similar decision. What are we to say of his master, Julianus Valens? Though close at hand, he kept away from the episcopal Council for fear of being compelled to explain to the bishops why he had ruined his country and betrayed his fellowcitizens. Polluted by the impiety of the Goths, he dresses himself like the heathen, we are told, with collar and armlet, and dares to go about like that in the sight of a Roman army. That is unquestionably sacrilege not only in a bishop, but in any Christian; for it is contrary to Roman custom. No doubt the idolatrous priests of the Goths are his model!

10. We trust your Piety will be moved by the name of bishop, which he dishonours with his sacrilege. He is convicted of a horrible crime even by the voice of his own people-if any of them can still be alive. At least let him go back home and not contaminate the cities of prosperous Italy. For at the moment he is associating like-minded persons with himself by unlawful ordinations and trying, by means of some abandoned wretches, to leave behind him a nursery for his own impiety and perfidy. And he has never even begun to be a bishop, for at Poetovio, to begin with, he supplanted the holy Marcus, a bishop whose memory is held in high esteem. Afterwards he was ignominiously turned out by the people, and, finding Poetovio impossible for him, is now prancing about at Milan, after the ruin-or, to speak bluntly, the betrayal of his own country.

11. On all these points, Sirs, be pleased to take thought for us. We should not wish to give the impression of having assembled, in obedience to the instructions of your Tranquillity, to no purpose. Care must be taken that your decisions, even more than ours, should not be dishonoured. Therefore we ask your Grace to be pleased to give audience also to the legates of the Council, who are holy men, and to instruct them to return speedily with the information that you have given

8 Julianus Valens, a presbyter from Noricum, had joined the Arians in Milan and given trouble to Ambrose some years before. He had then been intruded as Arian Bishop of Poetovio (Pettau) in place of Mark, but was not recognized by the catholics as a bishop. His treason took place in 379, after the Goths' victory of Adrianople, when he delivered his city into their hands. Afterwards he was expelled by the citizens, and went to Milan, where he intrigued with Ursinus (Ep. 11:3). The Council does not ask for his deposition, since they do not acknowledge him to be a bishop at all, but simply for his expulsion. Attalus was one of his followers. 9 I wondered whether to translate etenim "and indeed", but Ambrose seems to give it the full sense of "for". If so his identification of Christianity and Roman civilization is revealing.

effect to our requests. You will be rewarded by Christ, the Lord God, whose churches you have cleansed from all stain of sacrilege.

12. There is also the matter of the Photinians. 10 By an earlier law you decreed that they should not assemble together, and by the law governing the episcopal Council, you forbade them to join us. We now learn that they are still attempting to meet inside the city of Sirmium, and ask your Grace once more to forbid their meetings and to order due respect to be shown first to the catholic Church and secondly to your own laws, so that, under God's protection, by your care for the peace and quiet of the Church, you may reign in triumph.

10 Photeinus, Bishop of Sirmium, combined the modalism of Marcellus of Ancyra with an adoptianist doctrine of Christ, and was several times condemned by eastern and western Councils. Gratian had excluded the Photinians, with the Eunomians and Manichaeans, from his edict of toleration in 378; this law, the text of which is not extant, may well have forbidden these heretics to assemble within the cities. The other "law" referred to here is the rescript summoning the Council of Aquileia, which does not expressly forbid heretics, but only invites "the bishops."

Letter 17: The Altar of Victory

INTRODUCTION

FTER THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM, OCTAVIAN, SOON TO

A

be the Emperor Augustus, placed in the Roman SenateHouse a Greek statue of the goddess Victoria, found at Tarentum. At her altar senators burned incense as they entered, and by it they took oaths of allegiance to each new emperor and pledged themselves annually with prayer for the welfare of the empire. So it continued until A.D. 357, when Constantius, visiting Rome, ordered the removal of the Altar of Victory. It was either restored as soon as his back was turned or else by Julian. Jovian and Valentinian I, though Christians, let it stay there. But in 382 Gratian, much under the influence of Ambrose, opened his campaign against paganism. He had perhaps renounced the title of Pontifex Maximus at his accession, though this too may have been done in 382. In that year he disendowed the official cults and priesthoods, including the Vestal virgins, and removed the Altar of Victory from the Senate. At this time the Roman Senate was still something of a stronghold of pagan conservatism under such leaders as Symmachus, Praetextatus, and Nicomachus Flavianus. Whether or not it had an absolute majority is a point on which Symmachus and Ambrose appear to contradict each other, but on this occasion at any rate the pagans mustered an effective majority and sent a deputation of protest to the emperor. Christian senators drew up a counter-petition which was sent through Pope Damasus to Ambrose, and by him presented to Gratian. He, as we learn from Symmachus, refused even to receive the official deputation. Defeated for the moment, the pagan party made capital out of the murder of Gratian in 383. Was this the reply of Heaven?

