Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove i_The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes)

community, was most happily suited to the situation of the

Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to the

dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the

modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes,

the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence

over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute

nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the

fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal

complaint. 106 But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant,

and his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile

crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls,

courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies,

served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death.

The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most

lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar

appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively

descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the

hunters and their game. 107 Yet, while so many unjust and

extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and

subscribed by folly, a few were the result of rational esteem and

virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives

and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies

to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; 108 nor

do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less

generous to that amiable orator. 109 Whatever was the motive of

the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the

twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three

generations, the whole property of the subject must have

gradually passed through the coffers of the state.

106 (return) [ See Heineccius in the Antiquit. Juris Romani, l.

ii.]

107 (return) [ Horat. l. ii. Sat. v. Potron. c. 116, &c. Plin. l.

ii. Epist. 20.]

108 (return) [ Cicero in Philip. ii. c. 16.]

109 (return) [ See his epistles. Every such will gave him an

occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice

to the living. He reconciled both in his behavior to a son who

had been disinherited by his mother, (v.l.)]

In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince,

from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of

benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the

customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his

magnanimity: but they diverted him from the execution of a design

which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the

republic. 110 Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream

of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely

have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring

so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with

alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it.

The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and

measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank

against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the

insolent vexation of the farmers of the revenue. 111 For it is

somewhat singular, that, in every age, the best and wisest of the

Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of

collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and

customs. 112

110 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, l. xii.

c. 19.]

111 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, the Augustan History, and

Burman de Vectigal. passim.]

112 (return) [ The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed;

since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears.]

The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were

very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or

rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself

under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he

had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by

Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most

fruitful, as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was

not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased

with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens,

though charged, on equal terms, 113 with the payment of new

taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample

compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they

acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was

thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a

distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the

reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title,

and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. 1131 Nor was the

rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of

taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors.

Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and

inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion

was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the

empire under the weight of his iron sceptre. 114

113 (return) [ The situation of the new citizens is minutely

described by Pliny, (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published

a law very much in their favor.]

1131 (return) [ Gibbon has adopted the opinion of Spanheim and of

Burman, which attributes to Caracalla this edict, which gave the

right of the city to all the inhabitants of the provinces. This

opinion may be disputed. Several passages of Spartianus, of

Aurelius Victor, and of Aristides, attribute this edict to Marc.

Aurelius. See a learned essay, entitled Joh. P. Mahneri Comm. de

Marc. Aur. Antonino Constitutionis de Civitate Universo Orbi

Romano data auctore. Halæ, 1772, 8vo. It appears that Marc.

Aurelius made some modifications of this edict, which released

the provincials from some of the charges imposed by the right of

the city, and deprived them of some of the advantages which it

conferred. Caracalla annulled these modifications.—W.]

114 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1295.]

When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar

impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal

exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former

condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government

adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as

the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It

was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a

great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the

tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of

his accession. 115 It is impossible to conjecture the motive that

engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil;

but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated,

again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the

succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In

the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to

explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions

of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the

provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

115 (return) [ He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was

charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and

proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander’s order.

Hist. August. p. 127, with the commentary of Salmasius.]

As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of

government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and

insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal

commands of the army were filled by men who had received a

liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws

and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the

regular succession of civil and military honors. 116 To their

influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience

of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial

history.

116 (return) [ See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan,

Severus, and his three competitors; and indeed of all the eminent

men of those times.]

But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was

trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions

gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more

polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified

to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was

abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who

knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no

civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With

bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they

sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the

emperors.

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

Maximin.—Part I.

The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And Italy,

Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And Seditions.—Violent

Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And Balbinus, And Of The

Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games Of Philip.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the

world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope

for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant

smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation,

like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet

unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors

and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to

empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and

protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may

paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our

more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that

establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of

mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which

deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal,

power of giving themselves a master.

In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary

forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly

bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage

of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics,

and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a

monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous

part of the people. The army is the only order of men

sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and

powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their

fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once

to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of

a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or

political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted

with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will

acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their

suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the

most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the

expense of the public; and both may be turned against the

possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.

The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the

sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least

invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged

right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious

security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm

establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and

mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it

we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an

Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his

fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is

usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon

as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the

sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of

his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of

the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion.

The royal, and even noble, families of the provinces had long

since been led in triumph before the car of the haughty

republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen

beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were

shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the

repeated failure of their posterity, 1 it was impossible that any

idea of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds

of their subjects. The right to the throne, which none could

claim from birth, every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes

of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law

and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly,

entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank

in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest

the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master.

After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of

Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and

every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that

august, but dangerous station.

1 (return) [ There had been no example of three successive

generations on the throne; only three instances of sons who

succeeded their fathers. The marriages of the Cæsars

(notwithstanding the permission, and the frequent practice of

divorces) were generally unfruitful.]

About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus,

returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to

celebrate, with military games, the birthday of his younger son,

Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,

and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in

his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the

prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been

disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian

peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp,

sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory

was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist

in the troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was

distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting

after the fashion of his country. As soon as he perceived that he

had attracted the emperor’s notice, he instantly ran up to his

horse, and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of

fatigue, in a long and rapid career. “Thracian,” said Severus

with astonishment, “art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?”

“Most willingly, sir,” replied the unwearied youth; and, almost

in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the

army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and

activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the

horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign. 2

2 (return) [ Hist. August p. 138.]

Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of

the empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father

was a Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He

displayed on every occasion a valor equal to his strength; and

his native fierceness was soon tempered or disguised by the

knowledge of the world. Under the reign of Severus and his son,

he obtained the rank of centurion, with the favor and esteem of

both those princes, the former of whom was an excellent judge of

merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the assassin of

Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate insults of

Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to court,

and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,

and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was

appointed tribune, soon became, under his care, the best

disciplined of the whole army. With the general applause of the

soldiers, who bestowed on their favorite hero the names of Ajax

and Hercules, he was successively promoted to the first military

command; 3 and had not he still retained too much of his savage

origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his own sister in

marriage to the son of Maximin. 4

3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 140. Herodian, l. vi. p. 223.

Aurelius Victor. By comparing these authors, it should seem that

Maximin had the particular command of the Tribellian horse, with

the general commission of disciplining the recruits of the whole

army. His biographer ought to have marked, with more care, his

exploits, and the successive steps of his military promotions.]

4 (return) [ See the original letter of Alexander Severus, Hist.

August. p. 149.]

Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to

inflame the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his

fortune inadequate to his merit, as long as he was constrained to

acknowledge a superior. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was

not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the

emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to

improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is easy for

faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of

the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully

confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest

affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of

Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which,

during thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline

imposed by an effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother

and of the senate. It was time, they cried, to cast away that

useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect for their prince

and general a real soldier, educated in camps, exercised in war,

who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions

the treasures, of the empire. A great army was at that time

assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the command of the

emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return from

the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians

of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new

levies was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field

of exercise, the troops, either from a sudden impulse, or a

formed conspiracy, saluted him emperor, silenced by their loud

acclamations his obstinate refusal, and hastened to consummate

their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.

