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Constantius, the faithful Roman lover, came with an army and carried back to Rome the royal widow, who married him and became the mother of Valentinian III., who succeeded his uncle Honorius as Emperor of Rome in 425 A.D., under the regency of Placidia during his infancy. This romance, lying at the very root of a Gothic dynasty in Spain, marks the earliest beginnings of a line of Visigoth kings.
Yonder is another who suffered like Primitius." "And there," said Honorius, "is the tomb of a noble lady, who showed that fortitude which Christ can always bestow even to the weakest of his followers in the hour of need." "We do not die," said Honorius; "we but sleep, and when the last trump shall sound we shall awake to be forever with the Lord.
Honorius then related the story of Jonah, and showed him how the escape from the bowels of the fish reminded the Christian of his deliverance from the darkness of the tomb. "This glorious hope of the resurrection is an unspeakable comfort," said he, "and we love to bring it to our thoughts by different symbols.
At last he reached the Tiber, and leaping in, he swam to the opposite side. The pursuers reached the river's brink, but followed no further. "The trial of your faith worketh patience." Honorius was seated in the chapel with one or two others, among whom was the lady Caecilia. The feeble rays of a single lamp but faintly illuminated the scene. They were silent and sad.
The rustic army of the Theodosian family was surrounded and destroyed in the Pyrenees: two of the brothers had the good fortune to escape by sea to Italy, or the East; the other two, after an interval of suspense, were executed at Arles; and if Honorius could remain insensible of the public disgrace, he might perhaps be affected by the personal misfortunes of his generous kinsmen.
He dictated a letter to the new Pope, Honorius III., and died October 19, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, the last and worst of the four rebellious sons of Henry II., all cut off in the prime of life. His death made a great difference in the aspect of affairs. His innocent sons had forfeited no claim to the affection of the English, and their weakness was their most powerful claim.
Ataulf took his fair prize to the city of Narbonne in southern France, and made her his Queen. But when Constantius, a disappointed Roman lover of Placidia's, instigated Honorius to send an army against him and his Goths, he withdrew into Spain, and established his court with its rude splendor in the ancient city of Barcelona.
Why, the whole thing turns on the paper. How lucky it was Honorius went amongst the pirates! Honorius has vanquished the chief of the pirates, who was named Arnheim, and that disreputable widower, just before his last breath, gave Honorius the said paper, though why, it is not clear. Great thunderbolts!
How could it be otherwise, when it is a fact now known to all, that, even at the beginning of the fifth century, Rome was almost entirely pagan, at least outwardly, and among her highest classes; so that the poet Claudian, in addressing Honorius at the beginning of his sixth consulship, pointed out to him the site of the capitol still crowned with the Temple of Jove, surrounded by numerous pagan edifices, supporting in air an army of gods; and all around temples, chapels, statues, without number in fact, the whole Roman and Greek mythology, standing in the City of the Catacombs and of the Popes!
During the absence of Jovius, the Emperor was persuaded to assume a lofty tone of inflexible dignity, such as neither his situation nor his character could enable him to support; and a letter, signed with the name of Honorius, was immediately despatched to the prætorian prefect, granting him a free permission to dispose of the public money, but sternly refusing to prostitute the military honors of Rome to the proud demands of a Barbarian.
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