Constantine.--Part VIII.
The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and torture,
are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an artful
orator, * that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a more
distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in
consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and
his successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and
cities, which were at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of
persecution. The more ancient writers content themselves with pouring
out a liberal effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without
condescending to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. From
the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that only nine
bishops were punished with death; and we are assured, by his particular
enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that no more than ninety-two
Christians were entitled to that honorable appellation. As we are
unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage which
prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful
inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve
to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the
distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: and since there were some
governors, who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their
hands unstained with the blood of the faithful, it is reasonable
to believe, that the country which had given birth to Christianity,
produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered
death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might
consequently amount to about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is
equally divided between the ten years of the persecution, will allow an
annual consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same
proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where,
at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either
suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire,
on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicial, sentence, will
be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot
be doubted that the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies
more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been in
any former persecution, this probable and moderate computation may teach
us to estimate the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed
their lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into
the world.
We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which obtrudes
itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting, without hesitation or
inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on
the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged, that the
Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted
far greater severities on each other, than they had experienced from
the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the
subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial
city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and
which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length
assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from the twelfth to the
sixteenth century assumed the popular character of reformers. The church
of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud;
a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions,
war, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the
reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious
freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of
the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual
censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one hundred thousand of
the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the
executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, a man
of genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst the fury
of contending sects, and who composed the annals of his own age and
country, at a time when the invention of printing had facilitated the
means of intelligence, and increased the danger of detection. If we are
obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be
allowed, that the number of Protestants, who were executed in a single
province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs
in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the
improbability of the fact itself should prevail over the weight of
evidence; if Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
sufferings of the Reformers; we shall be naturally led to inquire what
confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect monuments of
ancient credulity; what degree of credit can be assigned to a courtly
bishop, and a passionate declaimer, * who, under the protection
of Constantine, enjoyed the exclusive privilege of recording the
persecutions inflicted on the Christians by the vanquished rivals or
disregarded predecessors of their gracious sovereign.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part I.
Foundation Of Constantinople.--Political System Constantine,
And His Successors.--Military Discipline.--The Palace.--The
Finances.
The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the greatness,
and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of Constantine. After a
tranquil and prosperous reign, the conqueror bequeathed to his family
the inheritance of the Roman empire; a new capital, a new policy, and
a new religion; and the innovations which he established have been
embraced and consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the
great Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but
the historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless he
diligently separates from each other the scenes which are connected only
by the order of time. He will describe the political institutions that
gave strength and stability to the empire, before he proceeds to relate
the wars and revolutions which hastened its decline. He will adopt the
division unknown to the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs:
the victory of the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply
copious and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.
After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in future
times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire and religion
of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of policy, which
first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from the ancient seat
of government, had acquired additional weight by the example of
his successors, and the habits of forty years. Rome was insensibly
confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowledged
her supremacy; and the country of the CÊsars was viewed with cold
indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the
Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with
the purple by the legions of Britain. The Italians, who had received
Constantine as their deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he
sometimes condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome;
but they were seldom honored with the presence of their new sovereign.
During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to the various
exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity, or with active
diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions; and was
always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic
enemy. But as he gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the
decline of life, he began to meditate the design of fixing in a more
permanent station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe
and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who dwelt between
the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of jealousy the conduct
of the Persian monarch, who indignantly supported the yoke of an
ignominious treaty. With these views, Diocletian had selected and
embellished the residence of Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was
justly abhorred by the protector of the church: and Constantine was not
insensible to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate
the glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war against
Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate, both as a
soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position of Byzantium;
and to observe how strongly it was guarded by nature against a hostile
attack, whilst it was accessible on every side to the benefits of
commercial intercourse. Many ages before Constantine, one of the most
judicious historians of antiquity had described the advantages of a
situation, from whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of
the sea, and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic.
If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city may be
represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse point, which
advances towards the east and the shores of Asia, meets and repels
the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The northern side of the city is
bounded by the harbor; and the southern is washed by the Propontis, or
Sea of Marmara. The basis of the triangle is opposed to the west, and
terminates the continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division
of the circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood.
The winding channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with
a rapid and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the history,
than in the fables, of antiquity. A crowd of temples and of votive
altars, profusely scattered along its steep and woody banks, attested
the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the devotion of the Grecian
navigators, who, after the example of the Argonauts, explored the
dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On these banks tradition long
preserved the memory of the palace of Phineus, infested by the obscene
harpies; and of the sylvan reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda
to the combat of the cestus. The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated
by the Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by the
gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of profane
curiosity. From the Cyanean rocks to the point and harbor of Byzantium,
the winding length of the Bosphorus extends about sixteen miles, and its
most ordinary breadth may be computed at about one mile and a half. The
new castles of Europe and Asia are constructed, on either continent,
upon the foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of
Jupiter Urius. The oldcastles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite banks
advance within five hundred paces of each other. These fortresses were
destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second, when he meditated the
siege of Constantinople: but the Turkish conqueror was most probably
ignorant, that near two thousand years before his reign, continents by
a bridge of boats. At a small distance from the old castles we discover
the little town of Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be
considered as the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as
it begins to open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and
Chalcedon. The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a
few years before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has been
stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt.
The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm of the
Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the denomination of the
Golden Horn. The curve which it describes might be compared to the horn
of a stag, or as it should seem, with more propriety, to that of an
ox. The epithet of golden was expressive of the riches which every wind
wafted from the most distant countries into the secure and capacious
port of Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh water,
which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the periodical
shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that convenient recess. As the
vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt in those seas, the constant
depth of the harbor allows goods to be landed on the quays without the
assistance of boats; and it has been observed, that in many places the
largest vessels may rest their prows against the houses, while their
sterns are floating in the water. From the mouth of the Lycus to that
of the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a strong
chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the port and city
from the attack of a hostile navy.
Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe and Asia,
receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara, which was known to
the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the
issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one
hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through
the middle of the Propontis, amt at once descry the high lands of Thrace
and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus,
covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at
the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of
Diocletian; and they pass the small islands of Cyzicus and Proconnesus
before they cast anchor at Gallipoli; where the sea, which separates
Asia from Europe, is again contracted into a narrow channel.
The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have surveyed the
form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about sixty miles for the
winding course, and about three miles for the ordinary breadth of those
celebrated straits. But the narrowest part of the channel is found to
the northward of the old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus
and Abydus. It was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage
of the flood for the possession of his mistress. It was here likewise,
in a place where the distance between the opposite banks cannot exceed
five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a stupendous bridge of boats,
for the purpose of transporting into Europe a hundred and seventy
myriads of barbarians. A sea contracted within such narrow limits may
seem but ill to deserve the singular epithet of broad, which Homer, as
well as Orpheus, has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. * But
our ideas of greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and
especially the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued
the windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost the
remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those celebrated straits,
with all the attributes of a mighty river flowing with a swift current,
in the midst of a woody and inland country, and at length, through a
wide mouth, discharging itself into the ∆gean or Archipelago. Ancient
Troy, seated on a an eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the
mouth of the Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters
from the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from the
SigÊan to the RhÊtean promontory; and the flanks of the army were
guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners of Agamemnon.