The circumstances of his death are variously related. The

writers, who suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude

and ambition of Maximin affirm that, after taking a frugal repast

in the sight of the army, he retired to sleep, and that, about

the seventh hour of the day, a part of his own guards broke into

the imperial tent, and, with many wounds, assassinated their

virtuous and unsuspecting prince. 5 If we credit another, and

indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested with the

purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several miles

from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the

secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.

Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty

among the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity

quickly vanished on the appearance of Maximin, who declared

himself the friend and advocate of the military order, and was

unanimously acknowledged emperor of the Romans by the applauding

legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and deserted, withdrew into

his tent, desirous at least to conceal his approaching fate from

the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed by a tribune

and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of

receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his

unavailing cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his

life, and converted into contempt some portion of the just pity

which his innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother,

Mamæa, whose pride and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of

his ruin, perished with her son. The most faithful of his friends

were sacrificed to the first fury of the soldiers. Others were

reserved for the more deliberate cruelty of the usurper; and

those who experienced the mildest treatment, were stripped of

their employments, and ignominiously driven from the court and

army. 6

5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 135. I have softened some of the

most improbable circumstances of this wretched biographer. From

his ill-worded narration, it should seem that the prince’s

buffoon having accidentally entered the tent, and awakened the

slumbering monarch, the fear of punishment urged him to persuade

the disaffected soldiers to commit the murder.]

6 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. 223-227.]

The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,

were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, 7 educated in the

purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome,

and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was

derived from a different source, the fear of contempt. Though he

depended on the attachment of the soldiers, who loved him for

virtues like their own, he was conscious that his mean and

barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total ignorance

of the arts and institutions of civil life, 8 formed a very

unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy

Alexander. He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had

often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and

had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. He

recollected too the friendship of a few who had relieved his

poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But those who had

spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were guilty

of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For

this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of

several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of

blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude. 9

7 (return) [ Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only

twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; Caracalla

was twenty-three, Commodus nineteen, and Nero no more than

seventeen.]

8 (return) [ It appears that he was totally ignorant of the Greek

language; which, from its universal use in conversation and

letters, was an essential part of every liberal education.]

9 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 141. Herodian, l. vii. p. 237. The

latter of these historians has been most unjustly censured for

sparing the vices of Maximin.]

The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every

suspicion against those among his subjects who were the most

distinguished by their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed

with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and

unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life was either discovered

or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named as the

principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial, and

without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of

his supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole

empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the

slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had

governed provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the

consular and triumphal ornaments, were chained on the public

carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence.

Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon

instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he

ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals,

others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to

death with clubs. During the three years of his reign, he

disdained to visit either Rome or Italy. His camp, occasionally

removed from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Danube, was

the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on every

principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed

power of the sword. 10 No man of noble birth, elegant

accomplishments, or knowledge of civil business, was suffered

near his person; and the court of a Roman emperor revived the

idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose

savage power had left a deep impression of terror and

detestation. 11

10 (return) [ The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels

with female gentleness, sometimes brought back the tyrant to the

way of truth and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c.

l, where he alludes to the fact which he had more fully related

under the reign of the Gordians. We may collect from the medals,

that Paullina was the name of this benevolent empress; and from

the title of Diva, that she died before Maximin. (Valesius ad

loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N. tom. ii. p. 300. Note:

If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was Maximin himself

who ordered her death—G]

11 (return) [ He was compared to Spartacus and Athenio. Hist.

August p. 141.]

As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious

senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or

army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the

people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with

pleasure. But the tyrant’s avarice, stimulated by the insatiate

desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property.

Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue,

destined to purchase corn for the multitude, and to supply the

expenses of the games and entertainments. By a single act of

authority, the whole mass of wealth was at once confiscated for

the use of the Imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of

their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues

of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down and coined into

money. These impious orders could not be executed without tumults

and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die

in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of

peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The

soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was

distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were

in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their

friends and relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry

of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy

of human kind; and at length, by an act of private oppression, a

peaceful and unarmed province was driven into rebellion against

him. 12

12 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 238. Zosim. l. i. p. 15.]

The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master,

who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of

the most fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous

sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of that

country, the execution of which would have stripped them of far

the greater part of their patrimony. In this extremity, a

resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was

dictated by despair. A respite of three days, obtained with

difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in

collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and

peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and

armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of

the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the

procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their

garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train,

seized on the little town of Thysdrus, 13 and erected the

standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire.

They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against Maximin,

and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant

an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and

esteem of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would

give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their

proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with

unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears,

that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and

innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood.

Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his

only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;

since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been

esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who

deliberate have already rebelled. 14

13 (return) [ In the fertile territory of Byzacium, one hundred

and fifty miles to the south of Carthage. This city was

decorated, probably by the Gordians, with the title of colony,

and with a fine amphitheatre, which is still in a very perfect

state. See Intinerar. Wesseling, p. 59; and Shaw’s Travels, p.

117.]

14 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 239. Hist. August. p. 153.]

The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the

Roman senate. On the father’s side he was descended from the

Gracchi; on his mother’s, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate

enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the

enjoyment of it, he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent

disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly inhabited by the great

Pompey, had been, during several generations, in the possession

of Gordian’s family. 15 It was distinguished by ancient trophies

of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern

painting. His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for

baths of singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a

hundred feet in length, and for a magnificent portico, supported

by two hundred columns of the four most curious and costly sorts

of marble. 16 The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in

which the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild

beasts and gladiators, 17 seem to surpass the fortune of a

subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was

confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of

Gordian was repeated, when he was ædile, every month in the year,

and extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of

Italy. He was twice elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by

Caracalla and by Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent

of acquiring the esteem of virtuous princes, without alarming the

jealousy of tyrants. His long life was innocently spent in the

study of letters and the peaceful honors of Rome; and, till he

was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the senate and the

approbation of Alexander, 18 he appears prudently to have

declined the command of armies and the government of provinces.

181 As long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the

administration of his worthy representative: after the barbarous

Maximin had usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries

which he was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the

purple, he was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable

remains of the happy age of the Antonines, whose virtues he

revived in his own conduct, and celebrated in an elegant poem of

thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his son, who had

accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise

declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character

was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two

acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand

volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the

productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former

as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for

ostentation. 19 The Roman people acknowledged in the features of

the younger Gordian the resemblance of Scipio Africanus, 191

recollected with pleasure that his mother was the granddaughter

of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those latent

virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain

concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.

