evidence.]

[Footnote 11: Camden (vol. i. introduct. p. ci.) appoints him
governor at Britain; and the father of our antiquities is
followed, as usual, by his blind progeny. Pacatus and Zosimus
had taken some pains to prevent this error, or fable; and I shall
protect myself by their decisive testimonies. Regali habitu
exulem suum, illi exules orbis induerunt, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii.
23,) and the Greek historian still less equivocally, (Maximus)
(l. iv. p. 248.)]
[Footnote 12: Sulpicius Severus, Dialog. ii. 7. Orosius, l. vii.
c. 34. p. 556. They both acknowledge (Sulpicius had been his
subject) his innocence and merit. It is singular enough, that
Maximus should be less favorably treated by Zosimus, the partial
adversary of his rival.]

But there was danger likewise in refusing the empire; and
from the moment that Maximus had violated his allegiance to his
lawful sovereign, he could not hope to reign, or even to live, if
he confined his moderate ambition within the narrow limits of
Britain. He boldly and wisely resolved to prevent the designs of
Gratian; the youth of the island crowded to his standard, and he
invaded Gaul with a fleet and army, which were long afterwards
remembered, as the emigration of a considerable part of the
British nation. ^13 The emperor, in his peaceful residence of
Paris, was alarmed by their hostile approach; and the darts which
he idly wasted on lions and bears, might have been employed more
honorably against the rebels. But his feeble efforts announced
his degenerate spirit and desperate situation; and deprived him
of the resources, which he still might have found, in the support