When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides

the declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of

peace and war, they were actuated by the secret desire of

weakening by division the despotism of the supreme magistrate.

Their policy was effectual, but it proved fatal both to their

emperors and to themselves. The jealousy of power was soon

exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised

Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by

his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was

understood rather than seen; but the mutual consciousness

prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence

against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole

city was employed in the Capitoline games, and the emperors were

left almost alone in the palace. On a sudden, they were alarmed

by the approach of a troop of desperate assassins. Ignorant of

each other’s situation or designs (for they already occupied very

distant apartments), afraid to give or to receive assistance,

they wasted the important moments in idle debates and fruitless

recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the vain

strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such

they called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their

garments, and dragged them in insolent triumph through the

streets of Rome, with the design of inflicting a slow and cruel

death on these unfortunate princes. The fear of a rescue from the

faithful Germans of the Imperial guards shortened their tortures;

and their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, were left

exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace.

In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the

sword. Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was

the only person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill

the vacant throne. They carried him to the camp, and unanimously

saluted him Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear to the senate

and people; his tender age promised a long impunity of military

license; and the submission of Rome and the provinces to the

choice of the Prætorian guards saved the republic, at the expense

indeed of its freedom and dignity, from the horrors of a new

civil war in the heart of the capital.

As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time

of his death, the history of his life, were it known to us with

greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more

than the account of his education, and the conduct of the

ministers, who by turns abused or guided the simplicity of his

unexperienced youth. Immediately after his accession, he fell

into the hands of his mother’s eunuchs, that pernicious vermin of

the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had infested the

Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches, an

impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his

oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was

deceived, and the honors of the empire sold without his

knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the most worthless

of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the

emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his

confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object

except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the

people. It should seem that love and learning introduced

Misitheus to the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the

daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his

father-in-law to the first offices of the empire. Two admirable

letters that passed between them are still extant. The minister,

with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that

he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs, and still more

that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor acknowledges,

with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past conduct; and

laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of a monarch

from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor to conceal

the truth.

The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of

letters, not of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that

great man, that, when he was appointed Prætorian Præfect, he

discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and

ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened

Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young

emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time

recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person

into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians

withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already

taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian

enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the senate the first

success of his arms, which he ascribed, with a becoming modesty

and gratitude, to the wisdom of his father and Præfect. During

the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and

discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous

murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by

establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley,

and wheat in all the cities of the frontier. But the prosperity

of Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux, not

without very strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his successor

in the præfecture, was an Arab by birth, and consequently, in the

earlier part of his life, a robber by profession. His rise from

so obscure a station to the first dignities of the empire, seems

to prove that he was a bold and able leader. But his boldness

prompted him to aspire to the throne, and his abilities were

employed to supplant, not to serve, his indulgent master. The

minds of the soldiers were irritated by an artificial scarcity,

created by his contrivance in the camp; and the distress of the

army was attributed to the youth and incapacity of the prince. It

is not in our power to trace the successive steps of the secret

conspiracy and open sedition, which were at length fatal to

Gordian. A sepulchral monument was erected to his memory on the

spot where he was killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with

the little river Aboras. The fortunate Philip, raised to the

empire by the votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from

the senate and the provinces.

We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat

fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times

has traced of the military government of the Roman empire. “What

in that age was called the Roman empire, was only an irregular

republic, not unlike the aristocracy of Algiers, where the

militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a

magistrate, who is styled a Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid

down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some

respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said

that the soldiers only partook of the government by their

disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the

emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those

formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the

tribunes? And although the armies had no regular place or forms

of assembly; though their debates were short, their action

sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool reflection,

did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune?

What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent

government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

“When the army had elected Philip, who was Prætorian præfect to

the third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole

emperor; he was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power

might be equally divided between them; the army would not listen

to his speech. He consented to be degraded to the rank of Cæsar;

the favor was refused him. He desired, at least, he might be

appointed Prætorian præfect; his prayer was rejected. Finally, he

pleaded for his life. The army, in these several judgments,

exercised the supreme magistracy.” According to the historian,

whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has

adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved

a sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his

benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a

dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without

regard to his suppliant cries, that he should be seized,

stripped, and led away to instant death. After a moment’s pause,

the inhuman sentence was executed.

Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of

Maximin.—Part III.

On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of

obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the

affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with

infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or

revival by Augustus, they had been celebrated by Claudius, by

Domitian, and by Severus, and were now renewed the fifth time, on

the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from

the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games

was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with

deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them

exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators

had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the

expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic

sacrifices were performed, during three nights, on the banks of

the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and

dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches.

Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in

these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and

as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both

alive, implored the propitious gods in favor of the present, and

for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in religious

hymns, that according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they

would still maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of

the Roman people. The magnificence of Philip’s shows and

entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were

employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few

revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future

fate of the empire.

Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws,

fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had

already elapsed. During the four first ages, the Romans, in the

laborious school of poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and

government: by the vigorous exertion of those virtues, and by the

assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in the course of the

three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire over many

countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three hundred

years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal

decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and legislators,

who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman people, were

dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and confounded with

the millions of servile provincials, who had received the name,

without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A mercenary army, levied

among the subjects and barbarians of the frontier, was the only

order of men who preserved and abused their independence. By

their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a Goth, or an Arab, was

exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested with despotic power

over the conquests and over the country of the Scipios.

