According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague,

the emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full

confidence, that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily

suppress the tumult of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a

licentious youth. But he found on his arrival the gates of the

city shut against him, the walls filled with men and arms, an

experienced general at the head of the rebels, and his own troops

without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors deserted to

the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and, if it

be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,

preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial

ties of allegiance. Anulinus, the Prætorian præfect, declared

himself in favor of Maxentius, and drew after him the most

considerable part of the troops, accustomed to obey his commands.

Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her

armies; and the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of

counsel, retired, or rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.

Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of

Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that

surrounded the town were sufficient to prevent the approach, of

the Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a

powerful fleet, secured him an inexhaustible supply of

provisions, and gave a free entrance to the legions, which, on

the return of spring, would advance to his assistance from

Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted the siege in

person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and his

army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope

either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the

character of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack,

not so much against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of

Severus. The treachery which he had experienced disposed that

unhappy prince to distrust the most sincere of his friends and

adherents. The emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded his

credulity, that a conspiracy was formed to betray the town, and

prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself to the discretion

of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of an

honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity

and treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor

to Rome, and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had

secured his life by the resignation of the purple. But Severus

could obtain only an easy death and an Imperial funeral. When the

sentence was signified to him, the manner of executing it was

left to his own choice; he preferred the favorite mode of the

ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon as he expired,

his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been constructed

for the family of Gallienus.

Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The

Empire.—Part II.

Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very

little affinity with each other, their situation and interest

were the same; and prudence seemed to require that they should

unite their forces against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the

superiority of his age and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian

passed the Alps, and, courting a personal interview with the

sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his daughter Fausta as the

pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was celebrated at Arles

with every circumstance of magnificence; and the ancient

colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the

Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of

Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian,

Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the

senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance

slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the

approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor

of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or

ambition in the event of the war.

The importance of the occasion called for the presence and

abilities of Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected

from Illyricum and the East, he entered Italy, resolved to

revenge the death of Severus, and to chastise the rebellious

Romans; or, as he expressed his intentions, in the furious

language of a barbarian, to extirpate the senate, and to destroy

the people by the sword. But the skill of Maximian had concerted

a prudent system of defence. The invader found every place

hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced his

way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in

Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of

the increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty

Galerius made the first advances towards a reconciliation, and

despatched two of his most considerable officers to tempt the

Roman princes by the offer of a conference, and the declaration

of his paternal regard for Maxentius, who might obtain much more

from his liberality than he could hope from the doubtful chance

of war. The offers of Galerius were rejected with firmness, his

perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and it was not long

before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his safety by

a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the fate of

Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his

rapacious tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction.

The name of Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret

distribution of large sums, and the promise of still more liberal

rewards, checked the ardor and corrupted the fidelity of the

Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at length gave the signal of

the retreat, it was with some difficulty that he could prevail on

his veterans not to desert a banner which had so often conducted

them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns two

other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both

of such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture

to adopt them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very

imperfect notion of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the

East with which he was acquainted, found his forces inadequate to

the siege of that immense capital. But the extent of a city

serves only to render it more accessible to the enemy: Rome had

long since been accustomed to submit on the approach of a

conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm of the people have

long contended against the discipline and valor of the legions.

We are likewise informed that the legions themselves were struck

with horror and remorse, and that those pious sons of the

republic refused to violate the sanctity of their venerable

parent. But when we recollect with how much ease, in the more

ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the habits of military

obedience had converted the native citizens of Rome into her most

implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to distrust this extreme

delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who had never beheld Italy

till they entered it in a hostile manner. Had they not been

restrained by motives of a more interested nature, they would

probably have answered Galerius in the words of Cæsar’s veterans:

“If our general wishes to lead us to the banks of the Tyber, we

are prepared to trace out his camp. Whatsoever walls he has

determined to level with the ground, our hands are ready to work

the engines: nor shall we hesitate, should the name of the

devoted city be Rome itself.” These are indeed the expressions of

a poet; but of a poet who has been distinguished, and even

censured, for his strict adherence to the truth of history.

The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of

their disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their

retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove

away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the

villages through which they passed, and they endeavored to

destroy the country which it had not been in their power to

subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung on their rear, but

he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave

and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second

journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who

had assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit,

and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were

guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise

resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided

empire, and he no longer hated Galerius, when that aspiring

prince had ceased to be an object of terror.

The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner

passions, but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and

lasting friendship. Licinius, whose manners as well as character

were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection

and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period

perhaps of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the

freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced almost

by equal steps through the successive honors of the service; and

as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he

seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to

the same rank with himself. During the short period of his

prosperity, he considered the rank of Cæsar as unworthy of the

age and merit of Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him

the place of Constantius, and the empire of the West. While the

emperor was employed in the Italian war, he intrusted his friend

with the defence of the Danube; and immediately after his return

from that unfortunate expedition, he invested Licinius with the

vacant purple of Severus, resigning to his immediate command the

provinces of Illyricum. The news of his promotion was no sooner

carried into the East, than Maximin, who governed, or rather

oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria, betrayed his envy

and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Cæsar, and,

notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,

exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. For the

first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was

administered by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and

Maxentius affected to reverence their father Maximian. In the

East, Licinius and Maximin honored with more real consideration

their benefactor Galerius. The opposition of interest, and the

memory of a recent war, divided the empire into two great hostile

powers; but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity,

and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death of the elder

princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius, gave a

new direction to the views and passions of their surviving

associates.