15 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 152. The celebrated house of Pompey

in carinis was usurped by Marc Antony, and consequently became,

after the Triumvir’s death, a part of the Imperial domain. The

emperor Trajan allowed, and even encouraged, the rich senators to

purchase those magnificent and useless places, (Plin. Panegyric.

c. 50;) and it may seem probable, that, on this occasion,

Pompey’s house came into the possession of Gordian’s

great-grandfather.]

16 (return) [ The Claudian, the Numidian, the Carystian, and the

Synnadian. The colors of Roman marbles have been faintly

described and imperfectly distinguished. It appears, however,

that the Carystian was a sea-green, and that the marble of

Synnada was white mixed with oval spots of purple. See Salmasius

ad Hist. August. p. 164.]

17 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 151, 152. He sometimes gave five

hundred pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and

fifty. He once gave for the use of the circus one hundred

Sicilian, and as many Cappæcian Cappadecian horses. The animals

designed for hunting were chiefly bears, boars, bulls, stags,

elks, wild asses, &c. Elephants and lions seem to have been

appropriated to Imperial magnificence.]

18 (return) [ See the original letter, in the Augustan History,

p. 152, which at once shows Alexander’s respect for the authority

of the senate, and his esteem for the proconsul appointed by that

assembly.]

181 (return) [ Herodian expressly says that he had administered

many provinces, lib. vii. 10.—W.]

19 (return) [ By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left

three or four children. His literary productions, though less

numerous, were by no means contemptible.]

191 (return) [ Not the personal likeness, but the family descent

from the Scipiod.—W.]

As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a

popular election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were

received with the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their

virtues, and who, since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld

the majesty of a Roman emperor. But these vain acclamations

neither strengthened nor confirmed the title of the Gordians.

They were induced by principle, as well as interest, to solicit

the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of the noblest

provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and

justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long

suffered with patience, were at length resolved to act with

vigor. The letters of the new princes were modest and respectful,

excusing the necessity which had obliged them to accept the

Imperial title; but submitting their election and their fate to

the supreme judgment of the senate. 20

20 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 243. Hist. August. p. 144.]

The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided.

The birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately

connected them with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their

fortune had created many dependants in that assembly, their merit

had acquired many friends. Their mild administration opened the

flattering prospect of the restoration, not only of the civil but

even of the republican government. The terror of military

violence, which had first obliged the senate to forget the murder

of Alexander, and to ratify the election of a barbarian peasant,

21 now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them to assert

the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of Maximin

towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest

submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence

would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own

safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which

(if unsuccessful) they were sure to be the first victims. These

considerations, and perhaps others of a more private nature, were

debated in a previous conference of the consuls and the

magistrates. As soon as their resolution was decided, they

convoked in the temple of Castor the whole body of the senate,

according to an ancient form of secrecy, 22 calculated to awaken

their attention, and to conceal their decrees. “Conscript

fathers,” said the consul Syllanus, “the two Gordians, both of

consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your

lieutenant, have been declared emperors by the general consent of

Africa. Let us return thanks,” he boldly continued, “to the youth

of Thysdrus; let us return thanks to the faithful people of

Carthage, our generous deliverers from a horrid monster—Why do

you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do you cast those

anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a public

enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy

the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and

constancy of Gordian the son!” 23 The noble ardor of the consul

revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree,

the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and

his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country, and

liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and

good fortune to destroy them.

21 (return) [ Quod. tamen patres dum periculosum existimant;

inermes armato esistere approbaverunt.—Aurelius Victor.]

22 (return) [ Even the servants of the house, the scribes, &c.,

were excluded, and their office was filled by the senators

themselves. We are obliged to the Augustan History. p. 159, for

preserving this curious example of the old discipline of the

commonwealth.]

23 (return) [ This spirited speech, translated from the Augustan

historian, p. 156, seems transcribed by him from the origina

registers of the senate]

During the emperor’s absence, a detachment of the Prætorian

guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the

capital. The præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to

Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even

prevented the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could

rescue the authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators

from a state of danger and suspense. Before their resolves had

transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were commissioned to take

his devoted life. They executed the order with equal boldness and

success; and, with their bloody daggers in their hands, ran

through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers

the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was

seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money;

the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the

empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two

Gordians and the senate; 24 and the example of Rome was followed

by the rest of Italy.

24 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 244]

A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had

been insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The

senate assumed the reins of government, and, with a calm

intrepidity, prepared to vindicate by arms the cause of freedom.

Among the consular senators recommended by their merit and

services to the favor of the emperor Alexander, it was easy to

select twenty, not unequal to the command of an army, and the

conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy intrusted.

Each was appointed to act in his respective department,

authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and

instructed to fortify the ports and highways, against the

impending invasion of Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from

the most illustrious of the senatorian and equestrian orders,

were despatched at the same time to the governors of the several

provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of

their country, and to remind the nations of their ancient ties of

friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general respect

with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy

and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that

the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress,

in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression

than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth,

inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in

those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit

of a few factious and designing leaders. 25

25 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 247, l. viii. p. 277. Hist.

August. p 156-158.]

For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such

diffusive ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble

court of Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of

Capelianus, governor of Mauritania, who, with a small band of

veterans, and a fierce host of barbarians, attacked a faithful,

but unwarlike province. The younger Gordian sallied out to meet

the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a numerous

undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of

Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an

honorable death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose

reign had not exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on

the first news of the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence,

opened her gates to the conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the

rapacious cruelty of a slave, obliged to satisfy his unrelenting

master with a large account of blood and treasure. 26

26 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 254. Hist. August. p. 150-160.

We may observe, that one month and six days, for the reign of

Gordian, is a just correction of Casaubon and Panvinius, instead

of the absurd reading of one year and six months. See Commentar.

p. 193. Zosimus relates, l. i. p. 17, that the two Gordians

perished by a tempest in the midst of their navigation. A strange

ignorance of history, or a strange abuse of metaphors!]

The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected

terror. The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected

to transact the common business of the day; and seemed to

decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own

and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the

assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan,

awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented

to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been

long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by

nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy,

at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their

only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the

field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death

reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. “We have lost,” continued

he, “two excellent princes; but unless we desert ourselves, the

hopes of the republic have not perished with the Gordians. Many

are the senators whose virtues have deserved, and whose abilities

would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect two emperors,

one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy, whilst

his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.

I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the

nomination, and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus.

Ratify my choice, conscript fathers, or appoint in their place,

others more worthy of the empire.” The general apprehension

silenced the whispers of jealousy; the merit of the candidates

was universally acknowledged; and the house resounded with the

sincere acclamations of “Long life and victory to the emperors

Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the

senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!” 27

27 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 166, from the

registers of the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the

coincidence of the Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]

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

Maximin.—Part II.

The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the

most sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their

talents seemed to appropriate to each his peculiar department of

peace and war, without leaving room for jealous emulation.

Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and

a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause

the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of

the empire. His birth was noble, 28 his fortune affluent, his

manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure was

corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease

deprived him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was

formed in a rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had

raised himself from the meanest origin to the first employments

of the state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the

Germans, the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of

his justice, while he was a Præfect of the city, commanded the

esteem of a people whose affections were engaged in favor of the

more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had both been consuls,

(Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,) both had been

named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and since the

one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, 29 they had

both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

28 (return) [ He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble

Spaniard, and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian.

Balbus obtained the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and

preserved it by the eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel.

Balbo.) The friendship of Cæsar, (to whom he rendered the most

important secret services in the civil war) raised him to the

consulship and the pontificate, honors never yet possessed by a

stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed over the

Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he

distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies,

with his usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers

concerning them.]

29 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is

to be had on the authority of a modern Greek, so grossly ignorant

of the history of the third century, that he creates several

imaginary emperors, and confounds those who really existed.]

After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal

portion of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of

Fathers of their country, and the joint office of Supreme

Pontiff, they ascended to the Capitol to return thanks to the

gods, protectors of Rome. 30 The solemn rites of sacrifice were

disturbed by a sedition of the people. The licentious multitude

neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear

the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers surrounded

the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted their

inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;

and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two

emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the

family of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those

princes who had sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the

head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order,

Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the

seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones,

drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the

contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both

parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the

elder, and nephew 301 of the younger Gordian, was produced to the

people, invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The

tumult was appeased by this easy condescension; and the two

emperors, as soon as they had been peaceably acknowledged in

Rome, prepared to defend Italy against the common enemy.

30 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 256, supposes that the senate

was at first convoked in the Capitol, and is very eloquent on the

occasion. The Augustar History p. 116, seems much more

authentic.]

301 (return) [ According to some, the son.—G.]

Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with

such amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by

the most furious passions. He is said to have received the news

of the rebellion of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate

against him, not with the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild

beast; which, as it could not discharge itself on the distant

senate, threatened the life of his son, of his friends, and of

all who ventured to approach his person. The grateful

intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed by

the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon

or accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors,

with whose merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the

only consolation left to Maximin, and revenge could only be

obtained by arms. The strength of the legions had been assembled

by Alexander from all parts of the empire. Three successful

campaigns against the Germans and the Sarmatians, had raised

their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even increased their

numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the barbarian

youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the candid

severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or

even the abilities of an experienced general. 31 It might

naturally be expected, that a prince of such a character, instead

of suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should

immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of

the Tyber, and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt

for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should

have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative

conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the obscure chronology of

that period, 32 it appears that the operations of some foreign

war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From

the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage

features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of

party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the

force of reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of

the generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome

before he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries. 33

31 (return) [ In Herodian, l. vii. p. 249, and in the Augustan

History, we have three several orations of Maximin to his army,

on the rebellion of Africa and Rome: M. de Tillemont has very

justly observed that they neither agree with each other nor with

truth. Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 799.]

32 (return) [ The carelessness of the writers of that age, leaves

us in a singular perplexity. 1. We know that Maximus and Balbinus

were killed during the Capitoline games. Herodian, l. viii. p.

285. The authority of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables

us to fix those games with certainty to the year 238, but leaves

us in ignorance of the month or day. 2. The election of Gordian

by the senate is fixed with equal certainty to the 27th of May;

but we are at a loss to discover whether it was in the same or

the preceding year. Tillemont and Muratori, who maintain the two

opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory troop of

authorities, conjectures and probabilities. The one seems to draw

out, the other to contract the series of events between those

periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history.

Yet it is necessary to choose between them. Note: Eckhel has more

recently treated these chronological questions with a perspicuity

which gives great probability to his conclusions. Setting aside

all the historians, whose contradictions are irreconcilable, he

has only consulted the medals, and has arranged the events before

us in the following order:— Maximin, A. U. 990, after having

conquered the Germans, reenters Pannonia, establishes his winter

quarters at Sirmium, and prepares himself to make war against the

people of the North. In the year 991, in the cal ends of January,

commences his fourth tribunate. The Gordians are chosen emperors

in Africa, probably at the beginning of the month of March. The

senate confirms this election with joy, and declares Maximin the

enemy of Rome. Five days after he had heard of this revolt,

Maximin sets out from Sirmium on his march to Italy. These events

took place about the beginning of April; a little after, the

Gordians are slain in Africa by Capellianus, procurator of

Mauritania. The senate, in its alarm, names as emperors Balbus

and Maximus Pupianus, and intrusts the latter with the war

against Maximin. Maximin is stopped on his road near Aquileia, by

the want of provisions, and by the melting of the snows: he

begins the siege of Aquileia at the end of April. Pupianus

assembles his army at Ravenna. Maximin and his son are

assassinated by the soldiers enraged at the resistance of

Aquileia: and this was probably in the middle of May. Pupianus

returns to Rome, and assumes the government with Balbinus; they

are assassinated towards the end of July Gordian the younger

ascends the throne. Eckhel de Doct. Vol vii 295.—G.]

33 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 24. The president de

Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates)

expresses the sentiments of the dictator in a spirited, and even

a sublime manner.]

When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived

at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the

silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy.

The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach

by the inhabitants, the cattle was driven away, the provisions

removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing

left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an

invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals of the

senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of

Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his

strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which

they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the

deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock

of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the

Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows, 34

opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length,

on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of

large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank,

rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of

Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the

buildings in the engines and towers, with which on every side he

attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security

of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudden

emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the

constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being

dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their

knowledge of the tyrant’s unrelenting temper. Their courage was

supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the

twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of

regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place.

The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his

machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire; and the

generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a

confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar

deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed

worshippers. 35

34 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks

the melting of the snows suits better with the months of June or

July, than with those of February. The opinion of a man who

passed his life between the Alps and the Apennines, is

undoubtedly of great weight; yet I observe, 1. That the long

winter, of which Muratori takes advantage, is to be found only in

the Latin version, and not in the Greek text of Herodian. 2. That

the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the soldiers of

Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote the

spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that

these several streams, as they melted into one, composed the

Timavus, so poetically (in every sense of the word) described by

Virgil. They are about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See

Cluver. Italia Antiqua, tom. i. p. 189, &c.]

35 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was

supposed to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of

the senate. A temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in

honor of the women of Aquileia, who had given up their hair to

make ropes for the military engines.]

The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to

secure that important place, and to hasten the military

preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful

mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible, that a single

town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army;

and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate

resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the

fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the

empire and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the

chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran

legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among

the generous but enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German

auxiliaries, on whose firmness, in the hour of trial, it was

dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the

stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and

delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would

surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common

miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied,

and several fountains within the walls assured them of an

inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin

were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season,

the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open

country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and

polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began

to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from

all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had

embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as

devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of

Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by

disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army;

and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror,

inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of

Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in

the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate.

Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his

son (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple),

Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.