The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western

Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the

Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a

monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly

been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and

vigor were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and

exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the

legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue,

had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the

ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors. The

strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms

rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the

fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or

ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of

the Roman empire.

Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The

Monarchy.—Part I.

Of The State Of Persia After The Restoration Of The Monarchy By

Artaxerxes.

Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in

which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of

the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention

of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the

reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies

of Rome were in her bosom—the tyrants and the soldiers; and her

prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the

revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates.

But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the

power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the

discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the

East, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the

provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were

changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude

of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders

established themselves in the provinces of the Roman Empire. To

obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall

endeavor to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and

designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and

Mithridates.

In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that

covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the

inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities,

and reduced under extensive empires the seat of the arts, of

luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East,

till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropped from the hands of

their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided

their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of

the Persians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow

limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of men,

Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece. Thirty thousand

soldiers, under the command of Alexander, the son of Philip, who

was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory and revenge, were

sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the house of Seleucus

usurped and lost the Macedonian command over the East. About the

same time, that, by an ignominious treaty, they resigned to the

Romans the country on this side Mount Tarus, they were driven by

the Parthians, * an obscure horde of Scythian origin, from all

the provinces of Upper Asia. The formidable power of the

Parthians, which spread from India to the frontiers of Syria, was

in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or Artaxerxes; the founder of a

new dynasty, which, under the name of Sassanides, governed Persia

till the invasion of the Arabs. This great revolution, whose

fatal influence was soon experienced by the Romans, happened in

the fourth year of Alexander Severus, two hundred and twenty-six

years after the Christian era.

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of

Artaban, the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he

was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the

customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure, and

the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies,

and the flattery of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of

the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a

tanner’s wife with a common soldier. The latter represent him as

descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persia, though

time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to the

humble station of private citizens. As the lineal heir of the

monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged the

noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression under

which they groaned above five centuries since the death of

Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. * In

the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of

the nation was forever broken. The authority of Artaxerxes was

solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in

Khorasan. Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces were

confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more mindful of

ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted to retire,

with a numerous train of vessels, towards their kinsman, the king

of Armenia; but this little army of deserters was intercepted,

and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror, who boldly

assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of Kings, which

had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these pompous titles,

instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian, served only to

admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his soul the ambition

of restoring in their full splendor, the religion and empire of

Cyrus.

I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and

the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually

adopted and corrupted each other’s superstitions. The Arsacides,

indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and

polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. * The

memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the

Persians, was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and

mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, opened

a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously explained the

fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were all

indifferently derided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected the

divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the

idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers,

by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious

Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions.

These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity

obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the appointed day, appeared,

to the number of about eighty thousand. But as the debates of so

tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the

authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the

Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty

thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at

last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and

piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate,

received from the hands of his brethren three cups of

soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a

long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the

king and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and

his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced

by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of

Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. A short

delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful, not

only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to

illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in

peace and war, with the Roman empire.

The great and fundamental article of the system was the

celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious

attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral

and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and

Governor of the world. The first and original Being, in whom, or

by whom, the universe exists, is denominated in the writings of

Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_; but it must be confessed, that

this infinite substance seems rather a metaphysical abstraction

of the mind than a real object endowed with self-consciousness,

or possessed of moral perfections. From either the blind or the

intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but too

near an affinity with the chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary

but active principles of the universe were from all eternity

produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the

powers of creation, but each disposed, by his invariable nature,

to exercise them with different designs. * The principle of good

is eternally absorbed in light; the principle of evil eternally

buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man

capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation

with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant providence, the

motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the

temperate mixture of the elements, are preserved. But the malice

of Ahriman has long since pierced _Ormusd’s egg_; or, in other

words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal

eruption, the most minute articles of good and evil are

intimately intermingled and agitated together; the rankest

poisons spring up amidst the most salutary plants; deluges,

earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict of Nature,

and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice and

misfortune. Whilst the rest of human kind are led away captives

in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone

reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector

Ormusd, and fights under his banner of light, in the full

confidence that he shall, in the last day, share the glory of his

triumph. At that decisive period, the enlightened wisdom of

goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior to the furious

malice of his rival. Ahriman and his followers, disarmed and

subdued, will sink into their native darkness; and virtue will

maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.

Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The

Monarchy.—Part II.

The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners,

and even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most

careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of

the Persian worship. “That people,” said Herodotus, “rejects the

use of temples, of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the

folly of those nations who imagine that the gods are sprung from,

or bear any affinity with, the human nature. The tops of the

highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and

prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme God, who fills the

wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are addressed.”

Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he

accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the

Sun and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the

charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear

to give a color to it. The elements, and more particularly Fire,

Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, were the objects of

their religious reverence because they considered them as the

purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most powerful

agents of the Divine Power and Nature.

Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on

the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining

practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and

must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to

the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was

abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient

portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful

Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the

divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of his

life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were

sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or

genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances,

was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the

moral duties. The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy,

liberality, &c., were in their turn required of the disciple of

Zoroaster, who wished to escape the persecution of Ahriman, and

to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity, where the degree of

felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and

piety.