When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal

orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When

his ambition excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they

returned thanks to his generous patriotism, and gently censured

that love of ease and retirement which had withdrawn him from the

public service. But it was impossible that minds like those of

Maximian and his son could long possess in harmony an undivided

power. Maxentius considered himself as the legal sovereign of

Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people; nor would he

endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared that by

his name and abilities the rash youth had been established on the

throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Prætorian

guards; and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old

emperor, espoused the party of Maxentius. The life and freedom of

Maximian were, however, respected, and he retired from Italy into

Illyricum, affecting to lament his past conduct, and secretly

contriving new mischiefs. But Galerius, who was well acquainted

with his character, soon obliged him to leave his dominions, and

the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian was the court of his

son-in-law Constantine. He was received with respect by that

artful prince, and with the appearance of filial tenderness by

the empress Fausta. That he might remove every suspicion, he

resigned the Imperial purple a second time, professing himself at

length convinced of the vanity of greatness and ambition. Had he

persevered in this resolution, he might have ended his life with

less dignity, indeed, than in his first retirement, yet, however,

with comfort and reputation. But the near prospect of a throne

brought back to his remembrance the state from whence he was

fallen, and he resolved, by a desperate effort, either to reign

or to perish. An incursion of the Franks had summoned

Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks of the Rhine;

the remainder of the troops were stationed in the southern

provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises of the

Italian emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited in the

city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or easily

credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine. Without

hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure, and

scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the soldiers,

endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his ancient

dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his authority, or

finish the negotiation which he appears to have entered into with

his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine defeated all his

hopes. On the first news of his perfidy and ingratitude, that

prince returned by rapid marches from the Rhine to the Saone,

embarked on the last-mentioned river at Chalons, and, at Lyons

trusting himself to the rapidity of the Rhone, arrived at the

gates of Arles with a military force which it was impossible for

Maximian to resist, and which scarcely permitted him to take

refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The narrow neck of

land which joined that place to the continent was fortified

against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either for the

escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if the latter

should choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under the

honorable pretence of defending a distressed, or, as he might

allege, an injured father. Apprehensive of the fatal consequences

of delay, Constantine gave orders for an immediate assault; but

the scaling-ladders were found too short for the height of the

walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long a siege as it

formerly did against the arms of Cæsar, if the garrison,

conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not

purchased their pardon by delivering up the city and the person

of Maximian. A secret but irrevocable sentence of death was

pronounced against the usurper; he obtained only the same favor

which he had indulged to Severus, and it was published to the

world, that, oppressed by the remorse of his repeated crimes, he

strangled himself with his own hands. After he had lost the

assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels, of Diocletian,

the second period of his active life was a series of public

calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in

about three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate;

but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of

Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his

father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this

melancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the

sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties.

The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate;

and though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station

of Cæsar than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till

the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the

Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years;

and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he

devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure,

and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which

we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube the

superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the

immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a

monarch, since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of

his Pannonian subjects. His death was occasioned by a very

painful and lingering disorder. His body, swelled by an

intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered

with ulcers, and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects

which have given their name to a most loathsome disease; but as

Galerius had offended a very zealous and powerful party among his

subjects, his sufferings, instead of exciting their compassion,

have been celebrated as the visible effects of divine justice. He

had no sooner expired in his palace of Nicomedia, than the two

emperors who were indebted for their purple to his favors, began

to collect their forces, with the intention either of disputing,

or of dividing, the dominions which he had left without a master.

They were persuaded, however, to desist from the former design,

and to agree in the latter. The provinces of Asia fell to the

share of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented the portion of

Licinius. The Hellespont and the Thracian Bosphorus formed their

mutual boundary, and the banks of those narrow seas, which flowed

in the midst of the Roman world, were covered with soldiers, with

arms, and with fortifications. The deaths of Maximian and of

Galerius reduced the number of emperors to four. The sense of

their true interest soon connected Licinius and Constantine; a

secret alliance was concluded between Maximin and Maxentius, and

their unhappy subjects expected with terror the bloody

consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which were no

longer restrained by the fear or the respect which they had

entertained for Galerius.

Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions

of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a

single action which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth

year of his reign, Constantine visited the city of Autun, and

generously remitted the arrears of tribute, reducing at the same

time the proportion of their assessment from twenty-five to

eighteen thousand heads, subject to the real and personal

capitation. Yet even this indulgence affords the most

unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so

extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of

collecting it, that whilst the revenue was increased by

extortion, it was diminished by despair: a considerable part of

the territory of Autun was left uncultivated; and great numbers

of the provincials rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws,

than to support the weight of civil society. It is but too

probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial act

of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by

his general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were

less the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the

death of Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have

been the most innocent and even virtuous period of his life. The

provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of the

barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active valor.

After a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni, several of

their princes were exposed by his order to the wild beasts in the

amphitheatre of Treves, and the people seem to have enjoyed the

spectacle, without discovering, in such a treatment of royal

captives, any thing that was repugnant to the laws of nations or

of humanity. *

The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the

vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much

happiness as the condition of the times was capable of receiving,

Italy and Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as

contemptible as he was odious. The zeal of flattery and faction

has indeed too frequently sacrificed the reputation of the

vanquished to the glory of their successful rivals; but even

those writers who have revealed, with the most freedom and

pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously confess that

Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. He had the good

fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The governor

and a few adherents had been guilty; the province suffered for

their crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and Carthage, and

the whole extent of that fertile country, were wasted by fire and

sword. The abuse of victory was followed by the abuse of law and

justice. A formidable army of sycophants and delators invaded

Africa; the rich and the noble were easily convicted of a

connection with the rebels; and those among them who experienced

the emperor’s clemency, were only punished by the confiscation of

their estates. So signal a victory was celebrated by a

magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the eyes of the

people the spoils and captives of a Roman province. The state of

the capital was no less deserving of compassion than that of

Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund for his

vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers of his revenue were

skilled in the arts of rapine. It was under his reign that the

method of exacting a _free gift_ from the senators was first

invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased, the pretences

of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an imperial

consulship, were proportionably multiplied. Maxentius had imbibed

the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had

characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it

possible for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous

fidelity which had raised him to the throne, and supported him

against all his enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed

to his jealous suspicions, the dishonor of their wives and

daughters heightened the gratification of his sensual passions.

It may be presumed that an Imperial lover was seldom reduced to

sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved ineffectual, he had

recourse to violence; and there remains _one_ memorable example

of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a voluntary

death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he appeared

to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and Italy with

armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them with

impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless

people; and indulging them in the same licentiousness which their

emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often bestowed on his military

favorites the splendid villa, or the beautiful wife, of a

senator. A prince of such a character, alike incapable of

governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the support,

but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his pride

was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life

either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring

gardens of Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that _he_

_alone_ was emperor, and that the other princes were no more than

his lieutenants, on whom he had devolved the defence of the

frontier provinces, that he might enjoy without interruption the

elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had so long regretted

the absence, lamented, during the six years of his reign, the

presence of her sovereign.

Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with

abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we

have no reason to presume that he would have taken up arms to

punish the one or to relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy

rashly ventured to provoke a formidable enemy, whose ambition had

been hitherto restrained by considerations of prudence, rather

than by principles of justice. After the death of Maximian, his

titles, according to the established custom, had been erased, and

his statues thrown down with ignominy. His son, who had

persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display the

most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar

treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that

had been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.

That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the

difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently

acquainted, at first dissembled the insult, and sought for

redress by the milder expedient of negotiation, till he was

convinced that the hostile and ambitious designs of the Italian

emperor made it necessary for him to arm in his own defence.

Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to the whole

monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable

force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhætia; and

though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was

flattered with the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by

his presents and promises, would desert the standard of that

prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers and

subjects. Constantine no longer hesitated. He had deliberated

with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave a private audience to

the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate and people,

conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and without

regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to

prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy.

The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the

unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to

inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who

revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the

party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as

well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second

desertion. Maxentius, who considered the Prætorian guards as the

firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their

ancient establishment; and they composed, including the rest of

the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a formidable

body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and

Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even

Sicily furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of

Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and

eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the

expenses of the war; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted,

to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of

provisions.

The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot

and eight thousand horse; and as the defence of the Rhine

required an extraordinary attention during the absence of the

emperor, it was not in his power to employ above half his troops

in the Italian expedition, unless he sacrificed the public safety

to his private quarrel. At the head of about forty thousand

soldiers he marched to encounter an enemy whose numbers were at

least four times superior to his own. But the armies of Rome,

placed at a secure distance from danger, were enervated by

indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres of

Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly

composed of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies

who had never acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war.

The hardy legions of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the

empire against the barbarians of the North; and in the

performance of that laborious service, their valor was exercised

and their discipline confirmed. There appeared the same

difference between the leaders as between the armies. Caprice or

flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest; but

these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and

the consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of

Constantine had been trained from his earliest youth to war, to

action, and to military command.

Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The

Empire.—Part III.

When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first

to discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through

savage nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular

army. The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now

fortified by art. Citadels, constructed with no less skill than

labor and expense, command every avenue into the plain, and on

that side render Italy almost inaccessible to the enemies of the

king of Sardinia. But in the course of the intermediate period,

the generals, who have attempted the passage, have seldom

experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the age of

Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and

obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with

provisions, and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had

carried over the Alps, opened several communications between Gaul

and Italy. Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps,

or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with

such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of

Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain

intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine. The

city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of Mount

Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison

sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but

the impatience of Constantine’s troops disdained the tedious

forms of a siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa,

they applied fire to the gates, and ladders to the walls; and

mounting to the assault amidst a shower of stones and arrows,

they entered the place sword in hand, and cut in pieces the

greatest part of the garrison. The flames were extinguished by

the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa preserved from

total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more severe

contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled

under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its

principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which

the Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed

from the nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men,

were clothed in complete armor, the joints of which were artfully

adapted to the motions of their bodies. The aspect of this

cavalry was formidable, their weight almost irresistible; and as,

on this occasion, their generals had drawn them up in a compact

column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with spreading flanks,

they flattered themselves that they could easily break and

trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have

succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary

embraced the same method of defence, which in similar

circumstances had been practised by Aurelian. The skilful

evolutions of Constantine divided and baffled this massy column

of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in confusion towards

Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against them, very

few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this

important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and

even favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial

palace of Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the

Alps and the Po not only acknowledged the power, but embraced

with zeal the party, of Constantine.

From Milan to Rome, the Æmilian and Flaminian highways offered an

easy march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine

was impatient to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his

operations against another army of Italians, who, by their

strength and position, might either oppose his progress, or, in

case of a misfortune, might intercept his retreat. Ruricius

Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor and ability, had

under his command the city of Verona, and all the troops that

were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was

informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached

a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near

Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of

Verona. The necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of

the siege of Verona, immediately presented themselves to the

sagacious mind of Constantine. The city was accessible only by a

narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides were

surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the

province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an

inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without

great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that

Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above

the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He

then encompassed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks

with prudent vigor, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus.

That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence

that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could

afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own,

but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon

collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the

field, or to attack him if he obstinately remained within his

lines. The emperor, attentive to the motions, and informed of the

approach of so formidable an enemy, left a part of his legions to

continue the operations of the siege, whilst, at the head of

those troops on whose valor and fidelity he more particularly

depended, he advanced in person to engage the general of

Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines, according

to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,

perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,

suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second,

extended the front of his first line to a just proportion with

that of the enemy. Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can

execute without confusion in a moment of danger, commonly prove

decisive; but as this engagement began towards the close of the

day, and was contested with great obstinacy during the whole

night, there was less room for the conduct of the generals than

for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light displayed

the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered with

many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,

Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately

surrendered at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of

war. When the officers of the victorious army congratulated their

master on this important success, they ventured to add some

respectful complaints, of such a nature, however, as the most

jealous monarchs will listen to without displeasure. They

represented to Constantine, that, not contented with all the

duties of a commander, he had exposed his own person with an

excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness; and they

conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the

preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the

empire was involved.