36 The sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears,

convinced the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end;

the gates of the city were thrown open, a liberal market was

provided for the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army

joined in solemn protestations of fidelity to the senate and the

people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors Maximus and

Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage,

destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every

sentiment that distinguishes a civilized, or even a human being.

The body was suited to the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded

the measure of eight feet, and circumstances almost incredible

are related of his matchless strength and appetite. 37 Had he

lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry might well

have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose

supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of

mankind.

36 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146.

The duration of Maximin’s reign has not been defined with much

accuracy, except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a

few days, (l. ix. 1;) we may depend on the integrity of the text,

as the Latin original is checked by the Greek version of

Pæanius.]

37 (return) [ Eight Roman feet and one third, which are equal to

above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other

in the proportion of 967 to 1000. See Graves’s discourse on the

Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an

amphora (or about seven gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty

pounds of meat. He could move a loaded wagon, break a horse’s leg

with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, and tear up small

trees by the roots. See his life in the Augustan History.]

It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of

the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is

said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The

return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and

young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made

their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of

almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid

offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the

unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded

themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. 38

The conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these

expectations. They administered justice in person; and the rigor

of the one was tempered by the other’s clemency. The oppressive

taxes with which Maximin had loaded the rights of inheritance and

succession, were repealed, or at least moderated. Discipline was

revived, and with the advice of the senate many wise laws were

enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored to restore a

civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. “What reward

may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?” was the

question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.

Balbinus answered it without hesitation—“The love of the senate,

of the people, and of all mankind.” “Alas!” replied his more

penetrating colleague—“alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers,

and the fatal effects of their resentment.” 39 His apprehensions

were but too well justified by the event.

38 (return) [ See the congratulatory letter of Claudius Julianus,

the consul to the two emperors, in the Augustan History.]

39 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 171.]

Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common

foe, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes

of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in

the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled, every

senator carried either open or concealed arms. In the midst of

their deliberations, two veterans of the guards, actuated either

by curiosity or a sinister motive, audaciously thrust themselves

into the house, and advanced by degrees beyond the altar of

Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a Prætorian

senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:

drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed

them) dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the

door of the senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to

massacre the Prætorians, as the secret adherents of the tyrant.

Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the

camp, which they defended with superior advantage against the

reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the numerous bands

of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil war

lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.

When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the

Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their

turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a

great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of

the inhabitants. The emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual

edicts and precarious truces, to reconcile the factions at Rome.

But their animosity, though smothered for a while, burnt with

redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and the

people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the

spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects. 40

40 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 258.]

After the tyrant’s death, his formidable army had acknowledged,

from necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus,

who transported himself without delay to the camp before

Aquileia. As soon as he had received their oath of fidelity, he

addressed them in terms full of mildness and moderation;

lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,

and assured the soldiers, that of all their past conduct the

senate would remember only their generous desertion of the

tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus

enforced his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the

camp by a solemn sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the

legions to their several provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with

a lively sense of gratitude and obedience. 41 But nothing could

reconcile the haughty spirit of the Prætorians. They attended the

emperors on the memorable day of their public entry into Rome;

but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen, dejected

countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they

considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of

the triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those

who had served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome,

insensibly communicated to each other their complaints and

apprehensions. The emperors chosen by the army had perished with

ignominy; those elected by the senate were seated on the throne.

42 The long discord between the civil and military powers was

decided by a war, in which the former had obtained a complete

victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine of submission

to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that politic

assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of

discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good.

But their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had

courage to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it

was easy to convince the world, that those who were masters of

the arms, were masters of the authority, of the state.

41 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 213.]

42 (return) [ The observation had been made imprudently enough in

the acclamations of the senate, and with regard to the soldiers

it carried the appearance of a wanton insult. Hist. August. p.

170.]

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

the declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of

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

weakening by division the despotism of the supreme magistrate.

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

emperors and to themselves. The jealousy of power was soon

exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised

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

his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was

understood rather than seen; 43 but the mutual consciousness

prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence

against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole

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

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

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

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

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

they wasted the important moments in idle debates and fruitless

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

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

they called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their

garments, and dragged them in insolent triumph through the

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

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

faithful Germans of the Imperial guards shortened their tortures;

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

exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace. 44

43 (return) [ Discordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius

quam viderentur. _Hist. August_. p. 170. This well-chosen

expression is probably stolen from some better writer.]

44 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 287, 288.]

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

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

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

the vacant throne. 45 They carried him to the camp, and

unanimously saluted him Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear

to the senate and people; his tender age promised a long impunity

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

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

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

new civil war in the heart of the capital. 46

45 (return) [ Quia non alius erat in præsenti, is the expression

of the Augustan History.]

46 (return) [ Quintus Curtius (l. x. c. 9,) pays an elegant

compliment to the emperor of the day, for having, by his happy

accession, extinguished so many firebrands, sheathed so many

swords, and put an end to the evils of a divided government.

After weighing with attention every word of the passage, I am of

opinion, that it suits better with the elevation of Gordian, than

with any other period of the Roman history. In that case, it may

serve to decide the age of Quintus Curtius. Those who place him

under the first Cæsars, argue from the purity of his style but

are embarrassed by the silence of Quintilian, in his accurate

list of Roman historians. * Note: This conjecture of Gibbon is

without foundation. Many passages in the work of Quintus Curtius

clearly place him at an earlier period. Thus, in speaking of the

Parthians, he says, Hinc in Parthicum perventum est, tunc

ignobilem gentem: nunc caput omnium qui post Euphratem et Tigrim

amnes siti Rubro mari terminantur. The Parthian empire had this

extent only in the first age of the vulgar æra: to that age,

therefore, must be assigned the date of Quintus Curtius. Although

the critics (says M. de Sainte Croix) have multiplied conjectures

on this subject, most of them have ended by adopting the opinion

which places Quintus Curtius under the reign of Claudius. See

Just. Lips. ad Ann. Tac. ii. 20. Michel le Tellier Præf. in Curt.

Tillemont Hist. des Emp. i. p. 251. Du Bos Reflections sur la

Poesie, 2d Partie. Tiraboschi Storia della, Lett. Ital. ii. 149.

Examen. crit. des Historiens d’Alexandre, 2d ed. p. 104, 849,

850.—G. ——This interminable question seems as much perplexed as

ever. The first argument of M. Guizot is a strong one, except

that Parthian is often used by later writers for Persian.

Cunzius, in his preface to an edition published at Helmstadt,

(1802,) maintains the opinion of Bagnolo, which assigns Q.

Curtius to the time of Constantine the Great. Schmieder, in his

edit. Gotting. 1803, sums up in this sentence, ætatem Curtii

ignorari pala mest.—M.]

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

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

greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more

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

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

unexperienced youth. Immediately after his accession, he fell

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

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

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

impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his

oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was

deceived, and the honors of the empire sold without his

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

of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the

emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his

confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object

except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the

people. It should seem that love and learning introduced

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

daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his

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

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

with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that

he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs, 47 and still

more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor

acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past

conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of

a monarch from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor

to conceal the truth. 48

47 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 161. From some hints in the two

letters, I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the

palace without some degree of gentle violence, and that the young

Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.]