But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays

aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a

liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be

found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition.

Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine

favor, he condemns with abhorrence as a criminal rejection of the

best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the Magian religion, is

obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy

noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and

to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of

agriculture. * We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and

benevolent maxim, which compensates for many an absurdity. “He

who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater

stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of

ten thousand prayers.” In the spring of every year a festival was

celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and the

present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,

exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely

mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On

that day the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to

the table of the king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their

petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with

them on the most equal terms. “From your labors,” was he

accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if not with

sincerity,) “from your labors we receive our subsistence; you

derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we

are mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like

brothers in concord and love.” Such a festival must indeed have

degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a theatrical

representation; but it was at least a comedy well worthy of a

royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a salutary

lesson on the mind of a young prince.

Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this

exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of

Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to

all the applause, which it has pleased some of our divines, and

even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that

motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm

and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were

disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous

superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely

numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of

them were convened in a general council. Their forces were

multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused

through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who

resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head of the

church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster. The property of

the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious

possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,

they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of the

Persians. “Though your good works,” says the interested prophet,

“exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of rain, the

stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore, they will all

be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by the

_destour_, or priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide to

salvation, you must faithfully pay him _tithes_ of all you

possess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the

destour be satisfied, your soul will escape hell tortures; you

will secure praise in this world and happiness in the next. For

the destours are the teachers of religion; they know all things,

and they deliver all men.” *

These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were

doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since

the Magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their

hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. The

Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved and

investigated the secrets of Oriental philosophy; and acquired,

either by superior knowledge, or superior art, the reputation of

being well versed in some occult sciences, which have derived

their appellation from the Magi. Those of more active

dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities; and it is

observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in a great

measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order, whose

dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince restored to

its ancient splendor.

The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable

genius of their faith, to the practice of ancient kings, and even

to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a victim to a

religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. By an edict of

Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except that of

Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the Parthians,

and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown down with

ignominy. The sword of Aristotle (such was the name given by the

Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the Greeks) was

easily broken; the flames of persecution soon reached the more

stubborn Jews and Christians; nor did they spare the heretics of

their own nation and religion. The majesty of Ormusd, who was

jealous of a rival, was seconded by the despotism of Artaxerxes,

who could not suffer a rebel; and the schismatics within his vast

empire were soon reduced to the inconsiderable number of eighty

thousand. * This spirit of persecution reflects dishonor on the

religion of Zoroaster; but as it was not productive of any civil

commotion, it served to strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting

all the various inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious

zeal.

II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre

of the East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still

remained the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the

vast extent of Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The

weak indulgence of the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and

brothers the principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the

kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The _vitaxæ_, or

eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the

regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with

a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of

barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper

Asia, within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom

obeyed, any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under

other names, a lively image of the feudal system which has since

prevailed in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of a

numerous and disciplined army, visited in person every province

of Persia. The defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of

the strongest fortifications, diffused the terror of his arms,

and prepared the way for the peaceful reception of his authority.

An obstinate resistance was fatal to the chiefs; but their

followers were treated with lenity. A cheerful submission was

rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent Artaxerxes,

suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king,

abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the

people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,

was, on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by

the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus,

by the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf of Persia. That country was

computed to contain, in the last century, five hundred and

fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages, and about forty

millions of souls. If we compare the administration of the house

of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political influence

of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we shall

probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at least

as great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But it

must likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of harbors

on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the inland

provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and

agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their

numbers, seem to have indulged one of the meanest, though most

common, artifices of national vanity.

As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever

the resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the

neighboring states, who, during the long slumber of his

predecessors, had insulted Persia with impunity. He obtained some

easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate

Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their past

injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his

arms. A forty years’ tranquillity, the fruit of valor and

moderation, had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the

period that elapsed from the accession of Marcus to the reign of

Alexander, the Roman and the Parthian empires were twice engaged

in war; and although the whole strength of the Arsacides

contended with a part only of the forces of Rome, the event was

most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus, indeed, prompted

by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper, purchased a

peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; but the

generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected

many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their

exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably

interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we

shall only mention the repeated calamities of the two great

cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.

Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five

miles to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the

Macedonian conquests in Upper Asia. Many ages after the fall of

their empire, Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a

Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom.

The independent republic was governed by a senate of three

hundred nobles; the people consisted of six hundred thousand

citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed

among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt

the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was

sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common

enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony. The

Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan,

delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and

the Imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of

Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of

only three miles from Seleucia. The innumerable attendants on

luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little

village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. Under

the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far as

Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the

Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian

kings; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack

and conflagration of Seleucia, with the massacre of three hundred

thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman

triumph. Seleucia, already exhausted by the neighborhood of a too

powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in

about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength

to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. The

city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in

person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives,

and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers.

Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon

and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In

summer, the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool

breezes of the mountains of Media; but the mildness of the

climate engaged him to prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or

lasting benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant

conquests, separated from the provinces of the empire by a large

tract of intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of

Osrhoene was an acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far

more solid advantage. That little state occupied the northern and

most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the

Tigris. Edessa, its capital, was situated about twenty miles

beyond the former of those rivers; and the inhabitants, since the

time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians,

and Armenians. The feeble sovereigns of Osrhoene, placed on the

dangerous verge of two contending empires, were attached from

inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power of Rome

exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by

their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under

Marcus, it was judged prudent to secure some substantial pledges

of their doubtful fidelity. Forts were constructed in several

parts of the country, and a Roman garrison was fixed in the

strong town of Nisibis. During the troubles that followed the

death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene attempted to shake off

the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus confirmed their

dependence, and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the easy

conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to

Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital

dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten

years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm

and permanent establishment beyond the Euphrates.

Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side

of Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or

acquisition of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian

openly avowed a far more extensive design of conquest; and he

thought himself able to support his lofty pretensions by the arms

of reason as well as by those of power. Cyrus, he alleged, had

first subdued, and his successors had for a long time possessed,

the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and the Ægean

Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had

been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines

of Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. Their rights had

been suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and as

soon as he received the Persian diadem, which birth and

successful valor had placed upon his head, the first great duty

of his station called upon him to restore the ancient limits and

splendor of the monarchy. The Great King, therefore, (such was

the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor Alexander,)

commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the provinces

of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of

Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of

Europe. This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the

tallest and most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine

horses, splendid arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and

greatness of their master. Such an embassy was much less an offer

of negotiation than a declaration of war. Both Alexander Severus

and Artaxerxes, collecting the military force of the Roman and

Persian monarchies, resolved in this important contest to lead

their armies in person.

If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records,

an oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to

the senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus

was not inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the

Persians by the son of Philip. The army of the Great King

consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, clothed in

complete armor of steel; of seven hundred elephants, with towers

filled with archers on their backs, and of eighteen hundred

chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host, the like of

which is not to be found in eastern history, and has scarcely

been imagined in eastern romance, was discomfited in a great

battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid

soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his

valor; an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were

the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the

circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation,

dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the

monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,

and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious

senate. Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of

Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we

are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was

designed to conceal some real disgrace.

Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary

historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect,

and his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which

had been formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies

were destined to invade Persia at the same time, and by different

roads. But the operations of the campaign, though wisely

concerted, were not executed either with ability or success. The

first of these armies, as soon as it had entered the marshy

plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux of the

Euphrates and the Tigris, was encompassed by the superior

numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance

of Chosroes, king of Armenia, and the long tract of mountainous

country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little service,

opened a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the second

of the Roman armies. These brave troops laid waste the adjacent

provinces, and by several successful actions against Artaxerxes,

gave a faint color to the emperor’s vanity. But the retreat of

this victorious army was imprudent, or at least unfortunate. In

repassing the mountains, great numbers of soldiers perished by

the badness of the roads, and the severity of the winter season.

It had been resolved, that whilst these two great detachments

penetrated into the opposite extremes of the Persian dominions,

the main body, under the command of Alexander himself, should

support their attack, by invading the centre of the kingdom. But

the unexperienced youth, influenced by his mother’s counsels, and

perhaps by his own fears, deserted the bravest troops, and the

fairest prospect of victory; and after consuming in Mesopotamia

an inactive and inglorious summer, he led back to Antioch an army

diminished by sickness, and provoked by disappointment. The

behavior of Artaxerxes had been very different. Flying with

rapidity from the hills of Media to the marshes of the Euphrates,

he had everywhere opposed the invaders in person; and in either

fortune had united with the ablest conduct the most undaunted

resolution. But in several obstinate engagements against the

veteran legions of Rome, the Persian monarch had lost the flower

of his troops. Even his victories had weakened his power. The

favorable opportunities of the absence of Alexander, and of the

confusions that followed that emperor’s death, presented

themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead of expelling the

Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of Asia, he found

himself unable to wrest from their hands the little province of

Mesopotamia.

The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the

Parthians, lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in

the history of the East, and even in that of Rome. His character

seems to have been marked by those bold and commanding features,

that generally distinguish the princes who conquer, from those

who inherit, an empire. Till the last period of the Persian

monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the groundwork of

their civil and religious policy. Several of his sayings are

preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight

into the constitution of government. “The authority of the

prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force;

that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at

last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish

except under the protection of justice and moderation.”

Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs

against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great

father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of

Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series

of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far

from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid

hardiness, both of mind and body, which have rendered the

northern barbarians masters of the world. The science of war,

that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as

it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in

the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonize and

animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. They

were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or

defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their

numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to

their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd

of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and

as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and

his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the

seraglio. Their military operations were impeded by a useless

train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels; and in the midst of

a successful campaign, the Persian host was often separated or

destroyed by an unexpected famine.

But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,

preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national

honor. From the age of seven years they were taught to speak

truth, to shoot with the bow, and to ride; and it was universally

confessed that in the two last of these arts they had made a more

than common proficiency. The most distinguished youth were

educated under the monarch’s eye, practised their exercises in

the gate of his palace, and were severely trained up to the

habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and laborious

parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a

like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is

the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king’s bounty lands

and houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were

ready on the first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial

and splendid train of followers, and to join the numerous bodies

of guards, who were carefully selected from among the most robust

slaves, and the bravest adventurers of Asia. These armies, both

of light and of heavy cavalry, equally formidable by the

impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity of their motions,

threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern provinces of the

declining empire of Rome.