While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field,

the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and

danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his

dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.

Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public

knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, he indulged himself in a

vain confidence which deferred the remedies of the approaching

evil, without deferring the evil itself. The rapid progress of

Constantine was scarcely sufficient to awaken him from his fatal

security; he flattered himself, that his well-known liberality,

and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already delivered

him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same facility

the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience and

ability, who had served under the banners of Maximian, were at

length compelled to inform his effeminate son of the imminent

danger to which he was reduced; and, with a freedom that at once

surprised and convinced him, to urge the necessity of preventing

his ruin by a vigorous exertion of his remaining power. The

resources of Maxentius, both of men and money, were still

considerable. The Prætorian guards felt how strongly their own

interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third

army was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been

lost in the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the

intention of the emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger

to the exercises of war, he trembled at the apprehension of so

dangerous a contest; and as fear is commonly superstitious, he

listened with melancholy attention to the rumors of omens and

presages which seemed to menace his life and empire. Shame at

length supplied the place of courage, and forced him to take the

field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman people.

The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and they

tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the

pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the

heroic spirit of Constantine. Before Maxentius left Rome, he

consulted the Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient

oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they

were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a

very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and

secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.

The celerity of Constantine’s march has been compared to the

rapid conquest of Italy by the first of the Cæsars; nor is the

flattering parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no

more than fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of

Verona and the final decision of the war. Constantine had always

apprehended that the tyrant would consult the dictates of fear,

and perhaps of prudence; and that, instead of risking his last

hopes in a general engagement, he would shut himself up within

the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him against the

danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine admitted

not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity of

destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest

reward of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the

motive, or rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. It was

with equal surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a place

called Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from Rome, he discovered the

army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. Their long front

filled a very spacious plain, and their deep array reached to the

banks of the Tyber, which covered their rear, and forbade their

retreat. We are informed, and we may believe, that Constantine

disposed his troops with consummate skill, and that he chose for

himself the post of honor and danger. Distinguished by the

splendor of his arms, he charged in person the cavalry of his

rival; and his irresistible attack determined the fortune of the

day. The cavalry of Maxentius was principally composed either of

unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light Moors and Numidians. They

yielded to the vigor of the Gallic horse, which possessed more

activity than the one, more firmness than the other. The defeat

of the two wings left the infantry without any protection on its

flanks, and the undisciplined Italians fled without reluctance

from the standard of a tyrant whom they had always hated, and

whom they no longer feared. The Prætorians, conscious that their

offences were beyond the reach of mercy, were animated by revenge

and despair. Notwithstanding their repeated efforts, those brave

veterans were unable to recover the victory: they obtained,

however, an honorable death; and it was observed that their

bodies covered the same ground which had been occupied by their

ranks. The confusion then became general, and the dismayed troops

of Maxentius, pursued by an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands

into the deep and rapid stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself

attempted to escape back into the city over the Milvian bridge;

but the crowds which pressed together through that narrow passage

forced him into the river, where he was immediately drowned by

the weight of his armor. His body, which had sunk very deep into

the mud, was found with some difficulty the next day. The sight

of his head, when it was exposed to the eyes of the people,

convinced them of their deliverance, and admonished them to

receive with acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate

Constantine, who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most

splendid enterprise of his life.

In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of

clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. He

inflicted the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed

his own person and family, put to death the two sons of the

tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race. The most

distinguished adherents of Maxentius must have expected to share

his fate, as they had shared his prosperity and his crimes; but

when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater number of

victims, the conqueror resisted, with firmness and humanity,

those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as

by resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the

innocent, who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled

from exile, and restored to their estates. A general act of

oblivion quieted the minds and settled the property of the

people, both in Italy and in Africa. The first time that

Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he

recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,

assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and

promised to reëstablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The

grateful senate repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty

titles of honor, which it was yet in their power to bestow; and

without presuming to ratify the authority of Constantine, they

passed a decree to assign him the first rank among the three

_Augusti_ who governed the Roman world. Games and festivals were

instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and several

edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated to

the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of

Constantine still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of

the arts, and a singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it

was not possible to find in the capital of the empire a sculptor

who was capable of adorning that public monument, the arch of

Trajan, without any respect either for his memory or for the

rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant figures. The

difference of times and persons, of actions and characters, was

totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at

the feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the

Euphrates; and curious antiquarians can still discover the head

of Trajan on the trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which

it was necessary to introduce between the vacancies of ancient

sculpture are executed in the rudest and most unskilful manner.

The final abolition of the Prætorian guards was a measure of

prudence as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose

numbers and privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by

Maxentius, were forever suppressed by Constantine. Their

fortified camp was destroyed, and the few Prætorians who had

escaped the fury of the sword were dispersed among the legions,

and banished to the frontiers of the empire, where they might be

serviceable without again becoming dangerous. By suppressing the

troops which were usually stationed in Rome, Constantine gave the

fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and people, and the

disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the insults or

neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this last

effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the

apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He

exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free

gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished

the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The

senators, according to the declaration which was required of

their property, were divided into several classes. The most

opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold, the next class paid

four, the last two, and those whose poverty might have claimed an

exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces of gold.

Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their

descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain

privileges, and supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial

order; nor will it any longer excite our surprise, that

Constantine should be attentive to increase the number of persons

who were included under so useful a description. After the defeat

of Maxentius, the victorious emperor passed no more than two or

three months in Rome, which he visited twice during the remainder

of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals of the tenth and

of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was almost

perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to inspect the

state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Sirmium,

Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of his

residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of Europe

and Asia.

Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the

friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian

emperor. He had promised his sister Constantia in marriage to

that prince; but the celebration of the nuptials was deferred

till after the conclusion of the war, and the interview of the

two emperors at Milan, which was appointed for that purpose,

appeared to cement the union of their families and interests. In

the midst of the public festivity they were suddenly obliged to

take leave of each other. An inroad of the Franks summoned

Constantine to the Rhine, and the hostile approach of the

sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.

Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being

discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a

civil war. He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of

Bithynia, in the depth of winter. The season was severe and

tempestuous; great numbers of men as well as horses perished in

the snow; and as the roads were broken up by incessant rains, he

was obliged to leave behind him a considerable part of the heavy

baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity of his forced

marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence, he arrived

with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the Thracian

Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of his

hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of

Maximin, after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days

under the walls of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken

possession of that city than he was alarmed by the intelligence

that Licinius had pitched his camp at the distance of only

eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in which the two

princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other’s

adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East

commanded a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy

thousand men; and Licinius, who had collected about thirty

thousand Illyrians, was at first oppressed by the superiority of

numbers. His military skill, and the firmness of his troops,

restored the day, and obtained a decisive victory. The incredible

speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated

than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours afterwards he

was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial ornaments, at

Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place of his

defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the

flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had

still power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous

levies from Syria and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only

three or four months. His death, which happened at Tarsus, was

variously ascribed to despair, to poison, and to the divine

justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of abilities and of

virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by the

soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors

of civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius.

The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of

about eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their

inoffensive age might have excited compassion; but the compassion

of Licinius was a very feeble resource, nor did it restrain him

from _extinguishing_the name and memory of his adversary. The

death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated

neither by revenge nor by policy. The conqueror had never

received any injury from the father of that unhappy youth, and

the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of the

empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus

was an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the

natural son of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius.

The prudent father had judged him too young to sustain the weight

of a diadem; but he hoped that, under the protection of princes

who were indebted to his favor for the Imperial purple,

Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life. He was now

advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the royalty

of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition, was

sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. To these

innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must add the

wife and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that prince

conferred on Galerius the title of Cæsar, he had given him in

marriage his daughter Valeria, whose melancholy adventures might

furnish a very singular subject for tragedy. She had fulfilled

and even surpassed the duties of a wife. As she had not any

children herself, she condescended to adopt the illegitimate son

of her husband, and invariably displayed towards the unhappy

Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother. After

the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the

avarice, and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his

successor, Maximin. He had a wife still alive; but divorce was

permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant

demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was

such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was

tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition

compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom

Maximin had employed on this occasion, “that even if honor could

permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a

thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to

listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband

and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her

mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured

to declare, that she could place very little confidence in the

professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of

repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.” On this repulse,

the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as witnesses and

judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for him to cover

his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings, and to assault

the reputation as well as the happiness of Valeria. Her estates

were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics devoted to the most

inhuman tortures; and several innocent and respectable matrons,

who were honored with her friendship, suffered death, on a false

accusation of adultery. The empress herself, together with her

mother Prisca, was condemned to exile; and as they were

ignominiously hurried from place to place before they were

confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of Syria, they

exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of the East,

which, during thirty years, had respected their august dignity.

Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate the

misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he

expected for the Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon

Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share

his retirement of Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted

father. He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his

prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of

Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and

his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin seemed to assure

the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The

public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they

easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and

to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the

court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign,

and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus,

inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own

account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful

prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the

bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia

sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled

by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her

safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother

Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months through the provinces,

concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at length

discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death

was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded, and their

bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy

spectacle; but their grief and indignation were suppressed by the

terrors of a military guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the

wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we

cannot discover their crimes; and whatever idea we may justly

entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it remains a matter of

surprise that he was not contented with some more secret and

decent method of revenge.

The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius,

the former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the

East. It might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors,

fatigued with civil war, and connected by a private as well as

public alliance, would have renounced, or at least would have

suspended, any further designs of ambition. And yet a year had

scarcely elapsed after the death of Maximin, before the

victorious emperors turned their arms against each other. The

genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine, may

seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious

character of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions,

and by the faint light which history reflects on this

transaction, we may discover a conspiracy fomented by his arts

against the authority of his colleague. Constantine had lately

given his sister Anastasia in marriage to Bassianus, a man of a

considerable family and fortune, and had elevated his new kinsman

to the rank of Cæsar. According to the system of government

instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were

designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of

the promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or

accompanied with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of

Bassianus was alienated rather than secured by the honorable

distinction which he had obtained. His nomination had been

ratified by the consent of Licinius; and that artful prince, by

the means of his emissaries, soon contrived to enter into a

secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Cæsar, to

irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise

of extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the

justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the

conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly

renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the

purple, and inflicted the deserved punishment on his treason and

ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was

required to deliver up the criminals who had taken refuge in his

dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his

perfidy; and the indignities offered at Æmona, on the frontiers

of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of

discord between the two princes.

The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia,

situated on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. From

the inconsiderable forces which in this important contest two

such powerful monarchs brought into the field, it may be inferred

that the one was suddenly provoked, and that the other was

unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only twenty

thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and

thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however,

compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken

post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep

hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily

expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued

his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions

of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been

trained to arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The

missile weapons on both sides were soon exhausted; the two

armies, with equal valor, rushed to a closer engagement of swords

and spears, and the doubtful contest had already lasted from the

dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening, when the right

wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous and

decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the

remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed

his loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he

thought it unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active

and victorious enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he

marched away with secrecy and diligence at the head of the

greatest part of his cavalry, and was soon removed beyond the

danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved his wife, his son,

and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium. Licinius

passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the

Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his

flight he bestowed the precarious title of Cæsar on Valens, his

general of the Illyrian frontier.

Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The

Empire.—Part IV.

The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle

no less obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both

sides displayed the same valor and discipline; and the victory

was once more decided by the superior abilities of Constantine,

who directed a body of five thousand men to gain an advantageous

height, from whence, during the heat of the action, they attacked

the rear of the enemy, and made a very considerable slaughter.

The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still

maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to

the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of

Macedonia. The loss of two battles, and of his bravest veterans,

reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace. His

ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of

Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and

humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the

vanquished; represented in the most insinuating language, that

the event of the war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable

calamities were alike pernicious to both the contending parties;

and declared that he was authorized to propose a lasting and

honorable peace in the name of the _two_ emperors his masters.

Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and

contempt. “It was not for such a purpose,” he sternly replied,

“that we have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an

uninterrupted course of combats and victories, that, after

rejecting an ungrateful kinsman, we should accept for our

colleague a contemptible slave. The abdication of Valens is the

first article of the treaty.” It was necessary to accept this

humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens, after a reign of a

few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life. As soon as

this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman world

was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had

ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and

abilities. His situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of

despair are sometimes formidable, and the good sense of

Constantine preferred a great and certain advantage to a third

trial of the chance of arms. He consented to leave his rival, or,

as he again styled Licinius, his friend and brother, in the

possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but the

provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece,

were yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of

Constantine now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the

extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty,

that three royal youths, the sons of emperors, should be called

to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the young Constantine

were soon afterwards declared Cæsars in the West, while the

younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the East.

In this double proportion of honors, the conqueror asserted the

superiority of his arms and power.

The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was

imbittered by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of

recent injuries, and by the apprehension of future dangers,

maintained, however, above eight years, the tranquility of the

Roman world. As a very regular series of the Imperial laws

commences about this period, it would not be difficult to

transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of

Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are

intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion,

which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful

years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as

they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the

practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private

than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published

many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would

ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however,

may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the

other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable

benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid

practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering

their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the

provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of

distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the

intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel

prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their

insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of

mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it

an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the

impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to

support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some

recent and extraordinary instances of despair, * engaged him to

address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of

Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to

those parents who should produce before the magistrates the

children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate.

But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, to

effect any general or permanent benefit. The law, though it may

merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate the

public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to

contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well

satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or

misery under the government of a generous sovereign. 2. The laws

of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little

indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since

the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal

violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which

might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five,

to leave the house of her parents. “The successful ravisher was

punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the

enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in

pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin’s

declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,

instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The

duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the

guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature

prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a

subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were

themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves,

whether male or female, who were convicted of having been

accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death

by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity

of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation

was permitted even to strangers. The commencement of the action

was not limited to any term of years, and the consequences of the

sentence were extended to the innocent offspring of such an

irregular union.” But whenever the offence inspires less horror

than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give

way to the common feelings of mankind. The most odious parts of

this edict were softened or repealed in the subsequent reigns;

and even Constantine himself very frequently alleviated, by

partial acts of mercy, the stern temper of his general

institutions. Such, indeed, was the singular humor of that

emperor, who showed himself as indulgent, and even remiss, in the

execution of his laws, as he was severe, and even cruel, in the

enacting of them. It is scarcely possible to observe a more

decisive symptom of weakness, either in the character of the

prince, or in the constitution of the government.

The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the

military defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most

amiable character, who had received with the title of Cæsar the

command of the Rhine, distinguished his conduct, as well as

valor, in several victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and

taught the barbarians of that frontier to dread the eldest son of

Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius. The emperor himself

had assumed the more difficult and important province of the

Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and Aurelian had

felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power of the

empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the

strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of

near fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer

remembered the misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the

Lake Mæotis followed the Gothic standard either as subjects or as

allies, and their united force was poured upon the countries of

Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and Benonia, appear to have been the

scenes of several memorable sieges and battles; and though

Constantine encountered a very obstinate resistance, he prevailed

at length in the contest, and the Goths were compelled to

purchase an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty and

prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient

to satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to

chastise as well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had

dared to invade the territories of Rome. At the head of his

legions he passed the Danube, after repairing the bridge which

had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into the strongest

recesses of Dacia, and when he had inflicted a severe revenge,

condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on condition

that, as often as they were required, they should supply his

armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. Exploits like

these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and beneficial to

the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether they can

justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that all Scythia,

as far as the extremity of the North, divided as it was into so

many names and nations of the most various and savage manners,

had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman empire.

In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that

Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the empire.

Confiding in the superiority of his genius and military power, he

determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the

destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices

seemed to offer a very easy conquest. But the old emperor,

awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of

his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit

and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of

Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the

contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the

plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the

Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and

fifty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the

cavalry was drawn, for the most part, from Phrygia and

Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable opinion of the

beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity of their

riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys

of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were

furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred

and ten sailed from the ports of Phœnicia and the isle of Cyprus;

and the maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria were

likewise obliged to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops

of Constantine were ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they

amounted to above a hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot.

Their emperor was satisfied with their martial appearance, and

his army contained more soldiers, though fewer men, than that of

his eastern competitor. The legions of Constantine were levied in

the warlike provinces of Europe; action had confirmed their

discipline, victory had elevated their hopes, and there were

among them a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen

glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to

deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor.

But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every respect

much inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities of Greece

sent their respective quotas of men and ships to the celebrated

harbor of Piræus, and their united forces consisted of no more

than two hundred small vessels—a very feeble armament, if it is

compared with those formidable fleets which were equipped and

maintained by the republic of Athens during the Peloponnesian

war. Since Italy was no longer the seat of government, the naval

establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been gradually

neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire were

supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that

they should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt

and Asia. It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who

possessed so great a superiority at sea, should have neglected

the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into the centre of

his rival’s dominions.

Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have

changed the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected

the approach of his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he

had fortified with an anxious care that betrayed his apprehension

of the event. Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica

towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the

broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous

army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from

the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days were spent in

doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the obstacles of

the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid

conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful

exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be

paralleled either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a

venal orator devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the

partial enemy of his fame. We are assured that the valiant

emperor threw himself into the River Hebrus, accompanied only by

twelve horsemen, and that by the effort or terror of his

invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put to flight a host

of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of Zosimus

prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of

the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected

and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.

The valor and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight

wound which he received in the thigh; but it may be discovered

even from an imperfect narration, and perhaps a corrupted text,

that the victory was obtained no less by the conduct of the

general than by the courage of the hero; that a body of five

thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick wood in the rear

of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the construction of

a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful

evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to

combat on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer

equal. His confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished

by the experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men

are reported to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius

was taken by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part

of the fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered

themselves the next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and

his rival, who could no longer keep the field, confined himself

within the walls of Byzantium.

The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by

Constantine, was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In

the late civil wars, the fortifications of that place, so justly

considered as the key of Europe and Asia, had been repaired and

strengthened; and as long as Licinius remained master of the sea,

the garrison was much less exposed to the danger of famine than

the army of the besiegers. The naval commanders of Constantine

were summoned to his camp, and received his positive orders to

force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet of Licinius,

instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy, continued

inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of

numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor’s

eldest son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring

enterprise, which he performed with so much courage and success,

that he deserved the esteem, and most probably excited the

jealousy, of his father. The engagement lasted two days; and in

the evening of the first, the contending fleets, after a

considerable and mutual loss, retired into their respective

harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon, a strong

south wind sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus

against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by

his skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A

hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were

slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped

with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as

the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed

into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the

operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of

earth of an equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The

lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the

besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines,

and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several places. If

Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed himself

to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was

surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to

Chalcedon in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating

companions to the hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now

bestowed the title of Cæsar on Martinianus, who exercised one of

the most important offices of the empire.

Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of

Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in

Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the

activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium.

The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles

of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was

transported over the Bosphorus in small vessels, and the decisive

engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of

Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The troops of

Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse

disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless

but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five

and twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of

their leader. He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view of

gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any

effectual defence. Constantia, his wife, and the sister of

Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband,

and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a

solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of

Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself

should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace

and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to

the contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that

virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of

Antony. But the temper of mankind was altered, and it was no

longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and

independence. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his

offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his lord and

master, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was

admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and soon

afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen

for the place of his confinement. His confinement was soon

terminated by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the

soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive

for his execution. According to the rules of tyranny, he was

accused of forming a conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable

correspondence with the barbarians; but as he was never

convicted, either by his own conduct or by any legal evidence, we

may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his

innocence. The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy, his

statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such

mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected,

all his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were

at once abolished. By this victory of Constantine, the Roman

world was again united under the authority of one emperor,

thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and

provinces with his associate Maximian.

The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his

first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of

Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness

and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both

interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to

the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure,

and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the

military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the

establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and

memorable consequences of this revolution.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I.

The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments, Manners,

Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.

A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment

of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the

history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by

open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble

religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up

in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and

finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins

of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to

the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a

revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is

still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished

portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By

the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely

diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by

the means of their colonies has been firmly established from

Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended

with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious

materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel

the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The

great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the

imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the

gospel; and, to a careless observer, their _faults_ may seem to

cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal

of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the

Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only _by

whom_, but likewise _to whom_, the Divine Revelation was given.

The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing

Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native

purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He

must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption,

which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak

and degenerate race of beings. *

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the

Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the

established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious

but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the

convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling

providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom

find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of

Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the

human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as

instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,

though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the

first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of

the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most

effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes: I.

The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant

zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish

religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit,

which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from

embracing the law of Moses. II. The doctrine of a future life,

improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight

and efficacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers

ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals

of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the Christian

republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing

state in the heart of the Roman empire.

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient

world, and the facility * with which the most different and even

hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s

superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common

intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and

Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most

despised portion of their slaves, emerged from obscurity under

the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a

surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they

soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. The

sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites

and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct

species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,

their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. Neither the

violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of

the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to

associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of

the Greeks. According to the maxims of universal toleration, the

Romans protected a superstition which they despised. The polite

Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be

offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; whilst the

meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the

same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an

object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the

moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the

jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and

scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily

introduced themselves into a Roman province. The mad attempt of

Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was

defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded

death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. Their

attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of

foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was

contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and

sometimes with the fury, of a torrent.

This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so

ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,

since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious

history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous

attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews

who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,

if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their

forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,

when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were

suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when

temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences

of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into

rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,

placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and

imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents

of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. As the protection of

Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their

faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity. The

contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless

indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of

every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the

Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;

and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,

that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more

ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to

the evidence of their own senses.

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was

never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the

number of proselytes was never much superior to that of

apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the

distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single

family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the

sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a

system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as

it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous

care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The

conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many

wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the

victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility

with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate

some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the

divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.

With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any

marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them

into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost

always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the

tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the

faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,

nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a

voluntary duty.

In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was

actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the

generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were

flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the

covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of

their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of

the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their

knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the

God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more

indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active

zeal of his own missionaries. The religion of Moses seems to be

instituted for a particular country as well as for a single

nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,

that every male, three times in the year, should present himself

before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the

Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits

of the promised land. That obstacle was indeed removed by the

destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable

part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and

the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an

empty sanctuary, were at a loss to discover what could be the

object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was

destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their

lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the

society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor

on those parts of the law which it was in their power to

practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a

variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many

objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose

habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The

painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable

of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.

Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the

world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered

from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth

of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in

the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed

to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being

was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious

doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was

admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of

Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted

series of predictions had announced and prepared the

long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the

gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently

represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than

under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his

expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were

at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which

consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and

spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to

every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was

substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of

divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the

posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and

the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to

the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from

earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his

happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the

semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,

was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but

at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,

to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered

as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most

sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and

relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to

warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a

criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but

all-powerful Deity.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part II.

The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue

was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The

Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the

Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a

prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately

adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous

of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the

number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have

argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of

the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great

Author. They affirmed, _that_ if the Being, who is the same

through all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites

which had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of

them would have been no less clear and solemn than their first

promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,

which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic

religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme

intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should

instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:

that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed with

him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the most

minute observances of the Mosaic law, would have published to the

world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies,

without suffering Christianity to remain during so many years

obscurely confounded among the sects of the Jewish church.

Arguments like these appear to have been used in the defence of

the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the industry of our

learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language

of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic

teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold the system of the

gospel, and to pronounce, with the utmost caution and tenderness,

a sentence of condemnation so repugnant to the inclination and

prejudices of the believing Jews.

The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of

the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression

which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.

The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;

and the congregation over which they presided united the law of

Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the

primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days

after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years

under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received

as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very

frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,

and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.

But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the

great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,

Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to

all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. The Jewish

converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who

had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves

overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the

various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of

Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their

peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the

Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous

brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly

solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the

city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt

by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,

they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious

countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to

the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the

wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins

of Jerusalem * to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,

where that ancient church languished above sixty years in

solitude and obscurity. They still enjoyed the comfort of making

frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the hope of

being one day restored to those seats which both nature and

religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at length,

under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of the Jews

filled up the measure of their calamities; and the Romans,

exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the rights of

victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under the name

of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, to which he gave

the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the severest penalties

against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach its

precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to

enforce the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one

way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of

truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal

advantages. They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of

the race of the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of

Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the

most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic

law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a

century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices, they

purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more

firmly cemented their union with the Catholic church.

When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been

restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were

imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to

accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former

habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent

to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of

Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. The name of

Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews, and

they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their

understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous

epithet of Ebionites. In a few years after the return of the

church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,

whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,

but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could

possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr

inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and

though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he

ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if

he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without

pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when

Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he

confessed that there were very many among the orthodox

Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from

the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them

in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social

life. The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural to

expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was

fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The

unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,

and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to

assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that

obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,

they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the

synagogue.

While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between

excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,

the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of

error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish

religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be

abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as

hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of

the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of

Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to

the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our

ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an

adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were

eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of

the Gnostics. As those heretics were, for the most part, averse

to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy

of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of

Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation

of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile

with the common notions of humanity and justice. * But when they

recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of executions, and of

massacres, which stain almost every page of the Jewish annals,

they acknowledged that the barbarians of Palestine had exercised

as much compassion towards their idolatrous enemies, as they had

ever shown to their friends or countrymen. Passing from the

sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was

impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody

sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as

punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could

inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of

passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man was

treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who would not

listen with patience to the repose of the Deity after six days’

labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, the trees of life

and of knowledge, the speaking serpent, the forbidden fruit, and

the condemnation pronounced against human kind for the venial

offence of their first progenitors. The God of Israel was

impiously represented by the Gnostics as a being liable to

passion and to error, capricious in his favor, implacable in his

resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious worship, and

confining his partial providence to a single people, and to this

transitory life. In such a character they could discover none of

the features of the wise and omnipotent Father of the universe.

They allowed that the religion of the Jews was somewhat less

criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their

fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they adored as the

first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared upon earth to

rescue mankind from their various errors, and to reveal a new

system of truth and perfection. The most learned of the fathers,

by a very singular condescension, have imprudently admitted the

sophistry of the Gnostics. * Acknowledging that the literal sense

is repugnant to every principle of faith as well as reason, they

deem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample veil of

allegory, which they carefully spread over every tender part of

the Mosaic dispensation.

It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the

virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or

heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred

years after the death of Christ. We may observe with much more

propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah

were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,

than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of

communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority

of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,

many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to

renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to

pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly

to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the

church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the

most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and

that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of

knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically

bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost

without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their

principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,

where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the

body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended

with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which

they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion

of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of

two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible

world. As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they

delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;

and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics

were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,

of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the Basilidians,

the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still later period,

the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of its bishops

and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; and, instead of

the Four Gospels adopted by the church, the heretics produced a

multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of

Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective

tenets. The success of the Gnostics was rapid and extensive. They

covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and

sometimes penetrated into the provinces of the West. For the most

part they arose in the second century, flourished during the

third, and were suppressed in the fourth or fifth, by the

prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and by the superior

ascendant of the reigning power. Though they constantly disturbed

the peace, and frequently disgraced the name, of religion, they

contributed to assist rather than to retard the progress of

Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose strongest objections

and prejudices were directed against the law of Moses, could find

admission into many Christian societies, which required not from

their untutored mind any belief of an antecedent revelation.

Their faith was insensibly fortified and enlarged, and the church

was ultimately benefited by the conquests of its most inveterate

enemies.

But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the

Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the

divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all

equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same

abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from

the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who

considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human

fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the

mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,

or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any

invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the

established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive

Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the

universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the

dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of

idolatry. Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from the

rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were still

permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to

seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and

abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards

devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from

their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme

Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at

once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the

only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of

involving the human species in the participation of their guilt

and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that

they had distributed among themselves the most important

characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and

attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,

and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; and that, by the advantage of

their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to

execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they

had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals

and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were

frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by

the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every

præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to

admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But

the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most

trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as

a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion

against the majesty of God.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part III.