations, was obliged to purchase his freedom with a ransom of thirty thousand pieces of gold.
But Valens was already falling into bad hands. Now that Julian was dead, the courtiers were fast recovering their influence, and Eudoxius had already secured the Emperor's support. The deputies of Lampsacus were ordered to hold communion with the bishop of Constantinople, and exiled on their refusal.
The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his reputation or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness the public contempt.
But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the father of his country.
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