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part I.

The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The Time Of

The Emperor Decius.

The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice,

from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman

empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian

tribes, * which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and

herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains

which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from

the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike

Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length

overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more

important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if

we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our

attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe

issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of

those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles

of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of

simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the

discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of

Tacitus, the first of historians who applied the science of

philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of

his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of

innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and

penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The

subject, however various and important, has already been so

frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is

now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We

shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with

repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate,

of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild

barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.

Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the

province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman

yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. Almost the

whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,

Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by

the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion,

manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a

striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by

the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from

the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising

from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered

Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was

faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the

Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring

and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote

darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen

ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula,

or islands of Scandinavia.

Some ingenious writers have suspected that Europe was much colder

formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient descriptions

of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their

theory. The general complaints of intense frost and eternal

winter are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have no method

of reducing to the accurate standard of the thermometer, the

feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born in the happier

regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two remarkable

circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great rivers

which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, were

frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting the most

enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that severe

season for their inroads, transported, without apprehension or

danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and their heavy

wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. Modern ages have not

presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The reindeer, that

useful animal, from whom the savage of the North derives the best

comforts of his dreary life, is of a constitution that supports,

and even requires, the most intense cold. He is found on the rock

of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of the Pole; he seems to delight

in the snows of Lapland and Siberia: but at present he cannot

subsist, much less multiply, in any country to the south of the

Baltic. In the time of Cæsar the reindeer, as well as the elk and

the wild bull, was a native of the Hercynian forest, which then

overshadowed a great part of Germany and Poland. The modern

improvements sufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of

the cold. These immense woods have been gradually cleared, which

intercepted from the earth the rays of the sun. The morasses have

been drained, and, in proportion as the soil has been cultivated,

the air has become more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an

exact picture of ancient Germany. Although situated in the same

parallel with the finest provinces of France and England, that

country experiences the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very

numerous, the ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and

the great river of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season

when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from

ice.

It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the

influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and

bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have

allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,

that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life

and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the

human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate

climates. We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen

air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the

natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the

people of the South, gave them a kind of strength better adapted

to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired them

with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves and

spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the

courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy

children of the North, who, in their turn, were unable to resist

the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and sickness

under the beams of an Italian sun.

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part II.

There is not anywhere upon the globe a large tract of country,

which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first

population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty.

And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from

investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity

consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When

Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the

forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce

those barbarians _Indigenæ_, or natives of the soil. We may allow

with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not

originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a

political society; but that the name and nation received their

existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the

Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the

spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be

a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by

reason.

Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular

vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of

the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was

formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow

basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure

of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, as well as the

wild Tartar, could point out the individual son of Japhet, from

whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last

century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy

faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of

conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of

Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of

these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Olaus

Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. Whatever is

celebrated either in history or fable this zealous patriot

ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so

considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves

derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their

religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the

eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the

Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate

Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and

imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature

could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck

allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to

about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small

colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human

species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am

not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the

son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common

diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern

hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,

and Asia; and (to use the author’s metaphor) the blood circulated

from the extremities to the heart.

But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is

annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any

doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.

The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the

use of letters; and the use of letters is the principal

circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of

savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that

artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the

ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the

mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually

forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic,

the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this

important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to

calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and

the _illiterate_ peasant. The former, by reading and reflection,

multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and

remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and

confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little

his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental

faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found

between nations than between individuals; and we may safely

pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has

ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made

any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever

possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and

agreeable arts of life.

Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.

They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty,

which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the

appellation of virtuous simplicity. * Modern Germany is said to

contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. In a much

wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could discover no

more than ninety places which he decorates with the name of

cities; though, according to our ideas, they would but ill

deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have

been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods,

and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst

the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion.

But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in

his time, had _no_ cities; and that they affected to despise the

works of Roman industry, as places of confinement rather than of

security. Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into

regular villas; each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling on

the spot to which a plain, a wood, or a stream of fresh water,

had induced him to give the preference. Neither stone, nor brick,

nor tiles, were employed in these slight habitations. They were

indeed no more than low huts, of a circular figure, built of

rough timber, thatched with straw, and pierced at the top to

leave a free passage for the smoke. In the most inclement winter,

the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the

skin of some animal. The nations who dwelt towards the North

clothed themselves in furs; and the women manufactured for their

own use a coarse kind of linen. The game of various sorts, with

which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied

its inhabitants with food and exercise. Their monstrous herds of

cattle, less remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their

utility, formed the principal object of their wealth. A small

quantity of corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the

use of orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans;

nor can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people,

whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new

division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation,

avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to

lie waste and without tillage.

Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its

barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to

investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally

rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony.

Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant

of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans

furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to

bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that

metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced

some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the

Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely

unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined

traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude

earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the

presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. To a mind

capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more

instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances.

The value of money has been settled by general consent to express

our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express

our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active

energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have

contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to

represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure

factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important

and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have

received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation

of fire and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the

most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of

human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what

means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the

other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism.

