120 (return) [ The splendor of the schoo_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)

preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the

Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the

middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]

121 (return) [ As in a former period I have traced the civil and

military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil

honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his

eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the

Prætorian præfect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of Africa,

either as president or consular, and deserved, by his

administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed

vicar, or vice-præfect, of Macedonia. 4. Quæstor. 5. Count of the

sacred largesses. 6. Prætorian præfect of the Gauls; whilst he

might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,

perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by

some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.

Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study

of the Grecian philosophy he was named Prætorian præfect of

Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great

office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and

his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch

Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,

Mallius was appointed a second time Prætorian præfect of Italy.

Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the

merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the

intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See

Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.]

122 (return) [ Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius

apud Photium, p. 1500.]

123 (return) [ The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)

in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a

strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant

satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)

supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.

In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with

law-books. Eunapius in Vit. Ædesii, p. 72.]

III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the

governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were

invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers

of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and punishments

depended on them alone, and they successively appeared on their

tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and in complete armor

at the head of the Roman legions. 124 The influence of the

revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military

force, concurred to render their power supreme and absolute; and

whenever they were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal

province which they involved in their rebellion was scarcely

sensible of any change in its political state. From the time of

Commodus to the reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors

might be enumerated, who, with various success, erected the

standard of revolt; and though the innocent were too often

sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes prevented, by the

suspicious cruelty of their master. 125 To secure his throne and

the public tranquillity from these formidable servants,

Constantine resolved to divide the military from the civil

administration, and to establish, as a permanent and professional

distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an

occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the

Prætorian præfects over the armies of the empire, was transferred

to the two _masters-general_ whom he instituted, the one for the

_cavalry_, the other for the _infantry;_ and though each of these

_illustrious_ officers was more peculiarly responsible for the

discipline of those troops which were under his immediate

inspection, they both indifferently commanded in the field the

several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united in

the same army. 126 Their number was soon doubled by the division

of the east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank

and title were appointed on the four important frontiers of the

Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates,

the defence of the Roman empire was at length committed to eight

masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. Under their orders,

thirty-five military commanders were stationed in the provinces:

three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain, one in Italy, five

on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia, eight, three

in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of _counts_, and

_dukes_, 127 by which they were properly distinguished, have

obtained in modern languages so very different a sense, that the

use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be

recollected, that the second of those appellations is only a

corruption of the Latin word, which was indiscriminately applied

to any military chief. All these provincial generals were

therefore _dukes;_ but no more than ten among them were dignified

with the rank of _counts_ or companions, a title of honor, or

rather of favor, which had been recently invented in the court of

Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign which distinguished the

office of the counts and dukes; and besides their pay, they

received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred

and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They

were strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which

related to the administration of justice or the revenue; but the

command which they exercised over the troops of their department,

was independent of the authority of the magistrates. About the

same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the

ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice

balance of the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and

sometimes the discord, which reigned between two professions of

opposite interests and incompatible manners, was productive of

beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was seldom to be

expected that the general and the civil governor of a province

should either conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for

the service, of their country. While the one delayed to offer the

assistance which the other disdained to solicit, the troops very

frequently remained without orders or without supplies; the

public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless subjects were

left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided

administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the

vigor of the state, while it secured the tranquillity of the

monarch.

124 (return) [ See a very splendid example in the life of

Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was

intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of

Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]

125 (return) [ The Abbé Dubos, who has examined with accuracy

(see Hist. de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.

1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,

that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his

conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as

Corbulo.]

126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the

reign of Constantius, the _magistri militum_ were already

increased to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]

127 (return) [ Though the military counts and dukes are

frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have

recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number

and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the

counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii.—xx., with the

commentary of Godefroy.]

The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for

another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and

prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which

preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of

license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the

possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of

their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the

principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective

dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their

countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of

these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the

conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe

discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,

which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military

order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal

distinction was admitted between the _Palatines_ 128 and the

_Borderers;_ the troops of the court, as they were improperly

styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by

the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,

except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their

tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most

flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of

quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their

profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They

were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or

enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became

careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and

apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the

empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians.

129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his

colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was

no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the

same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name

of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the

ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the

humiliating reflection, that _they_ who were exposed to the

hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only

with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were

lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions

that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy

favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor

which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that

Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword

against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to

connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in

the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels

are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and

though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and

numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last

moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal

wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand

of Constantine.

128 (return) [ Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between the

two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the

historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the

copious _paratitlon_, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of

the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.

tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]

129 (return) [ Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in

hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that they

loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups were

heavier than their swords.]

130 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.

i. See Howell’s Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That learned

historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to justify the

character and policy of Constantine.]