The first of those promontories was occupied by Achilles with his
invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax pitched his tents on the
other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice to his disappointed pride,
and to the ingratitude of the Greeks, his sepulchre was erected on the
ground where he had defended the navy against the rage of Jove and of
Hector; and the citizens of the rising town of RhÊteum celebrated his
memory with divine honors. Before Constantine gave a just preference to
the situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting the
seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the Romans derived
their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which lies below ancient
Troy, towards the RhÊtean promontory and the tomb of Ajax, was first
chosen for his new capital; and though the undertaking was soon
relinquished the stately remains of unfinished walls and towers
attracted the notice of all who sailed through the straits of the
Hellespont.
We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for the
centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the forty-first
degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from her seven hills,
the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the climate was healthy and
temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor secure and capacious; and the
approach on the side of the continent was of small extent and easy
defence. The Bosphorus and the Hellespont may be considered as the two
gates of Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open them to
the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern provinces
may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of Constantine, as the
barbarians of the Euxine, who in the preceding age had poured their
armaments into the heart of the Mediterranean, soon desisted from
the exercise of piracy, and despaired of forcing this insurmountable
barrier. When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the
capital still enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production
which could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which languish
under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of
vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests; and the Propontis
has ever been renowned for an inexhaustible store of the most exquisite
fish, that are taken in their stated seasons, without skill, and almost
without labor. But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for
trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean. Whatever
rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany and Scythia,
and far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes; whatsoever was
manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the
gems and spices of the farthest India, were brought by the varying
winds into the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the
commerce of the ancient world.
[See Basilica Of Constantinople]
The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a single
spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine. But as some
decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every age, been supposed to
reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of great cities, the emperor
was desirous of ascribing his resolution, not so much to the uncertain
counsels of human policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees
of divine wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
everlasting foundations of Constantinople: and though he has not
condescended to relate in what manner the celestial inspiration was
communicated to his mind, the defect of his modest silence has been
liberally supplied by the ingenuity of succeeding writers; who describe
the nocturnal vision which appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he
slept within the walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a
venerable matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands adorned
with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. The monarch awoke,
interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed, without hesitation,
the will of Heaven The day which gave birth to a city or colony was
celebrated by the Romans with such ceremonies as had been ordained by
a generous superstition; and though Constantine might omit some rites
which savored too strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious
to leave a deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led
the solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as the
boundary of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was
observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured
to observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a
great city. "I shall still advance," replied Constantine, "till He, the
invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop." Without
presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this extraordinary
conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more humble task of
describing the extent and limits of Constantinople.
In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the Seraglio
occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven hills, and cover
about one hundred and fifty acres of our own measure. The seat of
Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on the foundations of a
Grecian republic; but it may be supposed that the Byzantines were
tempted by the conveniency of the harbor to extend their habitations
on that side beyond the modern limits of the Seraglio. The new walls of
Constantine stretched from the port to the Propontis across the enlarged
breadth of the triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the
ancient fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed
five of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful order.
About a century after the death of the founder, the new buildings,
extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other along the
Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the sixth, and the broad
summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of protecting those suburbs
from the incessant inroads of the barbarians engaged the younger
Theodosius to surround his capital with an adequate and permanent
enclosure of walls. From the eastern promontory to the golden gate,
the extreme length of Constantinople was about three Roman miles; the
circumference measured between ten and eleven; and the surface might be
computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It is impossible
to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern travellers,
who have sometimes stretched the limits of Constantinople over the
adjacent villages of the European, and even of the Asiatic coast. But
the suburbs of Pera and Galata, though situate beyond the harbor, may
deserve to be considered as a part of the city; and this addition may
perhaps authorize the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns
sixteen Greek (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of
his native city. Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to
ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part II.
The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal monument
of the glories of his reign could employ in the prosecution of that
great work, the wealth, the labor, and all that yet remained of the
genius of obedient millions. Some estimate may be formed of the expense
bestowed with Imperial liberality on the foundation of Constantinople,
by the allowance of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds
for the construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. The
forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the celebrated
quarries of white marble in the little island of Proconnesus, supplied
an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready to be conveyed, by the
convenience of a short water carriage, to the harbor of Byzantium. A
multitude of laborers and artificers urged the conclusion of the work
with incessant toil: but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered,
that, in the decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of
his architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were therefore
directed to institute schools, to appoint professors, and by the hopes
of rewards and privileges, to engage in the study and practice of
architecture a sufficient number of ingenious youths, who had received
a liberal education. The buildings of the new city were executed by
such artificers as the reign of Constantine could afford; but they were
decorated by the hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of
Pericles and Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed without
defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his commands the cities
of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their most valuable ornaments. The
trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the
most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets,
of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople;
and gave occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, who observes,
with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting except the souls of
the illustrious men whom these admirable monuments were intended
to represent. But it is not in the city of Constantine, nor in the
declining period of an empire, when the human mind was depressed by
civil and religious slavery, that we should seek for the souls of Homer
and of Demosthenes.
During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent on the
commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the memory of
his success, he chose the same advantageous position for the principal
Forum; which appears to have been of a circular, or rather elliptical
form. The two opposite entrances formed triumphal arches; the porticos,
which enclosed it on every side, were filled with statues; and the
centre of the Forum was occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated
fragment is now degraded by the appellation of the burnt pillar. This
column was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and
was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured about ten
feet in height, and about thirty-three in circumference. On the summit
of the pillar, above one hundred and twenty feet from the ground, stood
the colossal statue of Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported
either from Athens or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the
work of Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it
was afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left, and a
crown of rays glittering on his head. The Circus, or Hippodrome, was a
stately building about four hundred paces in length, and one hundred in
breadth. The space between the two met or goals were filled with statues
and obelisks; and we may still remark a very singular fragment of
antiquity; the bodies of three serpents, twisted into one pillar of
brass. Their triple heads had once supported the golden tripod which,
after the defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by
the victorious Greeks. The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long since
defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; but, under the
similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves as a place of exercise
for their horses. From the throne, whence the emperor viewed the
Circensian games, a winding staircase descended to the palace; a
magnificent edifice, which scarcely yielded to the residence of Rome
itself, and which, together with the dependent courts, gardens, and
porticos, covered a considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the
Propontis between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. We
might likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name
of Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above threescore
statues of bronze. But we should deviate from the design of this
history, if we attempted minutely to describe the different buildings
or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient to observe, that whatever
could adorn the dignity of a great capital, or contribute to the benefit
or pleasure of its numerous inhabitants, was contained within the walls
of Constantinople. A particular description, composed about a century
after its foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a
circus, two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight aqueducts or
reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the meetings of the senate
or courts of justice, fourteen churches, fourteen palaces, and four
thousand three hundred and eighty-eight houses, which, for their size
or beauty, deserved to be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian
inhabitants.
