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Updated: August 8, 2024
The moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, the general of the cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the assessment of the tribute.
The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected on this sudden emergency.
On that fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth into a dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid entertainment; and their martial train remained under arms at the entrance of the palace.
At this important crisis, the military government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.
But the gates of the city were closely guarded, and the Goths outside were refused the use of a plentiful market, to which they claimed admission as subjects of Rome. The citizens treated them with insult and derision. The Goths grew angry. Words led to blows. A sword was drawn, and the first blood shed in a long and ruinous war. Lupicinus was told that many of his soldiers had been slain.
As they had been deprived, by the ministers of the emperor, of the common benefits of nature, and the fair intercourse of social life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent families.
It was in use in the early ages; for it is found not only in the epistle to the bishop of Vienne attributed to Pope Pius I, and in that of Pope Cornelius to Lupicinus: but S. Ambrose also says "I continued my duty, and began to celebrate mass" and in another place he exhorts the people to "hear mass daily ".
The discontent of the Visigoths was not long in breaking into open war. They had marched to Marcianopolis, seventy miles from the Danube. Here Lupicinus, one of the governors of Thrace, invited the Gothic chiefs to a splendid entertainment. Their guards remained under arms at the entrance to the palace.
The delegated authority which he had long exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner.
Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious flight of their leader.
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