48 (return) [ Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiæ

dignum parentela sua putavit; et præfectum statim fecit; post

quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.]

The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of

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

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

discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and

ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened

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

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

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

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

withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already

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

enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the senate the first

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

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

the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and

discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous

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

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

and wheat in all the cities of the frontier. 49 But the

prosperity of Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux,

not without very strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his

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

consequently, in the earlier part of his life, a robber by

profession. His rise from so obscure a station to the first

dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and

able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the

throne, and his abilities were employed to supplant, not to

serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers were

irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance

in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the

youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to

trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open

sedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral

monument was erected to his memory on the spot 50 where he was

killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the little river

Aboras. 51 The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the

votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from the senate

and the provinces. 52

49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius

in Vit Plotin. ap. Fabricium, Biblioth. Græc. l. iv. c. 36. The

philosopher Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love

of knowledge, and by the hope of penetrating as far as India.]

50 (return) [ About twenty miles from the little town of

Circesium, on the frontier of the two empires. * Note: Now

Kerkesia; placed in the angle formed by the juncture of the

Chaboras, or al Khabour, with the Euphrates. This situation

appeared advantageous to Diocletian, that he raised

fortifications to make it the but wark of the empire on the side

of Mesopotamia. D’Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 196.—G. It is the

Carchemish of the Old Testament, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. ler. xlvi.

2.—M.]

51 (return) [ The inscription (which contained a very singular

pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree

of relationship to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the

tumulus, or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still

subsisted in the time of Julian. See Ammian Marcellin. xxiii. 5.]

52 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orosius, vii. 20.

Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, l. i. p. 19. Philip, who

was a native of Bostra, was about forty years of age. * Note: Now

Bosra. It was once the metropolis of a province named Arabia, and

the chief city of Auranitis, of which the name is preserved in

Beled Hauran, the limits of which meet the desert. D’Anville.

Geog. Anc. ii. 188. According to Victor, (in Cæsar.,) Philip was

a native of Tracbonitis another province of Arabia.—G.]

We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat

fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times

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

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

republic, not unlike the aristocracy 53 of Algiers, 54 where the

militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a

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

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

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

that the soldiers only partook of the government by their

disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the

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

formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the

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

of assembly; though their debates were short, their action

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

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

What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent

government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

53 (return) [ Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any

propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military

government floats between two extremes of absolute monarchy and

wild democracy.]

54 (return) [ The military republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt

would have afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la

Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. 16) a juster and more

noble parallel.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

exercised the supreme magistracy.” According to the historian,

whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has

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

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

benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a

dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without

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

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

the inhuman sentence was executed. 55

55 (return) [ The Augustan History (p. 163, 164) cannot, in this

instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How

could Philip condemn his predecessor, and yet consecrate his

memory? How could he order his public execution, and yet, in his

letters to the senate, exculpate himself from the guilt of his

death? Philip, though an ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad

tyrant. Some chronological difficulties have likewise been

discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont and Muratori, in this

supposed association of Philip to the empire. * Note: Wenck

endeavors to reconcile these discrepancies. He supposes that

Gordian was led away, and died a natural death in prison. This is

directly contrary to the statement of Capitolinus and of Zosimus,

whom he adduces in support of his theory. He is more successful

in his precedents of usurpers deifying the victims of their

ambition. Sit divus, dummodo non sit vivus.—M.]

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

Maximin.—Part III.

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

obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the

affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with

infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or

revival by Augustus, 56 they had been celebrated by Claudius, by

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

the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from

the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games

was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with

deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them 57

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

had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the

expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic

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

the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and

dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches.

Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were

employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few

revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future

fate of the empire.58

56 (return) [ The account of the last supposed celebration,

though in an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful

and obscure, that the alternative seems not doubtful. When the

popish jubilees, the copy of the secular games, were invented by

Boniface VII., the crafty pope pretended that he only revived an

ancient institution. See M. le Chais, Lettres sur les Jubiles.]

57 (return) [ Either of a hundred or a hundred and ten years.

Varro and Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible

authority of the Sybil consecrated the latter, (Censorinus de Die

Natal. c. 17.) The emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not

treat the oracle with implicit respect.]

58 (return) [ The idea of the secular games is best understood

from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. l.

ii. p. 167, &c.] Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds

and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten

centuries had already elapsed. 59 During the four first ages, the

Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the

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

virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in

the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire

over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three

hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and

internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and

legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman

people, were dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and

confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had

received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A

mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the

frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused

their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a

Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested

with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of

the Scipios.

59 (return) [The received calculation of Varro assigns to the

foundation of Rome an æra that corresponds with the 754th year

before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be

depended on, in the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has

brought the same event as low as the year 627 (Compare Niebuhr

vol. i. p. 271.—M.)]

The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western

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

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

monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly

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

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

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

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

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

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

strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms

rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the

fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or

ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of

the Roman empire.

Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The

Monarchy.—Part I.

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

Artaxerxes.

Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in

which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of

the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention

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

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

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

prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the

revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates.

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

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

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

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

provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were

changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude

of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders

established themselves in the provinces of the Roman Empire. To

obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall

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

designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and

Mithridates.

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

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

inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities,

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

luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East, 1

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

their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided

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

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

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

_men_, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.

Thirty thousand _soldiers_, under the command of Alexander, the

son of Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory

and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the

house of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over

the East. About the same time, that, by an ignominious treaty,

they resigned to the Romans the country on this side Mount Tarus,

they were driven by the Parthians, 1001 an obscure horde of

Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The

formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the

frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or

Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name

of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs.

This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced

by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus,

two hundred and twenty-six years after the Christian era. 2 201

1 (return) [ An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius

Paterculus, (l. i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the

Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians, reigned over Asia one

thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession

of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter

of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the

former may be placed 2184 years before the same æra. The

Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went

fifty years higher.]

1001 (return) [ The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic

branch which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged

to the same race as the Getæ, the Massagetæ, and other nations,

confounded by the ancients under the vague denomination of

Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux Hist. d l’Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p.

747) calls the Parthians Carduchi, i.e., the inhabitants of

Curdistan.—M.]

2 (return) [ In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the

æra of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event

(such is the carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by

Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Commodus, and by Moses of

Chorene as low as the reign of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has

so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his ancient materials, which are

indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides

as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth

century.]

201 (return) [ The Persian History, if the poetry of the Shah

Nameh, the Book of Kings, may deserve that name mentions four

dynasties from the earliest ages to the invasion of the Saracens.