Early in the reign of the boy Valentinian II the pagan party secured some of the highest offices of State. Praetextatus became

Prefect of Italy, Symmachus Prefect of Rome; the powerful barbarian general, Count Bauto, was probably a pagan, and Count Rumoridus certainly one. Thus encouraged, the Senate again sent a deputation to the emperor, asking for the restoration of the religious subsidies and endowments and the return of the Altar of Victory. This was in the summer of 384. Symmachus drew up a Memorial pleading for religious liberty. The One whom all seek to worship cannot be found by all in the same way. Spoliation of any religion is sacrilege, and Valentinian is not being asked to make a gift, but to restore rights. The gods had already punished Rome with famine. There were Christians around Valentinian, as there had been in the Senate, who thought the request reasonable. Ambrose, therefore, hearing of what threatened, wrote quickly to Valentinian (Letter 17), claiming the right to intervene as bishop in a matter of religion and telling him that a Christian emperor or State cannot subsidize idolatry. When he had secured a copy of the Memorial, Ambrose wrote again, refuting its arguments in detail (Letter 18). His influence prevailed, and neither endowments nor Altar were restored. It was an acute conflict. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the immediate matters of dispute, the subsidies, the endowments, and the Altar (and even from a Christian standpoint there may be a case against him), Ambrose saw that this was intended to be a trial of strength between Christianity and paganism. He won it, and, as later events would show, Milan was to be for a time a more stable centre of Christianity than Rome. The pagan cause was further weakened by the death in 384 of Praetextatus. With his relative Symmachus, whom he admired as man and writer, Ambrose remained personally on good terms.

From time to time the pagan senators renewed their efforts, putting less emphasis on the Altar of Victory and more on the endowments and state support of the cults. Thus an approach was made to Theodosius in 389 or 390, at a time when he may have been thought to be fretting over his humiliation by Ambrose in the affair of Callinicum. The deputation arrived, Ambrose went to the palace to persuade the emperor against it, and, by his own account (Letter 57), got Theodosius to accept his advice. It looks, however, as if the emperor rather resented the bishop's officiousness. He refused the deputation's requests, but also gave orders to the members of his Consistory that they were not to communicate its secrets to Ambrose. Hence the awkward position in which Ambrose found himself at the time

of the massacre at Thessalonica (Letter 51). Theodosius's own resolution to destroy paganism was soon demonstrated by the law Nemo se hostiis of February, 391, which forbade pagan sacrifices, the similar law addressed to Egypt in June, which resulted in the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria, and the law Nullus omnino of November, 392, which prohibited all forms of pagan worship.

Late in 391, when Valentinian II was in Gaul and Ambrose at Milan, another senatorial deputation arrived to ask for the return of the endowments. The Consistory favoured this, but Valentinian refused, this time without pressure from Ambrose. Soon afterwards he quarrelled with Count Arbogast and either committed suicide or was murdered on the 15th May, 392. In August the "usurper" Eugenius, nominally a Christian, was proclaimed emperor. Before long, two more petitions reached him from the Senate, appealing for the endowments. So long as he hoped to secure the recognition of Theodosius, it would have been highly inexpedient for Eugenius to consent; so he turned them away with kind words. But when Theodosius showed his hand in 393, Eugenius was compelled to woo the pagan party. He received another deputation, and this time he probably promised to restore the sacrifices and the Altar of Victory (though there is no direct proof of this) and he compromised ingeniously about the endowments. They were handed over to pagan senators as individuals, no doubt on the understanding that they would be applied to the cults. As a result of all this, Ambrose avoided Eugenius when he went to Milan, and in effect excommunicated him (Letter 57). But Eugenius had secured Italy. There was a brief pagan revival at Rome, until his victory at the River Frigidus made Theodosius's position secure, and with it his establishment of Christianity as the religion of the empire. The Altar of Victory was of course removed; the statue itself seems to have been replaced about 399, and, if so, was presumably banished for ever under the legislation of 408 against heathen statues.