The populousness of his favored city was the next and most serious
object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages which succeeded
the translation of the empire, the remote and the immediate consequences
of that memorable event were strangely confounded by the vanity of the
Greeks and the credulity of the Latins. It was asserted, and believed,
that all the noble families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian
order, with their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor
to the banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient capital; and
that the lands of Italy, long since converted into gardens, were at once
deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. In the course of this history,
such exaggerations will be reduced to their just value: yet, since the
growth of Constantinople cannot be ascribed to the general increase of
mankind and of industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony
was raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were probably
invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate spot,
which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a master
are scarcely to be distinguished from commands; and the liberality of
the emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his
favorites the palaces which he had built in the several quarters of the
city, assigned them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity,
and alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital. But
these encouragements and obligations soon became superfluous, and
were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of government is fixed, a
considerable part of the public revenue will be expended by the prince
himself, by his ministers, by the officers of justice, and by the
domestics of the palace. The most wealthy of the provincials will be
attracted by the powerful motives of interest and duty, of amusement
and curiosity. A third and more numerous class of inhabitants will
insensibly be formed, of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who
derive their subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or
luxury of the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
disputed with Rome itself the preeminence of riches and numbers. New
piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard to health
or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of narrow streets for the
perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of carriages. The allotted space
of ground was insufficient to contain the increasing people; and the
additional foundations, which, on either side, were advanced into the
sea, might alone have composed a very considerable city.
The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn or
bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest citizens
of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of the first
CÊsars was in some measure imitated by the founder of Constantinople:
but his liberality, however it might excite the applause of the people,
has in curred the censure of posterity. A nation of legislators and
conquerors might assert their claim to the harvests of Africa, which
had been purchased with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by
Augustus, that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose
the memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not be
excused by any consideration either of public or private interest; and
the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for the benefit of his
new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and insolent populace, at the
expense of the husbandmen of an industrious province. * Some other
regulations of this emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less
deserving of notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
quarters, dignified the public council with the appellation of senate,
communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy, and bestowed on
the rising city the title of Colony, the first and most favored daughter
of ancient Rome. The venerable parent still maintained the legal and
acknowledged supremacy, which was due to her age, her dignity, and to
the remembrance of her former greatness.
As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience of
a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices were
completed in a few years, or, according to another account, in a
few months; but this extraordinary diligence should excite the less
admiration, since many of the buildings were finished in so hasty and
imperfect a manner, that under the succeeding reign, they were preserved
with difficulty from impending ruin. But while they displayed the vigor
and freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the dedication
of his city. The games and largesses which crowned the pomp of this
memorable festival may easily be supposed; but there is one circumstance
of a more singular and permanent nature, which ought not entirely to be
overlooked. As often as the birthday of the city returned, the statute
of Constantine, framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his
right hand a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in their
richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it moved through
the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne of the reigning
emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful reverence adored the
memory of his predecessor. At the festival of the dedication, an edict,
engraved on a column of marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome
on the city of Constantine. But the name of Constantinople has prevailed
over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author.
The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
establishment of a new form of civil and military administration.
The distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced by
Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his immediate
successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the singular picture of a
great empire, but will tend to illustrate the secret and internal causes
of its rapid decay. In the pursuit of any remarkable institution, we may
be frequently led into the more early or the more recent times of the
Roman history; but the proper limits of this inquiry will be included
within a period of about one hundred and thirty years, from the
accession of Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; from
which, as well as from the Notitia * of the East and West, we derive the
most copious and authentic information of the state of the empire.
This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the
narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers
who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they
peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the
accidental event of a battle.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part III.
The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power, had
left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious
greatness. But when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which
were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners
was insensibly corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of
Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous
in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished
by the despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were seated
on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of arbitrary
power. This multitude of abject dependants was interested in the support
of the actual government from the dread of a revolution, which might at
once confound their hopes and intercept the reward of their services. In
this divine hierarchy (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was
marked with the most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed
in a variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study to
learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. The purity of the Latin language
was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride and flattery, a
profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely have understood,
and which Augustus would have rejected with indignation. The principal
officers of the empire were saluted, even by the sovereign himself, with
the deceitful titles of your Sincerity, your Gravity, your Excellency,
your Eminence, your sublime and wonderful Magnitude, your illustrious
and magnificent Highness. The codicils or patents of their office were
curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted to explain
its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of the reigning
emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates placed on a table,
covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by four tapers; the
allegorical figures of the provinces which they governed; or the
appellations and standards of the troops whom they commanded Some of
these official ensigns were really exhibited in their hall of audience;
others preceded their pompous march whenever they appeared in public;
and every circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments,
and their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer, the
system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a splendid
theatre, filled with players of every character and degree, who repeated
the language, and imitated the passions, of their original model.
All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in the
general state of the empire, were accurately divided into three classes.
1. The Illustrious. 2. The Spectabiles, or Respectable. And, 3. the
Clarissimi; whom we may translate by the word Honorable. In the times
of Roman simplicity, the last-mentioned epithet was used only as a
vague expression of deference, till it became at length the peculiar
and appropriated title of all who were members of the senate, and
consequently of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to
govern the provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and
office, might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new appellation
of Respectable; but the title of Illustrious was always reserved to some
eminent personages who were obeyed or reverenced by the two subordinate
classes. It was communicated only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II.
To the PrÊtorian prÊfects, with the prÊfects of Rome and Constantinople;
III. To the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their sacred functions
about the person of the emperor. Among those illustrious magistrates who
were esteemed coordinate with each other, the seniority of appointment
gave place to the union of dignities. By the expedient of honorary
codicils, the emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of impatient
courtiers.
I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a free
state, they derived their right to power from the choice of the people.