If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a

supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to

constitute their general character. In a civilized state every

faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of

mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of

society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant

and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that

necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of

interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their

understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies

of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied

resources. The care of the house and family, the management of

the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to

women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that

might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in

the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a

wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a

writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same

barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless

of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. The

languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously required

some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were the only

amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that summoned

the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused him from

his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit, and, by

strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the mind,

restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In the dull

intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately addicted

to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by

different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other

by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain

of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at

table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their

numerous and drunken assemblies. Their debts of honor (for in

that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they

discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate

gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw

of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and

suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote

slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist.

Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat

or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by

Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the

gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the

rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more

delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however,

(as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize

the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they

endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous

commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was

esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. The intemperate thirst of

strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the provinces

on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied presents.

The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic nations,

attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich fruits and

delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate. And in the

same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into France during

the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were allured by the

promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of Champaigne and

Burgundy. Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but not the most

dangerous of our _vices_, was sometimes capable, in a less

civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a war, or a

revolution.

The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil

fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of

Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present

maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and

artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors

with the simple necessaries of life. The Germans abandoned their

immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in pasturage

the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on the small

remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then accused the

scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to maintain

the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of famine

severely admonished them of the importance of the arts, the

national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration of a

third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. The possession

and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which bind a

civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans, who

carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their

cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of

their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The

innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the

great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the

vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from

facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and

has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that,

in the age of Cæsar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North

were far more numerous than they are in our days. A more serious

inquiry into the causes of population seems to have convinced

modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the

impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of

Machiavel, we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and Hume.

A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities,

letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage

state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their

freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest

fetters of despotism. “Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches

are held in honor. They are _therefore_ subject to an absolute

monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use

of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to

the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of

a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even

below servitude; they obey a woman.” In the mention of these

exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the

general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive

by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote

corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that

blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman

provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so

distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could

thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. Some

tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the

authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of

men, but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of

government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not

so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional

ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition.

Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary

associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is

absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself

obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the

judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German

tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of

political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had

attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general

council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and

spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military

commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was

convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial

of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great

business of peace and war, were determined by its independent

voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were

previously considered and prepared in a more select council of

the principal chieftains. The magistrates might deliberate and

persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the

resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and

violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in

gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking

all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from

the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice

to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid

counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to

vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic

injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert

the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger

and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the

eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in

arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular

multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use

those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious

resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have

been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been

compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious.

A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and,

if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes

concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior

was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example

rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was

still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace

the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. Princes

were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to administer

justice, or rather to compose differences, in their respective

districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much regard was

shown to birth as to merit. To each was assigned, by the public,

a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and the first of the

princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of rank and honor

which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment him with the

regal title.

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two

remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole

system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property

within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and

they distributed it every year according to a new division. At

the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to

imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. A people thus

jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must

have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but

animated with a high sense of honor and independence.

Chapter IX: State Of Germany Until The Barbarians.—Part III.

The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on

themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the

authority of the magistrates. ”The noblest youths blushed not to

be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief,

to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation

prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the

esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the

greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a

band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs,

their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such

distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of

their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their

friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to

the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was

shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his

companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of

their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy.

To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies

of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The

chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The

noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the

laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some

distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and

to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of

soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and ever victorious

lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the

liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable

board was the only pay that _he_could bestow, or _they_ would

accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,

supplied the materials of this munificence.” This institution,

however it might accidentally weaken the several republics,

invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even

ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are

susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the

courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.

The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave

companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to

contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the

conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among

their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military

service. These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the

maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents,

but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of

obligations.

“In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the

men were brave and all the women were chaste;” and

notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and

preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is

ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient

Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and

among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.

Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws.

Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was

seduction justified by example and fashion. We may easily

discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast

of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman

ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an

air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and

chastity of the Germans.

Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed

to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have

been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most

dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of

life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The

gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is

elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.

The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre

to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.

Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious

spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female

frailty. From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians

were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a

domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side, to the eye

of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal

fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a Persian

harem. To this reason another may be added of a more honorable

nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and

confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and

fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and

wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as

Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity,

the fiercest nations of Germany. The rest of the sex, without

being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal

companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony

to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. In their great

invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a

multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the

sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the

honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. Fainting armies of

Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy by

the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less

than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew

how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own

hands, from an insulting victor. Heroines of such a cast may

claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely

nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the

stern virtues of _man_, they must have resigned that attractive

softness in which principally consist the charm and weakness of

_woman_. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress

every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and

the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The

sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at

once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of

the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it

may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a

faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that

distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.

The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of

savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their

fears, and their ignorance. They adored the great visible objects

and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and the

Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were supposed

to preside over the most important occupations of human life.

They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of divination,

they could discover the will of the superior beings, and that

human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering

to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed on the

sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity, whom

they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor

represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the

Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted

with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true

reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority

of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in

Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the

reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the

imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no

distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a

still deeper sense of religious horror; and the priests, rude and

illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of

every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions so

well suited to their own interest.

The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of

conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes

them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The

German priests, improving this favorable temper of their

countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns,

which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the

haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,

when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the

immediate order of the god of war. The defects of civil policy

were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical

authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence

and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended

to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn

procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries

of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the _Earth_,

covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by

cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was

in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her

worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed,

quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless

Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and

harmony. The _truce of God_, so often and so ineffectually

proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious

imitation of this ancient custom.