The Shah Nameh was composed with the view of perpetuating the

remains of the original Persian records or traditions which had

survived the Saracenic invasion. The task was undertaken by the

poet Dukiki, and afterwards, under the patronage of Mahmood of

Ghazni, completed by Ferdusi. The first of these dynasties is

that of Kaiomors, as Sir W. Jones observes, the dark and fabulous

period; the second, that of the Kaianian, the heroic and

poetical, in which the earned have discovered some curious, and

imagined some fanciful, analogies with the Jewish, the Greek, and

the Roman accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh,

Translation by Goerres, with Von Hammer’s Review, Vienna Jahrbuch

von Lit. 17, 75, 77. Malcolm’s Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan’s

Preface to his Critical Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early

Persian History, a very sensible abstract of various opinions in

Malcolm’s Hist. of Persian.—M.]

Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of

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

was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the

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

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

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

the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a

tanner’s wife with a common soldier. 3 The latter represent him

as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persian,

though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to

the humble station of private citizens. 4 As the lineal heir of

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

the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression

under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of

Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. 401

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

of the nation was forever broken. 5 The authority of Artaxerxes

was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in

Khorasan. 501 Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces

were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more

mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted

to retire, with a numerous train of vessels, towards their

kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters

was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror,

6 who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of

Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these

pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian,

served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his

soul the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the

religion and empire of Cyrus.

3 (return) [ The tanner’s name was Babec; the soldier’s, Sassan:

from the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from

the latter all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]

4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]

401 (return) [ In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was

hailed in the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of

kings—a name ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia.

Malcolm, i. 71.—M.]

5 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.

Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]

501 (return) [ See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir

Babegan in Malcolm l 69.—M.]

6 (return) [ See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65—71.]

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

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

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

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

polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. 601 The

memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the

Persians, 7 was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and

mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, 8

opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously

explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were

all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected

the divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the

idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers,

by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious

Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions.

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

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

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

tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the

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

Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty

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

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

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

received from the hands of his brethren three cups of

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

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

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

his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced

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

Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. 9 A

short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful,

not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to

illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in

peace and war, with the Roman empire. 10

601 (return) [ Silvestre de Sacy (Antiquites de la Perse) had

proved the neglect of the Zoroastrian religion under the Parthian

kings.—M.]

7 (return) [ Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends

and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent

Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is

sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers, who lived almost

in the age of Darius, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many

hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The

judicious criticisms of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained

against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian

prophet. See his work, vol. ii. * Note: There are three leading

theories concerning the age of Zoroaster: 1. That which assigns

him to an age of great and almost indefinite antiquity—it is that

of Moyle, adopted by Gibbon, Volney, Recherches sur l’Histoire,

ii. 2. Rhode, also, (die Heilige Sage, &c.,) in a very ingenious

and ably-developed theory, throws the Bactrian prophet far back

into antiquity 2. Foucher, (Mem. de l’Acad. xxvii. 253,) Tychsen,

(in Com. Soc. Gott. ii. 112), Heeren, (ldeen. i. 459,) and

recently Holty, identify the Gushtasp of the Persian mythological

history with Cyaxares the First, the king of the Medes, and

consider the religion to be Median in its origin. M. Guizot

considers this opinion most probable, note in loc. 3. Hyde,

Prideaux, Anquetil du Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Goerres,

(Mythen-Geschichte,) Von Hammer. (Wien. Jahrbuch, vol. ix.,)

Malcolm, (i. 528,) De Guigniaut, (Relig. de l’Antiq. 2d part,

vol. iii.,) Klaproth, (Tableaux de l’Asie, p. 21,) make Gushtasp

Darius Hystaspes, and Zoroaster his contemporary. The silence of

Herodotus appears the great objection to this theory. Some

writers, as M. Foucher (resting, as M. Guizot observes, on the

doubtful authority of Pliny,) make more than one Zoroaster, and

so attempt to reconcile the conflicting theories.— M.]

8 (return) [ That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language

of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has

ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if

it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity

of those writings which M d’Anquetil has brought into Europe, and

translated into French. * Note: Zend signifies life, living. The

word means, either the collection of the canonical books of the

followers of Zoroaster, or the language itself in which they are

written. They are the books that contain the word of life whether

the language was originally called Zend, or whether it was so

called from the contents of the books. Avesta means word, oracle,

revelation: this term is not the title of a particular work, but

of the collection of the books of Zoroaster, as the revelation of

Ormuzd. This collection is sometimes called Zendavesta, sometimes

briefly Zend. The Zend was the ancient language of Media, as is

proved by its affinity with the dialects of Armenia and Georgia;

it was already a dead language under the Arsacides in the country

which was the scene of the events recorded in the Zendavesta.

Some critics, among others Richardson and Sir W. Jones, have

called in question the antiquity of these books. The former

pretended that Zend had never been a written or spoken language,

but had been invented in the later times by the Magi, for the

purposes of their art; but Kleuker, in the dissertations which he

added to those of Anquetil and the Abbé Foucher, has proved that

the Zend was a living and spoken language.—G. Sir W. Jones

appears to have abandoned his doubts, on discovering the affinity

between the Zend and the Sanskrit. Since the time of Kleuker,

this question has been investigated by many learned scholars. Sir

W. Jones, Leyden, (Asiat. Research. x. 283,) and Mr. Erskine,

(Bombay Trans. ii. 299,) consider it a derivative from the

Sanskrit. The antiquity of the Zendavesta has likewise been

asserted by Rask, the great Danish linguist, who, according to

Malcolm, brought back from the East fresh transcripts and

additions to those published by Anquetil. According to Rask, the

Zend and Sanskrit are sister dialects; the one the parent of the

Persian, the other of the Indian family of languages.—G. and

M.——But the subject is more satisfactorily illustrated in Bopp’s

comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin,

Lithuanian, Gothic, and German languages. Berlin. 1833-5.

According to Bopp, the Zend is, in some respects, of a more

remarkable structure than the Sanskrit. Parts of the Zendavesta

have been published in the original, by M. Bournouf, at Paris,

and M. Ol. shausen, in Hamburg.—M.——The Pehlvi was the language

of the countries bordering on Assyria, and probably of Assyria

itself. Pehlvi signifies valor, heroism; the Pehlvi, therefore,

was the language of the ancient heroes and kings of Persia, the

valiant. (Mr. Erskine prefers the derivation from Pehla, a

border.—M.) It contains a number of Aramaic roots. Anquetil

considered it formed from the Zend. Kleuker does not adopt this

opinion. The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and less

overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster,

first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and

Parsi. The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the

Sassanides, but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the

dialect of Pars or Farristan, was then prevailing dialect.

Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta, 2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii.

31.—G.——Mr. Erskine (Bombay Transactions) considers the existing

Zendavesta to have been compiled in the time of Ardeschir

Babegan.—M.]

9 (return) [ Hyde de Religione veterum Pers. c. 21.]

10 (return) [ I have principally drawn this account from the

Zendavesta of M. d’Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr.

Hyde’s treatise. It must, however, be confessed, that the studied

obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the

deceitful medium of a French or Latin version may have betrayed

us into error and heresy, in this abridgment of Persian theology.

