cluding a thorough grounding in Greek. When he grew up he took to the law, in which he was
very successful; and at the age of thirty he was made governor of Liguria and Æmilia.
Nevertheless, four years later he turned his back on secular government, and by popular acclaim
became bishop of Milan, in opposition to an Arian candidate. He gave all his worldly goods to the
poor, and devoted the whole of the rest of his life to the service of the Church, sometimes at great
personal risk. This choice was certainly not dictated by worldly motives, but, if it had been, it
would have been wise. In the State, even if he had become Emperor, he could at that time have
found no such scope for his administrative statesmanship as he found in the discharge of his
episcopal duties.
During the first nine years of Ambrose's episcopate, the Emperor of the West was Gratian, who
was Catholic, virtuous, and careless. He was so devoted to the chase that he neglected the
government, and in the end was assassinated. He was succeeded, throughout most of the Western
Empire, by a usurper named Maximus; but in Italy the succession passed to Gratian's younger
brother Valentinian II, who was still a boy. At first, the imperial power was exercised by his
mother, Justina, widow of the Emperor Valentinian I; but as she was an Arian, conflicts between
her and Saint Ambrose were inevitable.
All the three Saints with whom we are concerned in this chapter wrote innumerable letters, of
which many are preserved; the consequence is that we know more about them than about any of
the pagan philosophers, and more than about all but a few of the ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages.
Saint Augustine wrote letters to all and sundry, mostly on doctrine or Church discipline; Saint
Jerome's letters are mainly addressed to ladies, giving advice on how to preserve virginity; but
Saint Ambrose's most important and interesting letters are to Emperors, telling them in what
respects they have fallen short of their duty, or, on occasion, congratulating them on having
performed it.
The first public question with which Ambrose had to deal was that of the altar and statue of
Victory in Rome. Paganism lingered longer among the senatorial families of the capital than it did
elsewhere; the official religion was in the hands of an aristocratic priesthood, and was bound up
with the imperial pride of the conquerors of the world. The statue of Victory in the Senate House
had been