But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,

than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest

and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most

daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of

Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated

standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were

placed in the front of the battle; and the hostile army was

devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.

In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice is

the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy

favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his

shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies

of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced

the doctrine of transmigration, others imagined a gross paradise

of immortal drunkenness. All agreed that a life spent in arms,

and a glorious death in battle, were the best preparations for a

happy futurity, either in this or in another world.

The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some

degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has

most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to

investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and

the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence

paid to that important office, have been sufficiently

illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive,

the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast

of their audience. Among a polished people a taste for poetry is

rather an amusement of the fancy than a passion of the soul. And

yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by

Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and

feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold

is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary

study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory,

that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient

days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened

with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of

arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song;

and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame,

and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a

German mind. *

Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient

Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of

laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion,

their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of

enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes.

And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty

years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of

Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable

attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious, and

enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by

their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by

the intestine divisions of ancient Germany.

I. It has been observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth,

that the command of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold.

But the rude tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those

valuable metals, were reduced slowly to acquire, by their

unassisted strength, the possession of the one as well as the

other. The face of a German army displayed their poverty of iron.

Swords, and the longer kind of lances, they could seldom use.

Their frame (as they called them in their own language) were long

spears headed with a sharp but narrow iron point, and which, as

occasion required, they either darted from a distance, or pushed

in close onset. With this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry

was contented. A multitude of darts, scattered with incredible

force, were an additional resource of the infantry. Their

military dress, when they wore any, was nothing more than a loose

mantle. A variety of colors was the only ornament of their wooden

or osier shields. Few of the chiefs were distinguished by

cuirasses, scarcely any by helmets. Though the horses of Germany

were neither beautiful, swift, nor practised in the skilful

evolutions of the Roman manege, several of the nations obtained

renown by their cavalry; but, in general, the principal strength

of the Germans consisted in their infantry, which was drawn up in

several deep columns, according to the distinction of tribes and

families. Impatient of fatigue and delay, these half-armed

warriors rushed to battle with dissonant shouts and disordered

ranks; and sometimes, by the effort of native valor, prevailed

over the constrained and more artificial bravery of the Roman

mercenaries. But as the barbarians poured forth their whole souls

on the first onset, they knew not how to rally or to retire. A

repulse was a sure defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total

destruction. When we recollect the complete armor of the Roman

soldiers, their discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified

camps, and military engines, it appears a just matter of

surprise, how the naked and unassisted valor of the barbarians

could dare to encounter, in the field, the strength of the

legions, and the various troops of the auxiliaries, which

seconded their operations. The contest was too unequal, till the

introduction of luxury had enervated the vigor, and a spirit of

disobedience and sedition had relaxed the discipline, of the

Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian auxiliaries into

those armies, was a measure attended with very obvious dangers,

as it might gradually instruct the Germans in the arts of war and

of policy. Although they were admitted in small numbers and with

the strictest precaution, the example of Civilis was proper to

convince the Romans, that the danger was not imaginary, and that

their precautions were not always sufficient. During the civil

wars that followed the death of Nero, that artful and intrepid

Batavian, whom his enemies condescended to compare with Hannibal

and Sertorius, formed a great design of freedom and ambition.

Eight Batavian cohorts renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy,

repaired to his standard. He introduced an army of Germans into

Gaul, prevailed on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to

embrace his cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their

fortified camps, and employed against the Romans the military

knowledge which he had acquired in their service. When at length,

after an obstinate struggle, he yielded to the power of the

empire, Civilis secured himself and his country by an honorable

treaty. The Batavians still continued to occupy the islands of

the Rhine, the allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we

consider the effects that might have been produced by its united

effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a

million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of

a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of

concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was

agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was

divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in

each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose

and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew

not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their

resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that

so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or

drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations;

the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself

among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to

plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most

formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their

territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The

awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror

of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger

of unexpected incursions.

“The Bructeri * (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally

exterminated by the neighboring tribes, provoked by their

insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by

the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand

barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our

sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of

Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now

attained the utmost verge of prosperity, and have nothing left to

demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”—These

sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the patriotism of

Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the policy of his

countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient to divide than

to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they could derive

neither honor nor advantage. The money and negotiations of Rome

insinuated themselves into the heart of Germany; and every art of

seduction was used with dignity, to conciliate those nations whom

their proximity to the Rhine or Danube might render the most

useful friends as well as the most troublesome enemies. Chiefs of

renown and power were flattered by the most trifling presents,

which they received either as marks of distinction, or as the

instruments of luxury. In civil dissensions the weaker faction

endeavored to strengthen its interest by entering into secret

connections with the governors of the frontier provinces. Every

quarrel among the Germans was fomented by the intrigues of Rome;

and every plan of union and public good was defeated by the

stronger bias of private jealousy and interest.

The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign

of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of

Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that

of the Danube. It is impossible for us to determine whether this

hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or by

passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were

neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition,

of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the

firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in

the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct

of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long

and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued.

The Quadi and the Marcomanni, who had taken the lead in the war,

were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They were

commanded to retire five miles from their own banks of the

Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were

immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might

be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. On the frequent

rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor

resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His

designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league,

however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of

the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving

any traces behind in Germany.

In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined

ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany,

without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various

tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cæsar, of

Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes

successively present themselves in the series of this history, we

shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their

particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent

societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,

bound to their native soil by art and agriculture. The German

tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers,

almost of savages. The same territory often changed its

inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same

communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a

new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient

confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but

long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated

its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of

volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite

leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of

the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed

multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were

perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the

astonished subjects of the Roman empire.

Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal

subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in

these busy scenes is very different, according to the different

condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient

subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity.

The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely

confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts

which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations.

But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil

commotions, or the situation of petty republics, raises almost

every member of the community into action, and consequently into

notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the

people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply

their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of

armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects

are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and

that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished

on the most inconsiderable objects.

Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And

Gallienus.—Part I.

The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The

General Irruption Of The Barbarians.—The Thirty Tyrants.

From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death

of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and

misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time

was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by

barbarous invaders, and military tyrants, and the ruined empire

seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.

The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic

memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who

attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration.

Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often

obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect,

to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place

his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human

nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained

passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical

materials.

There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that

the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the

ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the

generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their

master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to

frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the

throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can

only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out

in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the

legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer, named Marinus,

was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He

dreaded lest the treason of the Mæsian army should prove the

first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the

consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the

intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the

effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length

Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his

noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the

emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with

contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip’s rival

as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be

destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The

speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just

esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the

only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army

whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the

murder of Marinus. Decius, who long resisted his own nomination,

seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a leader of

merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the soldiers; and

his prediction was again confirmed by the event. The legions of

Mæsia forced their judge to become their accomplice. They left

him only the alternative of death or the purple. His subsequent

conduct, after that decisive measure, was unavoidable. He

conducted, or followed, his army to the confines of Italy,

whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the formidable

competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet him. The

Imperial troops were superior in number; but the rebels formed an

army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced leader.

Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a few

days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the empire

was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the victorious

Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the ambition of

that age can usually plead, was universally acknowledged by the

senate and provinces. It is reported, that, immediately after his

reluctant acceptance of the title of Augustus, he had assured

Philip, by a private message, of his innocence and loyalty,

solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival on Italy, he would

resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to the condition of an

obedient subject. His professions might be sincere; but in the

situation where fortune had placed him, it was scarcely possible

that he could either forgive or be forgiven.

The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of

peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to

the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the

first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great

people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol,

and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part

which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that

the name of Goths is frequently but improperly used as a general

appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.

In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of

Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very

naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and of

future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their

ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements.

The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned

Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a

Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to

the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. These writers passed with

the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the nation,

celebrated its successful valor, and adorned the triumph with

many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the people

of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain, but the

only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first origin of

the Goths from the vast island, or peninsula, of Scandinavia. *

That extreme country of the North was not unknown to the

conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient consanguinity had been

strengthened by recent offices of friendship; and a Scandinavian

king had cheerfully abdicated his savage greatness, that he might

pass the remainder of his days in the peaceful and polished court

of Ravenna. Many vestiges, which cannot be ascribed to the arts

of popular vanity, attest the ancient residence of the Goths in

the countries beyond the Rhine. From the time of the geographer

Ptolemy, the southern part of Sweden seems to have continued in

the possession of the less enterprising remnant of the nation,

and a large territory is even at present divided into east and

west Gothland. During the middle ages, (from the ninth to the

twelfth century,) whilst Christianity was advancing with a slow

progress into the North, the Goths and the Swedes composed two

distinct and sometimes hostile members of the same monarchy. The

latter of these two names has prevailed without extinguishing the

former. The Swedes, who might well be satisfied with their own

fame in arms, have, in every age, claimed the kindred glory of

the Goths. In a moment of discontent against the court of Rome,

Charles the Twelfth insinuated, that his victorious troops were

not degenerated from their brave ancestors, who had already

subdued the mistress of the world.

Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple

subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and

Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had

acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the

uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god

of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the

general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine

animals of every species (without excepting the human) were

sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred

grove adjacent to the temple. The only traces that now subsist of

this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, * a system

of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth century,

and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the most

valuable remains of their ancient traditions.

Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can

easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin;

the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The

latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted

to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side

of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by

his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a

most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a

long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death.

Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and

infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn

assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine

mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying

voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of

war.

The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the

appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with

As-burg, or As-of, words of a similar signification, has given

rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we

could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is

supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians which

dwelt on the banks of the Lake Mæotis, till the fall of

Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the North with

servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power he

was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of

the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of

forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and

a people which, in some remote age, might be subservient to his

immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial

fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighborhood

of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind.

If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of

preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we

must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct

account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To

cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants

of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels,

with oars, and the distance is little more than one hundred miles

from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and Prussia.

Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At least as

early as the Christian æra, and as late as the age of the

Antonines, the Goths were established towards the mouth of the

Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial cities

of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long afterwards

founded. Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes of the

Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the

sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance

of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to

indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great

people. The latter appear to have been subdivided into

Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. The distinction among the

Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of

Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty

states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into

powerful monarchies.