* Note: It is to be regretted that Gibbon followed the

post-Mahometan Sadder of Hyde.—M.]

The great and fundamental article of the system was the

celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious

attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral

and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and

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

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

Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_; 1001a but it must be confessed,

that this infinite substance seems rather a metaphysical

abstraction of the mind than a real object endowed with

self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From

either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite

Time, which bears but too near an affinity with the chaos of the

Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe

were from all eternity produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them

possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed, by his

invariable nature, to exercise them with different designs. 1002

The principle of good is eternally aborbed in light; the

principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise

benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and

abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of

happiness. By his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets,

the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the

elements, are preserved. But the malice of Ahriman has long since

pierced _Ormusd’s egg;_ or, in other words, has violated the

harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption, the most minute

articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and

agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most

salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest

the conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is

perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of

human kind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal

enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious

adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under

his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the

last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive

period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power

of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman

and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their

native darkness; and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and

harmony of the universe. 11 1101

1001a (return) [ Zeruane Akerene, so translated by Anquetil and

Kleuker. There is a dissertation of Foucher on this subject, Mem.

de l’Acad. des Inscr. t. xxix. According to Bohlen (das alte

Indien) it is the Sanskrit Sarvan Akaranam, the Uncreated Whole;

or, according to Fred. Schlegel, Sarvan Akharyam the Uncreate

Indivisible.—M.]

1002 (return) [ This is an error. Ahriman was not forced by his

invariable nature to do evil; the Zendavesta expressly recognizes

(see the Izeschne) that he was born good, that in his origin he

was light; envy rendered him evil; he became jealous of the power

and attributes of Ormuzd; then light was changed into darkness,

and Ahriman was precipitated into the abyss. See the Abridgment

of the Doctrine of the Ancient Persians, by Anquetil, c. ii

Section 2.—G.]

11 (return) [ The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder)

exalt Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, whilst they

degrade Ahriman into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their

desire of pleasing the Mahometans may have contributed to refine

their theological systems.]

1101 (return) [ According to the Zendavesta, Ahriman will not be

annihilated or precipitated forever into darkness: at the

resurrection of the dead he will be entirely defeated by Ormuzd,

his power will be destroyed, his kingdom overthrown to its

foundations, he will himself be purified in torrents of melting

metal; he will change his heart and his will, become holy,

heavenly establish in his dominions the law and word of Ormuzd,

unite himself with him in everlasting friendship, and both will

sing hymns in honor of the Great Eternal. See Anquetil’s

Abridgment. Kleuker, Anhang part iii. p 85, 36; and the Izeschne,

one of the books of the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder

Bun-Dehesch, a more modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated:

but this is contrary to the text itself of the Zendavesta, and to

the idea its author gives of the kingdom of Eternity, after the

twelve thousand years assigned to the contest between Good and

Evil.—G.]

Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The

Monarchy.—Part II.

The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners,

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

careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of

the Persian worship. “That people,” said Herodotus, 12 “rejects

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

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

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

highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and

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

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

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

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

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

charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear

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

Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, 1201 were the

objects of their religious reverence because they considered them

as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most

powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature. 13

12 (return) [ Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux thinks,

with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted in

the Magian religion. Note: The Pyræa, or fire temples of the

Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be

found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did

not penetrate.—M.]

1201 (return) [ Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun:

Anquetil has contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of

those who confound them, and it is evidently contrary to the text

of the Zendavesta. Mithra is the first of the genii, or jzeds,

created by Ormuzd; it is he who watches over all nature. Hence

arose the misapprehension of some of the Greeks, who have said

that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians: he has a

thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to have

assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who

bestows upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor,

(brightness,) is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other

genii, bears a part in the functions of Mithra. These assistant

genii to another genius are called his kamkars; but in the

Zendavesta they are never confounded. On the days sacred to a

particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not only the

prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to

his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the

day of the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which

has sometimes caused them to be confounded; but Anquetil had

himself exposed this error, which Kleuker, and all who have

studied the Zendavesta, have noticed. See viii. Diss. of

Anquetil. Kleuker’s Anhang, part iii. p. 132.—G. M. Guizot is

unquestionably right, according to the pure and original doctrine

of the Zend. The Mithriac worship, which was so extensively

propagated in the West, and in which Mithra and the sun were

perpetually confounded, seems to have been formed from a fusion

of Zoroastrianism and Chaldaism, or the Syrian worship of the

sun. An excellent abstract of the question, with references to

the works of the chief modern writers on his curious subject, De

Sacy, Kleuker, Von Hammer, &c., may be found in De Guigniaut’s

translation of Kreuzer. Relig. d’Antiquite, notes viii. ix. to

book ii. vol. i. 2d part, page 728.—M.]

13 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all

their distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough,

their tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them

as idolatrous worshippers of the fire.]

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

the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining

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

must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to

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

abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient

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

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

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

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

sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or

genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances,

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

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

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

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

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

felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and

piety. 14

14 (return) [ See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists

of moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and

trifling. Fifteen genuflections, prayers, &c., were required

whenever the devout Persian cut his nails or made water; or as

often as he put on the sacred girdle Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. *

Note: Zoroaster exacted much less ceremonial observance, than at

a later period, the priests of his doctrines. This is the

progress of all religions the worship, simple in its origin, is

gradually overloaded with minute superstitions. The maxim of the

Zendavesta, on the relative merit of sowing the earth and of

prayers, quoted below by Gibbon, proves that Zoroaster did not

attach too much importance to these observances. Thus it is not

from the Zendavesta that Gibbon derives the proof of his

allegation, but from the Sadder, a much later work.—G]

But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays

aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a

liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be

found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition.

Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine

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

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

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

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

to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of

agriculture. 1401 We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and

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

who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater

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

ten thousand prayers.” 15 In the spring of every year a festival

was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and

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

exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely

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

that day the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to

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

petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with

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

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

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

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

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

brothers in concord and love.” 16 Such a festival must indeed

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

theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well

worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a

salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

1401 (return) [ See, on Zoroaster’s encouragement of agriculture,

the ingenious remarks of Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. p. 449, &c., and

Rhode, Heilige Sage, p. 517—M.]

15 (return) [ Zendavesta, tom. i. p. 224, and Precis du Systeme

de Zoroastre, tom. iii.]

16 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 19.]

Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this

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

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

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

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

motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm

and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were

disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous

superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely

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

them were convened in a general council. Their forces were

multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused

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

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

church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster. 17 The property of

the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious

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

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

the Persians. 19 “Though your good works,” says the interested

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

rain, the stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore,

they will all be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by

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

to salvation, you must faithfully pay him _tithes_ of all you

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

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

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

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

and they deliver all men.” 20 201a

17 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and

Prideaux affect to apply to the Magian the terms consecrated to

the Christian hierarchy.]

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) · 第 5 / 79 章

Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy