Letter 11: Ambrose, Bishop, to the Emperor Valentinian.

Ambrose to the Emperor Valentinian. 23. Although the fidelity of my earlier embassy was so well approved by you that no account of it is required from me - for it was made sufficiently clear, by the very fact that I was detained for several days within Gaul, that I had not gained acceptance from a willing Maximus, nor had I assented to those terms which inclined more toward his wishes than toward peace; and indeed you would not have entrusted me with a second embassy had you not approved the first - yet because, on my return, he laid upon me the necessity of coming to a decision with him, I have therefore thought it right to set forth an account of my embassy in this letter, lest anyone's report should first weave empty falsehoods into the truth, before my return could make it manifest, whole and stamped with the seal of sincere truth. 2. When I had reached Trier, on the following day I went up to the palace. There came out to me a man of Gaul, the provost of the bedchamber, the royal eunuch. I asked leave to enter; he inquired whether I had a rescript from your Clemency. I replied that I had. He reported back that I could not be seen except in the consistory. I said that this was not the custom for a priest; that there were certainly some matters about which I ought to speak seriously, in private, with his prince. What more? He consulted him, but thought fit to bring back the same answer - so that it was plain that even the former responses had been drawn from that man's will. Nevertheless I said that, though this was indeed foreign to my office, yet, having undertaken the duty, I would not fail it; that the humility was welcome to me, especially in your service and, what is true, in a matter of brotherly affection. 3. When he had sat down in the consistory, I entered. He rose to give me the kiss. I stood among the members of the consistory. Some began to urge me to come up; he called me. I answered: "Why do you kiss one whom you have not acknowledged? For if you had acknowledged me, you would not see me in this place." "You are stirred up, bishop," he said. "Not," I said, "by injury, but by shame, because I stand in a place not my own." "And in your first embassy," he said, "you entered the consistory." "Neither was that," I said, "my own error: it is the fault of the one who summoned, not of the one who entered." "Why," he said, "did you enter?" "Because then," I said, "I was seeking peace as from a superior; now, as from an equal." "By whose favor an equal?" he said. I answered: "By that of Almighty God, who has preserved for Valentinian the kingdom which He had given him." 4. At last he burst out, saying: "Since you and that Bauto have made sport of me - Bauto, who under the guise of a boy wished to claim the kingdom for himself, who also let barbarians loose upon me - as though I had not men whom I could bring forward, when so many thousands of barbarians serve as soldiers under me and receive their provisions from me. But if, at that time when you came, I had not been held back, who would have stood against me and against my valor?" 5. To this I answered gently: "There is no need," I said, "for you to be stirred up, since there is no cause for being stirred; but listen patiently to what is replied to these charges. I too have come for this reason, because in my first embassy, while you trust in me, you asserted that you had been deceived through me. This is glorious for me, and that for the safety of an emperor who is a ward. For whom ought we bishops to protect more than wards? For it is written: 'Judge for the orphan, and do justice to the widow, and rescue him who suffers wrong' [Isaiah 1:17]; and elsewhere: 'Judges of widows, and fathers of orphans' [Psalm 67:6]. 6. Yet I will not cast up my benefit as a reproach to Valentinian. To speak the truth, where did I withstand your legions, to keep you from pouring into Italy? By what crags? by what battle-line? by what numbers? Or did I shut the Alps against you with my own body? Would that this had been my doing! I would not fear the objection, I would not dread your accusations. By what promises did I make sport of you, so that you might rest content with peace? Did not the count Victor, whom you sent to ask for peace, meet me within Gaul near the city of Mainz? In what, then, did Valentinian deceive you, who was asked for peace by you before he demanded it? In what did Bauto deceive you, who showed devotion to his own emperor? Or was it because he did not betray his prince? 7. In what did I circumvent you? When I first came, since you were saying that Valentinian ought to come to you as a son to a father, I replied that it was not fair that in the harsh season of winter the boy should cross the Alps with his widowed mother; yet that without his mother he should be committed to so great a journey, with affairs uncertain? That the embassy entrusted to us concerned peace, not a promise of his coming; that it is certain we could not pledge what had not been commanded; that I certainly had pledged nothing - so much so that you said: 'Let us wait for what answer Victor brings back.' Now it is plain that, while I was detained, he reached Milan; and that what he demanded was denied him. That zeal should conspire only toward peace, not toward the coming of the emperor, who ought not to be set in motion. I was present when Victor returned. How then did I recall Valentinian? Envoys again sent to Gaul, who were to deny his coming, found me at Valence of the Gauls: returning, I encountered soldiers of both parties who were guarding the mountain passes. What armies of yours did I recall? what eagles did I turn back from Italy? what barbarians did the count Bauto let loose? 8. And what wonder if Bauto had done this, a man of trans-Rhenish stock, when you threaten the Roman empire with the auxiliaries of barbarians, and with squadrons from beyond the frontier, whose maintenance the tribute of the provincials paid? But consider what difference there is between your threats and the gentleness of Valentinian Augustus, the boy. You were demanding that, surrounded by columns of barbarians, you should pour yourself into Italy: Valentinian turned back the Huns and Alans, who were drawing near to Gaul, through the lands of Alemannia. What ground for ill will is there, if Bauto made barbarians fight against barbarians? For while you occupy the Roman soldier, while he is stretched out on both sides against himself, in the very bosom of the Roman empire the Juthungi were ravaging the Raetias; and therefore against the Juthungi the Hun was summoned. Yet that same Hun, because from the bordering region he was trampling Alemannia, and already from the nearness of the trouble was pressing upon the Gauls, was compelled to abandon his triumphs, lest you should be afraid. Compare the deed of each. You caused the Raetias to be invaded; Valentinian bought you peace with his own gold. 9. Look also upon that man who stands at your right hand, whom Valentinian, though he could have avenged his own grief, caused to return to you with honor. He held him in his own territories, and even at the very report of his brother's slaying he reined in his impulses; nor did he return to you a recompense - though not of equal rank, yet of the same kinship. Compare therefore, with yourself as judge, the deed of each. He sent back your brother to you alive; do you give back his brother even dead. Why do you deny him the remains of his own brother, he who did not deny you aid against his own kin? 10. But you fear that, by the return of the spoils, grief may be renewed among the soldiers; for this is what you allege. Will they defend him slain, whom they deserted alive? Why do you fear him dead, whom you killed when you could have saved him? "I slew my enemy," you say. He was not your enemy, but you his. He no longer feels the defense; do you consider the cause. If anyone today should think to usurp the empire in these parts against you, I ask whether you would call yourself his enemy, or him yours? Unless I am mistaken, the usurper makes war, the emperor defends his own right. Therefore, do you deny the remains of one whom you ought not to have killed? Let the emperor Valentinian have even his brother's spoils as the pledges of your peace. And how could you allege that you did not order him to be killed, you who forbid him to be buried? Can it then be believed that you did not begrudge him his life, when you even begrudge him burial? 11. But let me return to myself. I hear you complain that those who are with the emperor Valentinian have rather betaken themselves to the emperor Theodosius. What then did you hope would happen, when you demanded those who fled to you for punishment, and killed those you captured, while Theodosius enriched them with gifts and bestowed honors? "Whom," he said, "have I killed?" I answered him: "Vallio." "But what a man! what a warrior! Was this the just cause of his death, that he kept faith with his own emperor?" "I did not," he said, "order him to be killed." I answered: "This we have heard, that he was ordered to be killed." "But," he said, "if he had not done violence to himself, I had ordered him to be taken away to Chalon and there burned alive." I answered: "Therefore, for that very reason, the other thing also was believed - that you had killed him. And who would think himself to be spared, when so vigorous a warrior, so faithful a soldier, so useful a count, was slain?" Thus I departed at that time, with him saying that he would deal with the matter. 12. Afterward, when he saw that I held myself apart from the bishops who were in communion with him, or who were demanding the death of certain men - astray from the faith though they were - he was provoked, and ordered me to return without delay. But I gladly, though most people did not believe I would escape ambush, set out upon the journey, stung by this grief alone: that I learned the aged bishop Hyginus was being led into exile, in whom now nothing remained but the last breath. When I appealed to his companions about him, that they should not suffer the old man to be thrust out without clothing, without a coverlet, I myself was thrust out. 13. This is the account of my embassy. Farewell, Emperor; and be more on your guard against a man who covers war under the wrapping of peace.

EPISTOLA XXIV. Exposito cur legationis suae rationem reddat, quomodo in consistorium ingredi coactus, Maximi osculum recusaverit; et accusationes quibus hic ab eo se deceptum, et a Bautone immissos imperio barbaros criminabatur, in ipsum retorserit, narrat. Tum ubi retulit, qua libertate Valentiniani clementiam ejus crudelitati opposuerit, utque Gratiani corpus redderetur, institerit, nec non post exprobratam tyranno Vallionis caedem fuerit ejectus, suam non tam de periculo suo, quam de Hygini exsilio sollicitudinem subdit. AMBROSIUS VALENTINIANO IMPERATORI. 23. Etsi superioris legationis meae fides ita approbata sit tibi, ut ratio ejus a me non quaeratur, satis enim claruit eo ipso quod aliquot dies retentus sum intra Gallias, me volentia Maximo non recepisse, neque iis adstipulatum, quae ad voluntatem ejus magis, quam ad pacem propenderent: denique non commisisses secundam legationem, nisi primam probasses. Sed quia regredienti mihi decernendi secum imposuit necessitatem, ideo hac epistola expositionem legationis meae insinuandam putavi; ne cujusquam sermo veris prius vana intexeret, quam reditus meus integra, et sincerae veritatis expressa signaculo manifestaret. 2. Cum pervenissem Treviros, postridie processi ad palatium. Egressus est ad me vir Gallicanus, praepositus cubiculi, eunuchus regius. Poposci adeundi copiam, quaesivit num rescriptum haberem clementiae tuae. Respondi habere. Retulit non posse me, nisi in consistorio videri. Dixi non esse hunc morem sacerdotalem, certe esse aliqua de quibus serio deberem cum suo principe confabulari. Quid plura? Consuluit eum, sed eadem referenda credidit; ut liqueret etiam priora ex illius arbitrio deprompta. Dixi tamen alienum id quidem a nostro munere, sed me recepto officio non defuturum; gratam mihi esse humilitatem in tuo praesertim, et quod verum est, fraternae pietatis negotio. 3. Ubi sedit in consistorio, ingressus sum, assurrexit ut osculum daret. Ego inter consistorianos steti. Hortari coeperunt alii, ut ascenderem: vocare ille. Respondi ego: Quid oscularis eum, quem non agnoveris? Si enim me agnovisses, non hoc loco videres. Commotus es, inquit, episcope. Non, inquam, injuria, sed verecundia, quod alieno consisto loco. Et prima, inquit, legatione ingressus es consistorium. Nec illud, inquam, mei erroris fuit: vocantis, 889 non ingredientis vitium est. Cur, inquit, ingressus es? Quia, inquam, tunc ut inferiori pacem petebam, nunc ut aequali. Cujus, inquit, beneficio aequali? Respondi: Omnipotentis Dei, qui Valentiniano regnum, quod dederat, reservavit. 4. Ad postremum erupit dicens: Quoniam me lusistis tu et ille Bauto, qui sibi regnum sub specie pueri vindicare voluit, qui etiam barbaros mihi immisit: quasi ego non habeam, quos possim adducere; cum mihi tot millia barbarorum militent, et annonas a me accipiant. Quod si ego tunc temporis quando venisti, non fuissem retentus, quis mihi obstitisset et virtuti meae? 5. Ad haec ego leniter: Non opus est, inquam, ut commovearis, cum causa nulla sit commotionis: sed patienter audias, quae referantur istis. Propterea et ego veni, quia prima legatione, dum mihi credis, per me deceptum te esse asserebas. Gloriosum mihi est et hoc pro salute pupilli imperatoris. Quos enim episcopi magis, quam pupillos debemus tueri? Scriptum est enim: Judicate pupillo, et justificate viduam, et eripite injuriam accipientem (Esai. I, 17); et alibi: Judices viduarum, et patres orphanorum (Ps. LXVII, 6). 6. Tamen non exprobrabo beneficium meum Valentiniano. Ut verum eloquar, ubi ego tuis legionibus obstiti, queminus influeres in Italiam? Quibus rupibus? qua acie? quibus numeris? An vero corpore meo clausi tibi Alpes? Utinam hoc meum esset! objectionem non timerem, non vererer criminationes tuas. Quibus promissis lusi te, ut paci acquiesceres? Nonne intra Gallias juxta urbem Moguntiacum comes Victor occurrit mihi, quem direxisti, ut pacem rogaret? In quo ergo te fefellit Valentinianus, qui prius pacem a te rogatus est, quam postularet? In quo te fefellit Bauto, qui devotionem imperatori exhibuit suo? An quia principem suum non prodidit? 