Rufinus of Aquileia

“ This combination of the contemplative life and the life of learning- had already developed in the Egyptian monasteries. When Jerome came to Bethlehem in 386, the friendship formed at Aquileia was renewed. Another of the intimates of Rufinus was John, bishop of Jerusalem, and formerly a Nitrian monk, by whom he was ordained to the priesthood in 390. In 394, in consequence of the attack upon the doctrines of Origen made by Epiphanius of Salamis during a visit to Jerusalem, a fierce quarrel broke out, which found Rufinus and Jerome on different sides ”

“ And after the return of these blessed men from exile, this holy woman built a house in Jerusalem, wherein she dwelt for twenty-seven years, and wherein she had a congregation of sisters, who were in number about fifty; and moreover, the honourable nobleman Rufinus, who came from Italy and belonged to the city of Aquileia, clave unto her her whole life long, and he led a life of glorious works, and finally he was held to be worthy of the office of elder. Now among men one would not quickly find one who was more understanding, and gracious, and pleasant than he. ”

“ It was one of the twelve fortified towns built to repel the attacks of the Barbarians, and at the same time such towers as Duino, Monfalcone, and Sagrado were erected as watch-towers. Aquileia was a very extensive and important place under the Romans, and possessed a population of half a million. With the decline of the Roman power the glory of Aquileia departed. The town withstood many attacks from the Barbarians, but after a siege of some months it was finally burnt down and quite destroyed by the Huns under Attila. ”

“ Agathias, Macedonius, and Paulus Silentiarius, Greeks of Byzantium about the age of Justinian, together with Rufinus, whose date is not quite certain, yield the very last fruits of the Greek genius, after it had been corrupted by the lusts of Rome and the effeminacy of the East. Very pale and hectic are the hues which give a sort of sickly beauty to their style. Their epigrams vary between querulous lamentations over old age and death and highly colored pictures of self-satisfied sensuality. Rufinus is a kind of second Straton in the firmness of his touch, the cynicism of his impudicity. ”

“ On the election of the Roman Emperor Maximus, by the Senate, A.D.
238, a powerful army, headed by the Thracian giant Maximus, laid
siege to Aquileia. Though poorly prepared for war, the constancy of
her citizens rendered her impregnable. The women of Aquileia cut
off their hair to make ropes for the military engines. ”

“ We have noticed that, while the cities of this region rise and fall, still even those which fall are not wholly swept away. Aquileia has always lived, though, since the days of Attila, the life of the actual city of Aquileia has been a very feeble one indeed. But though Aquileia, as a city, practically perished in the fifth century, yet it continued till the eighteenth to give its name to a power of some kind. Its temporal position passed to Forum Julii, and Udine succeeded to the position alike of Forum Julii and of Aquileia. ”

“ The character of Theodosius imposed on his minister the task of hypocrisy, which disguised, and sometimes restrained, the abuse of power; and Rufinus was apprehensive of disturbing the indolent slumber of a prince still capable of exerting the abilities and the virtue, which had raised him to the throne. 10 But the absence, and, soon afterwards, the death, of the emperor, confirmed the absolute authority of Rufinus over the person and dominions of Arcadius; a feeble youth, whom the imperious praefect considered as his pupil, rather than his sovereign. ”

“ Theodosius had tarnished the glory of his reign by the elevation of Rufinus; an odious favorite, who, in an age of civil and religious faction, has deserved, from every party, the imputation of every crime. The strong impulse of ambition and avarice had urged Rufinus to abandon his native country, an obscure corner of Gaul, to advance his fortune in the capital of the East: the talent of bold and ready elocution, qualified him to succeed in the lucrative profession of the law ”

“ Thus, they say, the army of the barbarians settled down to the siege once more, and not long after that a portion of the wall--the very part which held the nest of that bird--for no apparent reason suddenly fell down, and it became possible for the enemy to enter the city at that point, and thus Aquileia was captured by storm. Such is the story touching Aquileia.
Later on Maximus slew the emperor with no trouble and secured the tyranny, and he married Eudoxia by force. [455 A.D.] For the wife to whom he had been wedded had died not long before. ”