As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the servitude which
they imposed, the consuls were still elected by the real or apparent
suffrage of the senate. From the reign of Diocletian, even these
vestiges of liberty were abolished, and the successful candidates who
were invested with the annual honors of the consulship, affected to
deplore the humiliating condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and
the Catos had been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass
through the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to
expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while their own
happier fate had reserved them for an age and government in which the
rewards of virtue were assigned by the unerring wisdom of a gracious
sovereign. In the epistles which the emperor addressed to the two
consuls elect, it was declared, that they were created by his sole
authority. Their names and portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory,
were dispersed over the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities,
the magistrates, the senate, and the people. Their solemn inauguration
was performed at the place of the Imperial residence; and during a
period of one hundred and twenty years, Rome was constantly deprived of
the presence of her ancient magistrates. On the morning of the first of
January, the consuls assumed the ensigns of their dignity. Their dress
was a robe of purple, embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes
ornamented with costly gems. On this solemn occasion they were attended
by the most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable axes,
were borne before them by the lictors. The procession moved from the
palace to the Forum or principal square of the city; where the consuls
ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves in the curule chairs,
which were framed after the fashion of ancient times. They immediately
exercised an act of jurisdiction, by the manumission of a slave, who was
brought before them for that purpose; and the ceremony was intended
to represent the celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author
of liberty and of the consulship, when he admitted among his
fellow-citizens the faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of
the Tarquins. The public festival was continued during several days in
all the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople,
from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the love of
pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. In the two capitals of
the empire the annual games of the theatre, the circus, and the
amphitheatre, cost four thousand pounds of gold, (about) one hundred and
sixty thousand pounds sterling: and if so heavy an expense surpassed the
faculties or the inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum
was supplied from the Imperial treasury. As soon as the consuls had
discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire into
the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the remainder of the
year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own greatness. They no
longer presided in the national councils; they no longer executed the
resolutions of peace or war. Their abilities (unless they were employed
in more effective offices) were of little moment; and their names served
only as the legal date of the year in which they had filled the chair
of Marius and of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the
last period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be compared,
and even preferred, to the possession of substantial power. The title
of consul was still the most splendid object of ambition, the noblest
reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors themselves, who disdained
the faint shadow of the republic, were conscious that they acquired
an additional splendor and majesty as often as they assumed the annual
honors of the consular dignity.
The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in any age
or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps that of the
Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established in the first age of
the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the offices of the state, and the
ceremonies of religion, were almost exclusively possessed by the former
who, preserving the purity of their blood with the most insulting
jealousy, held their clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But
these distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people,
were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts of the
Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians accumulated
wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs, contracted alliances,
and, after some generations, assumed the pride of ancient nobility. The
Patrician families, on the other hand, whose original number was
never recruited till the end of the commonwealth, either failed in the
ordinary course of nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign
and domestic wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly
mingled with the mass of the people. Very few remained who could derive
their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the city, or even from
that of the republic, when CÊsar and Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian,
created from the body of the senate a competent number of new Patrician
families, in the hope of perpetuating an order, which was still
considered as honorable and sacred. But these artificial supplies (in
which the reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
manners, and by the intermixture of nations. Little more was left when
Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and imperfect tradition,
that the Patricians had once been the first of the Romans. To form
a body of nobles, whose influence may restrain, while it secures the
authority of the monarch, would have been very inconsistent with the
character and policy of Constantine; but had he seriously entertained
such a design, it might have exceeded the measure of his power to
ratify, by an arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the
sanction of time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of
Patricians, but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of the
annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all the great
officers of state, with the most familiar access to the person of the
prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them for life; and as they
were usually favorites, and ministers who had grown old in the Imperial
court, the true etymology of the word was perverted by ignorance and
flattery; and the Patricians of Constantine were reverenced as the
adopted Fathers of the emperor and the republic.
II. The fortunes of the PrÊtorian prÊfects were essentially different
from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter saw their ancient
greatness evaporate in a vain title. The former, rising by degrees from
the most humble condition, were invested with the civil and military
administration of the Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of
Diocletian, the guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the
armies and the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care;
and, like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal,
and with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of the
prÊfects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the masters whom
they served, was supported by the strength of the PrÊtorian bands; but
after those haughty troops had been weakened by Diocletian, and finally
suppressed by Constantine, the prÊfects, who survived their fall,
were reduced without difficulty to the station of useful and obedient
ministers. When they were no longer responsible for the safety of the
emperor's person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace. They were
deprived by Constantine of all military command, as soon as they had
ceased to lead into the field, under their immediate orders, the flower
of the Roman troops; and at length, by a singular revolution, the
captains of the guards were transformed into the civil magistrates
of the provinces. According to the plan of government instituted by
Diocletian, the four princes had each their PrÊtorian prÊfect; and after
the monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he still
continued to create the same number of Four PrÊfects, and intrusted to
their care the same provinces which they already administered. 1. The
prÊfect of the East stretched his ample jurisdiction into the three
parts of the globe which were subject to the Romans, from the cataracts
of the Nile to the banks of the Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace
to the frontiers of Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia,
Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the
prÊfect of Illyricum. 3. The power of the prÊfect of Italy was not
confined to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended
over the additional territory of RhÊtia as far as the banks of the
Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over that
part of the continent of Africa which lies between the confines of
Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The prÊfect of the Gauls comprehended
under that plural denomination the kindred provinces of Britain and
Spain, and his authority was obeyed from the wall of Antoninus to the
foot of Mount Atlas.
After the PrÊtorian prÊfects had been dismissed from all military
command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise over
so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and abilities of
the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was committed the supreme
administration of justice and of the finances, the two objects which,
in a state of peace, comprehend almost all the respective duties of the
sovereign and of the people; of the former, to protect the citizens
who are obedient to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share
of their property which is required for the expenses of the state. The
coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures, whatever
could interest the public prosperity, was moderated by the authority of
the PrÊtorian prÊfects. As the immediate representatives of the Imperial
majesty, they were empowered to explain, to enforce, and on some
occasions to modify, the general edicts by their discretionary
proclamations. They watched over the conduct of the provincial
governors, removed the negligent, and inflicted punishments on the
guilty. From all the inferior jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter
of importance, either civil or criminal, might be brought before the
tribunal of the prÊfect; but his sentence was final and absolute; and
the emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the
judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with such
unbounded confidence. His appointments were suitable to his dignity; and
if avarice was his ruling passion, he enjoyed frequent opportunities
of collecting a rich harvest of fees, of presents, and of perquisites.
Though the emperors no longer dreaded the ambition of their prÊfects,
they were attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by
the uncertainty and shortness of its duration.
From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and Constantinople
were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the PrÊtorian prÊfects. The
immense size of the city, and the experience of the tardy, ineffectual
operation of the laws, had furnished the policy of Augustus with a
specious pretence for introducing a new magistrate, who alone could
restrain a servile and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary
power. Valerius Messalla was appointed the first prÊfect of Rome, that
his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at the end
of a few days, that accomplished citizen resigned his office, declaring,
with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus, that he found himself
incapable of exercising a power incompatible with public freedom. As
the sense of liberty became less exquisite, the advantages of order
were more clearly understood; and the prÊfect, who seemed to have been
designed as a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to
extend his civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
families of Rome. The prÊtors, annually created as the judges of law
and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the Forum with a
vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually admitted into the
confidence of the prince. Their courts were deserted, their number,
which had once fluctuated between twelve and eighteen, was gradually
reduced to two or three, and their important functions were confined to
the expensive obligation of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed into a
vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital, the prÊfects
assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were soon acknowledged
as the ordinary presidents of that venerable assembly. They received
appeals from the distance of one hundred miles; and it was allowed as
a principle of jurisprudence, that all municipal authority was derived
from them alone. In the discharge of his laborious employment, the
governor of Rome was assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been
originally his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments
were relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a
safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the custody
and distribution of the public allowance of corn and provisions; the
care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common sewers, and of the
navigation and bed of the Tyber; the inspection of the markets,
the theatres, and of the private as well as the public works. Their
vigilance insured the three principal objects of a regular police,
safety, plenty, and cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of
government to preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a
particular inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as
it were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the extravagant
computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior in number to the
living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years after the foundation
of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was created in that rising
metropolis, for the same uses and with the same powers. A perfect
equality was established between the dignity of the two municipal, and
that of the four PrÊtorian prÊfects.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part IV.
Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the title
of Respectable, formed an intermediate class between the illustrious
prÊfects, and the honorable magistrates of the provinces. In this class
the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and Africa, claimed a preÎminence, which
was yielded to the remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal
from their tribunal to that of the prÊfects was almost the only mark of
their dependence. But the civil government of the empire was distributed
into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled the just measure
of a powerful kingdom. The first of these dioceses was subject to the
jurisdiction of the count of the east; and we may convey some idea of
the importance and variety of his functions, by observing, that six
hundred apparitors, who would be styled at present either secretaries,
or clerks, or ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate
office. The place of Augustal prefect of Egypt was no longer filled by
a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary powers
which the situation of the country, and the temper of the inhabitants,
had once made indispensable, were still continued to the governor. The
eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica, and Thrace; of Macedonia,
Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul,
Spain, and Britain; were governed by twelve vicars or vice-prefects,
whose name sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their
office. It may be added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman
armies, the military counts and dukes, who will be hereafter mentioned,
were allowed the rank and title of Respectable.
As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the councils
of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence to divide the
substance and to multiply the titles of power. The vast countries
which the Roman conquerors had united under the same simple form of
administration, were imperceptibly crumbled into minute fragments; till
at length the whole empire was distributed into one hundred and
sixteen provinces, each of which supported an expensive and splendid
establishment. Of these, three were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven
by consulars, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents.
The appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
successive order, the ensigns of and their situation, from accidental
circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or advantageous. But they
were all (excepting only the pro-consuls) alike included in the class of
honorable persons; and they were alike intrusted, during the pleasure of
the prince, and under the authority of the prÊfects or their deputies,
with the administration of justice and the finances in their respective
districts. The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects would furnish
ample materials for a minute inquiry into the system of provincial
government, as in the space of six centuries it was approved by the
wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers. It may be sufficient for the
historian to select two singular and salutary provisions, intended to
restrain the abuse of authority. 1. For the preservation of peace and
order, the governors of the provinces were armed with the sword of
justice. They inflicted corporal punishments, and they exercised,
in capital offences, the power of life and death. But they were not
authorized to indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most honorable
kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the prÊfects,
who alone could impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds of gold: their
vicegerents were confined to the trifling weight of a few ounces.
This distinction, which seems to grant the larger, while it denies the
smaller degree of authority, was founded on a very rational motive. The
smaller degree was infinitely more liable to abuse. The passions of
a provincial magistrate might frequently provoke him into acts of
oppression, which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of the
subject; though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may likewise
be considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the choice of an
easy death, relate more particularly to the rich and the noble; and the
persons the most exposed to the avarice or resentment of a provincial
magistrate, were thus removed from his obscure persecution to the more
august and impartial tribunal of the PrÊtorian prÊfect. 2. As it was
reasonably apprehended that the integrity of the judge might be biased,
if his interest was concerned, or his affections were engaged, the
strictest regulations were established, to exclude any person, without
the special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
province where he was born; and to prohibit the governor or his son from
contracting marriage with a native, or an inhabitant; or from purchasing
slaves, lands, or houses, within the extent of his jurisdiction.
Notwithstanding these rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine,
after a reign of twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and
oppressive administration of justice, and expresses the warmest
indignation that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business,
his seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold,
either by himself or by the officers of his court. The continuance, and
perhaps the impunity, of these crimes, is attested by the repetition of
impotent laws and ineffectual menaces.
All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the law.
The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the youth of
his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the study of Roman
jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to animate their diligence,
by the assurance that their skill and ability would in time be rewarded
by an adequate share in the government of the republic. The rudiments of
this lucrative science were taught in all the considerable cities of the
east and west; but the most famous school was that of Berytus, on the
coast of Phnicia; which flourished above three centuries from the
time of Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an institution so
advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of education,
which lasted five years, the students dispersed themselves through
the provinces, in search of fortune and honors; nor could they want an
inexhaustible supply of business great empire, already corrupted by the
multiplicity of laws, of arts, and of vices. The court of the PrÊtorian
prÊfect of the east could alone furnish employment for one hundred
and fifty advocates, sixty-four of whom were distinguished by peculiar
privileges, and two were annually chosen, with a salary of sixty pounds
of gold, to defend the causes of the treasury. The first experiment was
made of their judicial talents, by appointing them to act occasionally
as assessors to the magistrates; from thence they were often raised to
preside in the tribunals before which they had pleaded. They obtained
the government of a province; and, by the aid of merit, of reputation,
or of favor, they ascended, by successive steps, to the illustrious
dignities of the state. In the practice of the bar, these men had
considered reason as the instrument of dispute; they interpreted
the laws according to the dictates of private interest and the same
pernicious habits might still adhere to their characters in the public
administration of the state. The honor of a liberal profession has
indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern advocates, who have filled
the most important stations, with pure integrity and consummate wisdom:
but in the decline of Roman jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of
lawyers was pregnant with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which
had once been preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians,
was fallen into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, who, with cunning
rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade. Some
of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of fomenting
differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a harvest of gain
for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse in their chambers,
maintained the dignity of legal professors, by furnishing a rich client
with subtleties to confound the plainest truths, and with arguments to
color the most unjustifiable pretensions. The splendid and popular class
was composed of the advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of
their turgid and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice,
they are described, for the most part, as ignorant and rapacious guides,
who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of delay, and of
disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series of years, they
were at length dismissed, when their patience and fortune were almost
exhausted.
III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the governors,
those at least of the Imperial provinces, were invested with the
full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers of peace and war, the
distribution of rewards and punishments depended on them alone, and
they successively appeared on their tribunal in the robes of civil
magistracy, and in complete armor at the head of the Roman legions. The
influence of the revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a
military force, concurred to render their power supreme and absolute;
and whenever they were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal
province which they involved in their rebellion was scarcely sensible
of any change in its political state. From the time of Commodus to the
reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors might be enumerated,
who, with various success, erected the standard of revolt; and though
the innocent were too often sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes
prevented, by the suspicious cruelty of their master. To secure his
throne and the public tranquillity from these formidable servants,
Constantine resolved to divide the military from the civil
administration, and to establish, as a permanent and professional
distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an occasional
expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the PrÊtorian
prÊfects over the armies of the empire, was transferred to the two
masters-general whom he instituted, the one for the cavalry, the other
for the infantry; and though each of these illustrious officers was more
peculiarly responsible for the discipline of those troops which were
under his immediate inspection, they both indifferently commanded in the
field the several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united in
the same army. Their number was soon doubled by the division of the
east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank and title were
appointed on the four important frontiers of the Rhine, of the Upper and
the Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates, the defence of the Roman empire
was at length committed to eight masters-general of the cavalry and
infantry. Under their orders, thirty-five military commanders were
stationed in the provinces: three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain,
one in Italy, five on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia,
eight, three in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of counts, and
dukes, by which they were properly distinguished, have obtained in
modern languages so very different a sense, that the use of them may
occasion some surprise. But it should be recollected, that the second
of those appellations is only a corruption of the Latin word, which was
indiscriminately applied to any military chief. All these provincial
generals were therefore dukes; but no more than ten among them were
dignified with the rank of counts or companions, a title of honor,
or rather of favor, which had been recently invented in the court of
Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign which distinguished the office
of the counts and dukes; and besides their pay, they received a liberal
allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred and ninety servants, and
one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They were strictly prohibited from
interfering in any matter which related to the administration of justice
or the revenue; but the command which they exercised over the troops of
their department, was independent of the authority of the magistrates.
About the same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the
ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice balance
of the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and sometimes the
discord, which reigned between two professions of opposite interests
and incompatible manners, was productive of beneficial and of pernicious
consequences. It was seldom to be expected that the general and the
civil governor of a province should either conspire for the disturbance,
or should unite for the service, of their country. While the one delayed
to offer the assistance which the other disdained to solicit, the troops
very frequently remained without orders or without supplies; the public
safety was betrayed, and the defenceless subjects were left exposed to
the fury of the Barbarians. The divided administration which had been
formed by Constantine, relaxed the vigor of the state, while it secured
the tranquillity of the monarch.
The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for another
innovation, which corrupted military discipline and prepared the ruin
of the empire. The nineteen years which preceded his final victory over
Licinius, had been a period of license and intestine war. The rivals
who contended for the possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the
greatest part of their forces from the guard of the general frontier;
and the principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their countrymen as
their most implacable enemies. After the use of these internal garrisons
had ceased with the civil war, the conqueror wanted either wisdom or
firmness to revive the severe discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress
a fatal indulgence, which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the
military order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
distinction was admitted between the Palatines and the Borderers; the
troops of the court, as they were improperly styled, and the troops of
the frontier. The former, elevated by the superiority of their pay and
privileges, were permitted, except in the extraordinary emergencies of
war, to occupy their tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces.
The most flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight
of quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They were
either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or enervated by the
luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became careless of their martial
exercises, curious in their diet and apparel; and while they inspired
terror to the subjects of the empire, they trembled at the hostile
approach of the Barbarians. The chain of fortifications which Diocletian
and his colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers,
was no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the same
vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name of the troops
of the frontier, might be sufficient for the ordinary defence; but their
spirit was degraded by the humiliating reflection, that they who were
exposed to the hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were
rewarded only with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions that were
raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy favorites, were in
some measure disgraced by the title of honor which they were allowed
to assume. It was in vain that Constantine repeated the most dreadful
menaces of fire and sword against the Borderers who should dare desert
their colors, to connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to
participate in the spoil. The mischiefs which flow from injudicious
counsels are seldom removed by the application of partial severities;
and though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and
numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last moment of
its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal wound which had
been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand of Constantine.
The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of reducing
whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and of expecting
that the most feeble will prove the most obedient, seems to pervade the
institutions of several princes, and particularly those of Constantine.
The martial pride of the legions, whose victorious camps had so often
been the scene of rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past
exploits, and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as
they maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a visible
and important object in the military history of the Roman empire. A few
years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk to a very diminutive
size; and when seven legions, with some auxiliaries, defended the city
of Amida against the Persians, the total garrison, with the inhabitants
of both sexes, and the peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed
the number of twenty thousand persons. From this fact, and from similar
examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of the
legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and discipline,
was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of Roman infantry,
which still assumed the same names and the same honors, consisted
only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men. The conspiracy of so many
separate detachments, each of which was awed by the sense of its own
weakness, could easily be checked; and the successors of Constantine
might indulge their love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one
hundred and thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their
numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed into
several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of cavalry. Their
arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to inspire terror, and to
display the variety of nations who marched under the Imperial standard.
And not a vestige was left of that severe simplicity, which, in the ages
of freedom and victory, had distinguished the line of battle of a Roman
army from the confused host of an Asiatic monarch. A more particular
enumeration, drawn from the Notitia, might exercise the diligence of an
antiquary; but the historian will content himself with observing,
that the number of permanent stations or garrisons established on the
frontiers of the empire, amounted to five hundred and eighty-three; and
that, under the successors of Constantine, the complete force of the
military establishment was computed at six hundred and forty-five
thousand soldiers. An effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more
ancient, and the faculties of a later, period.
In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very
different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the citizens
of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty; the subjects,
or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are animated by a sentiment of
honor; but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire
must be allured into the service by the hopes of profit, or compelled
by the dread of punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were
exhausted by the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by
the invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion
of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and dangers of a
military life. Yet, although the stature was lowered, although slaves,
least by a tacit connivance, were indiscriminately received into the
ranks, the insurmountable difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate
supply of volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free reward
of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition which
contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that their sons, who
succeeded to the inheritance, should devote themselves to the profession
of arms, as soon as they attained the age of manhood; and their cowardly
refusal was punished by the lose of honor, of fortune, or even of life.
But as the annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small
proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were frequently
required from the provinces, and every proprietor was obliged either to
take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to purchase his exemption
by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of forty-two pieces of gold, to
which it was reduced, ascertains the exorbitant price of volunteers, and
the reluctance with which the government admitted of this alterative.
Such was the horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected
the minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy
and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right hand, to
escape from being pressed into the service; and this strange expedient
was so commonly practised, as to deserve the severe animadversion of the
laws, and a peculiar name in the Latin language.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part V.
The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every day
more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most daring of the
Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who delighted in war, and
who found it more profitable to defend than to ravage the provinces,
were enrolled, not only in the auxiliaries of their respective nations,
but in the legions themselves, and among the most distinguished of the
Palatine troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate their
arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride of Rome had
exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the knowledge
and possession of those advantages by which alone she supported her
declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who displayed any military
talents, were advanced, without exception, to the most important
commands; and the names of the tribunes, of the counts and dukes, and of
the generals themselves, betray a foreign origin, which they no longer
condescended to disguise. They were often intrusted with the conduct of
a war against their countrymen; and though most of them preferred the
ties of allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid
the guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of sparing
his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of Constantine were
governed by the powerful faction of the Franks, who preserved the
strictest connection with each other, and with their country, and who
resented every personal affront as a national indignity. When the tyrant
Caligula was suspected of an intention to invest a very extraordinary
candidate with the consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would
have scarcely excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the
noblest chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so remarkable
a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with the public
approbation, Constantine showed his successors the example of bestowing
the honors of the consulship on the Barbarians, who, by their merit and
services, had deserved to be ranked among the first of the Romans.