7. In quo ego te circumscripsi? Qui ubi primum veni, cum diceres quod Valentinianus ad te quasi filius ad patrem venire deberet; responderim non esse aequum, ut aspero hiemis tempore puer cum matre vidua penetraret Alpes: sine matre autem tanto itineri dubiis rebus committeretur? De pace nobis legationem commissam, non de adventu ejus promissionem: spondere nos id non potuisse certum est, quod mandatum non erat: me certe nihil spopondisse, adeo ut diceres: Exspectemus quid Victor responsi referat. Illum autem liquet, me retento, pervenisse Mediolanum; negatumque ei, 890 quod postulabat. De pace tantum conspirare studia, non de adventu imperatoris, quem moveri non oporteret. Praesens eram, ubi Victor rediit. Quomodo ergo revocavi Valentinianum? Legati iterum missi ad Gallias, qui ejus adventum negarent, apud Valentiam Gallorum me repererunt: milites utriusque partis, qui custodirent juga montium, offendi revertens. Quos ego tuos revocavi exercitus? quas de Italia reflexi aquilas? quos immisit barbaros Bauto comes? 8. Et quid mirum si hoc Bauto fecisset, Transrhenanus genere; cum tu miniteris imperio Romano barbarorum auxilia, et turmas translimitanas, quibus commeatus provincialium tributa solvebant? Vide autem quid intersit inter tuas minitationes, et Valentiniani augusti pueri mansuetudinem. Tu flagitabas quod barbarorum stipatus agminibus Italiae te infunderes: Valentinianus Hunnos atque Alanos appropinquantes Galliae per Alemanniae terras reflexit. Quid habet invidiae, si Bauto barbaros cum barbaris fecit decernere? Quoniam dum tu militem Romanum occupas, dum is adversum se utrinque praetendit, in medio Romani imperii sinu Juthungi populabantur Rhetias; et ideo adversus Juthungum Hunnus accitus est. Idem tamen quia de finitimo proterebat Alemanniam, et jam de vicinia mali urgebat Gallias; coactus est triumphos suos deserere, ne tu timeres. Confer utriusque factum. Tu fecisti incursari Rhetias, Valentinianus suo tibi auro pacem redemit. 9. Aspice illum quoque, qui tibi ad dexteram assistit, quem Valentinianus, cum posset suum dolorem ulcisci, honoratum ad te redire fecit. Tenebat eum in suis terris, atque in ipso nuntio necis fraternae frenavit impetus: nec tibi vicem etsi non parilis dignitatis, ejusdem tamen necessitudinis retulit. Confer ergo, te judice, utriusque factum. Ille tibi fratrem tuum viventem remisit, tu illi vel mortuum redde. Quid illi reliquias germani abnegas, qui tibi adversum se auxilia non negavit? 10. Sed vereris ne exuviarum reditu renovetur militibus dolor; hoc enim allegas. Quem viventem deseruerunt, eum defendent peremptum? Quid eum mortuum times, quem occidisti, cum posses servare? Hostem, inquis, meum peremi. Non ille tuus hostis, sed tu illius. Ille jam non sentit defensionem, tu causam considera. Si quis adversum te hodie imperium in his partibus usurpandum putet, quaero utrum te hostem illius dicas, an illum tibi? 891 Nisi fallor, usurpator bellum infert, imperator jus suum tuetur. Ergo quem non debueras occidere, ejus reliquias negas? Habeat Valentinianus imperator vel fratris exuvias pacis tuae obsides. Et quomodo allegabas quod eum non mandaveris occidi, quem prohibes sepeliri? Poterit igitur credi quod ei non invideris vitam, cui etiam sepulturam invides? 11. Sed ad me revertar. Audio te queri quod se ad Theodosium imperatorem potius contulerint, qui sunt cum Valentiniano imperatore. Quid igitur futurum sperabas, cum tu refugientes eos ad poenam posceres, captos necares: Theodosius autem muneribus ditaret, donaret honoribus? Quos, inquit, occidi? Respondi ei, Vallionem. At quem virum? qualem bellatorem? Haeccine fuit justa causa exitii, quod imperatori suo fidem servavit? Non ego, inquit, eum jussi occidi. Respondi: Hoc audivimus, quod occidi jussus sit. Sed, inquit, si ipse sibi vim non intulisset, jusseram eum deduci Cabillonum, et ibi vivum exuri. Respondi: Ergo propterea et illud creditum est, quod eum occideris. Quis autem sibi parcendum putaret, cum occisus sit bellator strenuus, miles fidelis, comes utilis? Ita tum discessi, ut se tractaturum diceret. 12. Postea cum videret me abstinere ab episcopis, qui communicabant ei, vel qui aliquos, devios licet a fide, ad necem petebant; commotus eis jussit me sine mora regredi. Ego vero libenter, etsi me plerique insidias evasurum non crederent, ingressus sum iter, hoc solo dolore percitus, quod Hyginum episcopum senem in exsilium duci comperi, cui nihil jam nisi extremus superesset spiritus. Cum de eo convenirem comites ejus, ne sine veste, sine plumario paterentur extrudi senem, extrusus ipse sum. 13. Haec est expositio legationis meae. Vale, Imperator; et esto tutior adversus hominem pacis involucro bellum tegentem.