“ So far as Aquileia is a city at all, it is now a "church city." The patriarchal church, with its tall but certainly not beautiful campanile, soars above all. But, if it soars above all, it still is not all. Here and there a fragment of a column, or an inscription built into the wall, reminds us of what Aquileia once was. One ingenious man has even built himself an outhouse wholly out of such scraps, here a capital, there a bit of sculpture, there inscriptions of various dates, with letters of the best and of the worst kinds of Roman lettering. ”

“ But even this last real anomaly seems a small matter, compared with the arrangement which placed one patriarch at Aquileia itself, and another almost within a stone's throw at Aquileia's port of Grado. At every step we have lighted on something to suggest the thought of the ancient capital of the Venetian borderland; we have now to look at what is left of the fallen city itself. Setting aside the actual seats of Imperial power, Rome Old and New, Milan, Trier, and Ravenna, few cities stand out more conspicuously 54 than Aquileia both in general and in ecclesiastical history. ”

“ According to Rufinus's version of the sixth canon of the Council of Nicæa, the Bishop of Rome had entrusted to him the care of the suburbicarian churches [probably including Lower Italy and most of Central Italy, with Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica] . ... But many causes tended to extend the authority of the Roman patriarch beyond these modest limits. The patriarch of Constantinople depended largely for his authority on the will of the emperor, and his spiritual realm was agitated by the constant intrigues of opposing parties. ”

“ So great was the force of conviction brought to bear on them that, to prevent their heresy being exposed in their presence, they chose to stay away and be condemned.” From the letter of Anastasius to John of Jerusalem about Rufinus we gather that, while he strongly disapproved the translation of Origen, he left Rufinus himself to his own conscience, and did not care to know what had become of him. ”

“ Rufinus blushed and murmured something about going every now and then. He walked out of the room, and sought the Referendarius in the next room. This official was reading a document. He did not look up when Rufinus entered, but went on with his reading. At last, after a prolonged interval, he turned round and said: “What is it?”
“May I go to the races?” asked Rufinus.
“Well,” said the high official, “what about your work?” ”

“ CHAPTER VI AQUILEIA AND GRADO On July 22nd, the day before I returned from Palmanova to my Battery, Shield and I and two lorryloads of men made an expedition in the afternoon to Aquileia and Grado. Aquileia, at the height of the old Roman power, was a great and important city, on the main road eastwards from the North Italian plain. ”

“ There was in the besieging army a tribune who was a native of Aquileia, and whose wife, children, and relatives were inside the city. 2. Maximinus sent this man to the wall accompanied by several centurions, expecting their fellow citizen to win them over easily. The envoys told the Aquileians that Maximinus, their mutual emperor, ordered them to lay down their arms in peace, to receive him as a friend, not as an enemy, and to turn from killing to libations and sacrifices. ”

“ His treatise is really adapted from that by Alexander, son of Numenius, as is expressly stated by Julius Rufinianus, who brought out a supplementary treatise, augmented by material from other sources. Aquila’s style is harsh and careless, and the Latin is inferior. ”

“ Marius said, “and that is a great part of the lesson how it is to be won. ‘Our own vices are killing us,’ Salvian says; and there is always hope if we can learn that the fault is our own.”
They returned from Gaul by the eastern coast of Italy. Marius had a desire to show Ethne where the city of Aquileia had been. The Roman roads along the Adriatic, which had led to the ruined cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Aquileia, still remained, though the cities to which they led had vanished for ever, under the devastations of the Huns. ”

“ While iniquity of every kind presided, therefore, in the respective cities, the money from all quarters flowed into the coffers of Rufinus and Stilico; while on the reverse, poverty preyed on the habitations of those who had formerly been rich. Nor were the emperors acquainted with anything that was done, but thought all that Rufinus and Stilico commanded was done by virtue of some unwritten law. After they had amassed immense wealth, Rufinus began to concert the means of becoming emperor, by making his own daughter, who was now marriageable, the wife of the emperor ”

“ The rest of the prophecy dealing with the inheritance was as usual fabricated to suit the desires of their client. But Rufinus gaped for his prey in vain like a wild beast that has gone blind. For Pontianus not only150 did not leave Rufinus' daughter as his heir—he had discovered her evil character—but he did not even make her a respectable legacy. He left her by way of insult linen to the value of 200 denarii, to show that he had not forgotten or ignored her, but that he set this value on her as an expression of his resentment. ”

“ If Aquileia itself is dead, it has lived on a wonderful after-life in the shape of its Venetian colony. We go to see Aquileia, because it is Aquileia; but even a well-informed traveller may know nothing of San Pietro in Grado and Sant' Angelo in Formis, till either his guide-book or some earlier visitor 240 points them out to him as places which he ought not to pass by. Aquileia again has other things to show besides the great basilica and its surroundings. St. Apollinaris in Classe is as nearly forsaken as a church that is still kept up can be ”

“ Aquileia was the second city of the Western Empire, and by some called the second Rome. It was the Metropolis of Istria, Forum Julium, and Venetia; and its subjection to the See of Rome is manifest by the decretal Epistle of Leo I. directed to Nicetas Bishop of this city; for the Pope begins his Epistle thus: Regressus ad nos filius meus Adeodatus Diaconus Sedis nostræ, dilectionem tuam poposcisse memorat, ut de his à nobis authoritatem Apostolicæ Sedis acciperes, quæ quidem magnam difficultatem dijudicationis videntur afferre. ”

“ Rufinus, who for other reasons was an enemy to many other persons, through his excessive ambition of being superior to all, on hearing this, persuaded the emperor to send Promotus from the court to some place where he might exercise the soldiers. Having obtained his desire, he employed some Barbarians to wait in ambuscade as he was entering Thrace. These, as they were commanded, attacked him by surprize, and killed him. He was a man superior to the desire of wealth, and had behaved with sincerity both toward the commonwealth and the emperors ”

“ Rufinus, the guardian of Arcadius and regent of the East, was an Aquitanian Gaul, born at Elusa, the modern Eauze, at the foot of the Pyrenees.371 He was the very model of an accomplished adventurer. Sprung from poverty and obscurity, he was gifted by nature with a handsome figure, a noble demeanour, a ready tongue, an inventive, versatile wit.372 He made his way, after residing in Milan and Rome, to the court of Constantinople; and found in Theodosius a patron who could appreciate his talents without detecting his vices. ”

“ Hanc autem Epistolam nostram, quam ad consultationem tuæ fraternitatis emisimus, ad omnes fratres & comprovinciales tuos Episcopos facies pervenire, ut in omnium observantia, data profit authoritas. Data 1-2 Kal. Apr. Majorano Aug. Cos. A.C. 458. Gregory the great A.C. 591, [6] cited Severus Bishop of Aquileia to appear before him in judgment in a Council at Rome.
The Bishops of Aquileia and Millain created one another, and therefore were of equal authority, and alike subject to the See of Rome. ”

“ For this reason Rufinus professed on every occasion great kindness for the young man, and was continually speaking in his commendation to the emperor Arcadius, who made him count of the east, a dignity which authorizes every one on whom it is conferred to superintend the conduct of all the prefects of the provinces through the east, and to correct whatever is improperly done. ”

“ The Rage of Achilles, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo Sing, O goddess, the rage of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. ”

“ In terrible wise about Achilles towered the tumultuous wave, and the stream as it beat upon his shield thrust him backward, nor might he avail to stand firm upon his feet. Then grasped he an elm, shapely and tall, but it fell uprooted and tore away all the bank, and stretched over the fair streams with its thick branches, and dammed the River himself, falling all within him; but Achilles, springing forth from the eddy hasted to fly with swift feet over the plain, for he was seized with fear. ”