But as these hardy veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or
contempt of the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices,
the powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished
citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could adapt
themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the schools, had learned
to write, to speak, and to act with the same spirit, and with equal
abilities.
IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from the
court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces and armies,
the emperor conferred the rank of Illustrious on seven of his more
immediate servants, to whose fidelity he intrusted his safety, or his
counsels, or his treasures. 1. The private apartments of the palace were
governed by a favorite eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was
styled the propositus, or prÊfect of the sacred bed-chamber. His
duty was to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in those of
amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial services,
which can only derive their splendor from the influence of royalty.
Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great chamberlain (for such we
may call him) was a useful and humble domestic; but an artful domestic,
who improves every occasion of unguarded confidence, will insensibly
acquire over a feeble mind that ascendant which harsh wisdom and
uncomplying virtue can seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of
Theodosius, who were invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to
their enemies, exalted the prÊfects of their bed-chamber above the heads
of all the ministers of the palace; and even his deputy, the first of
the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was thought
worthy to rank before the respectable proconsuls of Greece or Asia.
The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was acknowledged by the counts,
or superintendents, who regulated the two important provinces of the
magnificence of the wardrobe, and of the luxury of the Imperial table.
2. The principal administration of public affairs was committed to the
diligence and abilities of the master of the offices. He was the supreme
magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the civil and
military schools, and received appeals from all parts of the empire, in
the causes which related to that numerous army of privileged persons,
who, as the servants of the court, had obtained for themselves and
families a right to decline the authority of the ordinary judges. The
correspondence between the prince and his subjects was managed by
the four scrinia, or offices of this minister of state. The first
was appropriated to memorials, the second to epistles, the third to
petitions, and the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind.
Each of these was directed by an inferior master of respectable dignity,
and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and forty-eight
secretaries, chosen for the most part from the profession of the law,
on account of the variety of abstracts of reports and references which
frequently occurred in the exercise of their several functions. From a
condescension, which in former ages would have been esteemed unworthy
the Roman majesty, a particular secretary was allowed for the Greek
language; and interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of
the Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which constitutes
so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted the attention of
the master of the offices. His mind was more seriously engaged by the
general direction of the posts and arsenals of the empire. There were
thirty-four cities, fifteen in the East, and nineteen in the West,
in which regular companies of workmen were perpetually employed in
fabricating defensive armor, offensive weapons of all sorts, and
military engines, which were deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally
delivered for the service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine
centuries, the office of quÊstor had experienced a very singular
revolution. In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were
annually elected by the people, to relieve the consuls from the
invidious management of the public treasure; a similar assistant
was granted to every proconsul, and to every prÊtor, who exercised a
military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the two
quÊstors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of eight,
of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; and the noblest
citizens ambitiously solicited an office which gave them a seat in the
senate, and a just hope of obtaining the honors of the republic. Whilst
Augustus affected to maintain the freedom of election, he consented
to accept the annual privilege of recommending, or rather indeed of
nominating, a certain proportion of candidates; and it was his custom
to select one of these distinguished youths, to read his orations or
epistles in the assemblies of the senate. The practice of Augustus
was imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
established as a permanent office; and the favored quÊstor, assuming a
new and more illustrious character, alone survived the suppression of
his ancient and useless colleagues. As the orations which he composed in
the name of the emperor, acquired the force, and, at length, the form,
of absolute edicts, he was considered as the representative of the
legislative power, the oracle of the council, and the original source
of the civil jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat
in the supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the PrÊtorian
prÊfects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently requested
to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was not oppressed
with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure and talents were
employed to cultivate that dignified style of eloquence, which, in the
corruption of taste and language, still preserves the majesty of the
Roman laws. In some respects, the office of the Imperial quÊstor may be
compared with that of a modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal,
which seems to have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was
never introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The
extraordinary title of count of the sacred largesses was bestowed on
the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the intention perhaps of
inculcating, that every payment flowed from the voluntary bounty of the
monarch. To conceive the almost infinite detail of the annual and daily
expense of the civil and military administration in every part of a
great empire, would exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.
The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed into
eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to examine and
control their respective operations. The multitude of these agents had
a natural tendency to increase; and it was more than once thought
expedient to dismiss to their native homes the useless supernumeraries,
who, deserting their honest labors, had pressed with too much eagerness
into the lucrative profession of the finances. Twenty-nine provincial
receivers, of whom eighteen were honored with the title of count,
corresponded with the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over
the mines from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the
mints, in which they were converted into the current coin, and over
the public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the empire
was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all the linen and
woollen manufactures, in which the successive operations of spinning,
weaving, and dyeing were executed, chiefly by women of a servile
condition, for the use of the palace and army. Twenty-six of these
institutions are enumerated in the West, where the arts had been more
recently introduced, and a still larger proportion may be allowed for
the industrious provinces of the East. 5. Besides the public revenue,
which an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens, possessed
a very extensive property, which was administered by the count or
treasurer of the private estate. Some part had perhaps been the ancient
demesnes of kings and republics; some accessions might be derived from
the families which were successively invested with the purple; but the
most considerable portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations
and forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile soil of
Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country his fairest
possessions, and either Constantine or his successors embraced the
occasion of justifying avarice by religious zeal. They suppressed the
rich temple of Comana, where the high priest of the goddess of war
supported the dignity of a sovereign prince; and they applied to their
private use the consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand
subjects or slaves of the deity and her ministers. But these were not
the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot of
Mount ArgÊus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race of horses,
renowned above all others in the ancient world for their majestic shape
and incomparable swiftness. These sacred animals, destined for the
service of the palace and the Imperial games, were protected by the laws
from the profanation of a vulgar master. The demesnes of Cappadocia were
important enough to require the inspection of a count; officers of an
inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire; and the
deputies of the private, as well as those of the public, treasurer
were maintained in the exercise of their independent functions, and
encouraged to control the authority of the provincial magistrates. 6,
7. The chosen bands of cavalry and infantry, which guarded the person of
the emperor, were under the immediate command of the two counts of the
domestics. The whole number consisted of three thousand five hundred
men, divided into seven schools, or troops, of five hundred each; and in
the East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to
the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up in the
courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature, silent order,
and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a martial pomp not
unworthy of the Roman majesty. From the seven schools two companies
of horse and foot were selected, of the protectors, whose advantageous
station was the hope and reward of the most deserving soldiers.
They mounted guard in the interior apartments, and were occasionally
despatched into the provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the
orders of their master. The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
office of the PrÊtorian prÊfects; like the prÊfects, they aspired from
the service of the palace to the command of armies.
The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of posts.
But these beneficial establishments were accidentally connected with
a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three hundred agents or
messengers were employed, under the jurisdiction of the master of the
offices, to announce the names of the annual consuls, and the edicts
or victories of the emperors. They insensibly assumed the license
of reporting whatever they could observe of the conduct either of
magistrates or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes
of the monarch, and the scourge of the people. Under the warm influence
of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible number of ten
thousand, disdained the mild though frequent admonitions of the laws,
and exercised in the profitable management of the posts a rapacious and
insolent oppression. These official spies, who regularly corresponded
with the palace, were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch
the progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open revolt.
Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice was covered by
the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might securely aim their poisoned
arrows at the breast either of the guilty or the innocent, who had
provoked their resentment, or refused to purchase their silence. A
faithful subject, of Syria perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the
danger, or at least to the dread, of being dragged in chains to the
court of Milan or Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune
against the malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
administration was conducted by those methods which extreme necessity
can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were diligently supplied
by the use of torture.
The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal question, as
it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather than approved, in
the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied this sanguinary mode of
examination only to servile bodies, whose sufferings were seldom weighed
by those haughty republicans in the scale of justice or humanity; but
they would never consent to violate the sacred person of a citizen,
till they possessed the clearest evidence of his guilt. The annals
of tyranny, from the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian,
circumstantially relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as
long as the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger of
ignominious torture. The conduct of the provincial magistrates was not,
however, regulated by the practice of the city, or the strict maxims of
the civilians. They found the use of torture established not only among
the slaves of oriental despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed
a limited monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty
of commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
adorned the dignity of human kind. The acquiescence of the provincials
encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to usurp, a
discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort from vagrants or
plebeian criminals the confession of their guilt, till they insensibly
proceeded to confound the distinction of rank, and to disregard the
privileges of Roman citizens. The apprehensions of the subjects urged
them to solicit, and the interest of the sovereign engaged him to
grant, a variety of special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even
authorized, the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters, professors
of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families, municipal officers,
and their posterity to the third generation, and all children under
the age of puberty. But a fatal maxim was introduced into the new
jurisprudence of the empire, that in the case of treason, which included
every offence that the subtlety of lawyers could derive from a hostile
intention towards the prince or republic, all privileges were suspended,
and all conditions were reduced to the same ignominious level. As the
safety of the emperor was avowedly preferred to every consideration of
justice or humanity, the dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were
alike exposed to the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious
information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even as the
witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually hung over the
heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to the
smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation was in
some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those advantages, either of
nature or of fortune, which exposed them to the jealousy of the monarch.
The obscure millions of a great empire have much less to dread from
the cruelty than from the avarice of their masters, and their humble
happiness is principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes,
which, gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
philosopher has calculated the universal measure of the public
impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and ventures to
assert, that, according to an invariable law of nature, it must always
increase with the former, and diminish in a just proportion to the
latter. But this reflection, which would tend to alleviate the miseries
of despotism, is contradicted at least by the history of the Roman
empire; which accuses the same princes of despoiling the senate of its
authority, and the provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all
the various customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly
discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of
Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode of
taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary government.
Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.--Part VI.
The name and use of the indictions, which serve to ascertain the
chronology of the middle ages, were derived from the regular practice
of the Roman tributes. The emperor subscribed with his own hand, and in
purple ink, the solemn edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the
principal city of each diocese, during two months previous to the first
day of September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word
indiction was transferred to the measure of tribute which it prescribed,
and to the annual term which it allowed for the payment. This general
estimate of the supplies was proportioned to the real and imaginary
wants of the state; but as often as the expense exceeded the revenue, or
the revenue fell short of the computation, an additional tax, under the
name of superindiction, was imposed on the people, and the most valuable
attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the PrÊtorian prÊfects,
who, on some occasions, were permitted to provide for the unforeseen and
extraordinary exigencies of the public service. The execution of these
laws (which it would be tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate
detail) consisted of two distinct operations: the resolving the general
imposition into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the
provinces, the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the
collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the cities,
and the provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured into the
Imperial treasuries. But as the account between the monarch and
the subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal of the demand
anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding obligation, the
weighty machine of the finances was moved by the same hands round the
circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever was honorable or important in
the administration of the revenue, was committed to the wisdom of the
prÊfects, and their provincial representatives; the lucrative functions
were claimed by a crowd of subordinate officers, some of whom depended
on the treasurer, others on the governor of the province; and who,
in the inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the people. The
laborious offices, which could be productive only of envy and reproach,
of expense and danger, were imposed on the Decurions, who formed the
corporations of the cities, and whom the severity of the Imperial laws
had condemned to sustain the burdens of civil society. The whole landed
property of the empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the
monarch) was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser
contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate census,
or survey, was the only equitable mode of ascertaining the proportion
which every citizen should be obliged to contribute for the public
service; and from the well-known period of the indictions, there is
reason to believe that this difficult and expensive operation was
repeated at the regular distance of fifteen years. The lands were
measured by surveyors, who were sent into the provinces; their nature,
whether arable or pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly
reported; and an estimate was made of their common value from the
average produce of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle
constituted an essential part of the report; an oath was administered
to the proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their
affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the intention of
the legislator, were severely watched, and punished as a capital crime,
which included the double guilt of treason and sacrilege. A large
portion of the tribute was paid in money; and of the current coin of
the empire, gold alone could be legally accepted. The remainder of the
taxes, according to the proportions determined by the annual indiction,
was furnished in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.
According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in the
various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or iron, was
transported by the labor or at the expense of the provincials * to the
Imperial magazines, from whence they were occasionally distributed
for the use of the court, of the army, and of two capitals, Rome and
Constantinople. The commissioners of the revenue were so frequently
obliged to make considerable purchases, that they were strictly
prohibited from allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money
the value of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive
simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted to
collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it is at once
susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost strictness, which
in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must introduce a perpetual contest
between the power of oppression and the arts of fraud. The agriculture
of the Roman provinces was insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of
despotism which tends to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were
obliged to derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the
remission of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of
paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and happy
province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and of the
delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended between the
sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus. Within sixty years
after the death of Constantine, and on the evidence of an actual survey,
an exemption was granted in favor of three hundred and thirty thousand
English acres of desert and uncultivated land; which amounted to one
eighth of the whole surface of the province. As the footsteps of the
Barbarians had not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing
desolation, which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
administration of the Roman emperors.
Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment seemed to
unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a capitation. The
returns which were sent of every province or district, expressed the
number of tributary subjects, and the amount of the public impositions.
The latter of these sums was divided by the former; and the estimate,
that such a province contained so many capita, or heads of tribute; and
that each head was rated at such a price, was universally received, not
only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value of
a tributary head must have varied, according to many accidental, or at
least fluctuating circumstances; but some knowledge has been preserved
of a very curious fact, the more important, since it relates to one of
the richest provinces of the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as
the most splendid of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of
Constantius had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five
pieces of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy
of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. A moderate
proportion between these opposite extremes of extraordinary oppression
and of transient indulgence, may therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces
of gold, or about nine pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps,
of the impositions of Gaul. But this calculation, or rather, indeed,
the facts from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two
difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by the
equality, and by the enormity, of the capitation. An attempt to explain
them may perhaps reflect some light on the interesting subject of the
finances of the declining empire.