The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of

reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and

of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,

seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and

particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the

legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of

rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,

and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they

maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they

subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a

visible and important object in the military history of the Roman

empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk

to a very diminutive size; and when _seven_ legions, with some

auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the

total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the

peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of

twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from similar

examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of

the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and

discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of

Roman infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same

honors, consisted only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men.

132 The conspiracy of so many separate detachments, each of which

was awed by the sense of its own weakness, could easily be

checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their

love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and

thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their

numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed

into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of

cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to

inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched

under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that

severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had

distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the

confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A more particular

enumeration, drawn from the_ Notitia_, might exercise the

diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself

with observing, that the number of permanent stations or

garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire, amounted to

five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the successors of

Constantine, the complete force of the military establishment was

computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers. 134 An

effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and

the faculties of a later, period.

131 (return) [ Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that

the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful

of water thrown on a great conflagration.]

132 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. Mémoires de

l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.]

133 (return) [ Romana acies unius prope formæ erat et hominum et

armorum genere.—Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus

dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c.

39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the army

of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile animal

was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life of

Flaminius in Plutarch.]

134 (return) [ Agathias, l. v. p. 157, edit. Louvre.]

In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very

different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the

citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of

duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are

animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious

inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the

service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of

punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by

the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the

invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion

of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and

dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was

lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were

indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable

difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of

volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and

coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free

reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition

which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that

their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance, should devote

themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as they attained

the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was punished by

the loss of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136 But as the

annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small

proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were

frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor was

obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to

purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of

forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was _reduced_ ascertains

the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which

the government admitted of this alternative. 137 Such was the

horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the

minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy

and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right

hand, to escape from being pressed into the service; and this

strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the

severe animadversion of the laws, 138 and a peculiar name in the

Latin language. 139

135 (return) [ Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.

3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet

four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been

five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed

tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam

armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]

136 (return) [ See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis

Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age

at which their military service was required, varied from

twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared with

a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses

gave them some valuable privileges]

137 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According

to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same

emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a

recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that

slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum

turmas.]

138 (return) [ The person and property of a Roman knight, who had

mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of

Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that

artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was

justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a

distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.

(L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a

law addressed to the præfect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that

these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l.

vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so

considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of

recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)]

139 (return) [ They were called _Murci. Murcidus_ is found in

Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,

according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate

protection of the goddess _Murcia_. From this particular instance

of cowardice, _murcare_ is used as synonymous to _mutilare_, by

the writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and

Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12]

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.

The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every

day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most

daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who

delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than

to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the

auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions

themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine

troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,

they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate

their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride

of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the

knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she

supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who

displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,

to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of

the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a

foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.

They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their

countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of

allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the

guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable

correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of

sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of

Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,

who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with

their country, and who resented every personal affront as a

national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of

an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the

consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely

excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest

chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his

choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so

remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with

the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the

example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the

Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be

ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy

veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of

the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the

powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable

separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished

citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could

adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the

schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same

spirit, and with equal abilities.

140 (return) [ Malarichus—adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate

in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur

tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]

141 (return) [ Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et

trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.

Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the

truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of

the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single

Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that

prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of

the consulship.]

IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from

the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces

and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of _Illustrious_ on

seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he

intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The

private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite

eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the

_præpositus_, or præfect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was

to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in those of

amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial

services, which can only derive their splendor from the influence

of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great

chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and humble

domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every occasion of

unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind

that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can

seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were

invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies,

exalted the præfects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all

the ministers of the palace; 142 and even his deputy, the first

of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was

thought worthy to rank before the _respectable_ proconsuls of

Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was

acknowledged by the _counts_, or superintendents, who regulated

the two important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe,

and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 143 2. The principal

administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence

and abilities of the _master of the offices_. 144 He was the

supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the

civil and military _schools_, and received appeals from all parts

of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous army

of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had

obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the

authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the

prince and his subjects was managed by the four _scrinia_, or

offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to

memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and

the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of

these was directed by an _inferior_ master of _respectable_

dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and

forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the

profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of

reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise

of their several functions. From a condescension, which in former

ages would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a

particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and

interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the

Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which

constitutes so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted

the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more

seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and

arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in

the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of

workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor,

offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were

deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the

service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the

office of _quæstor_ had experienced a very singular revolution.

In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually

elected by the people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious

management of the public treasure; 145 a similar assistant was

granted to every proconsul, and to every prætor, who exercised a

military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the

two quæstors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of

eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; 146

and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which

gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the

honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the

freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege

of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain

proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of

these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in

the assemblies of the senate. 147 The practice of Augustus was

imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was

established as a permanent office; and the favored quæstor,

assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the

suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. 148 As the

orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, 149

acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,

he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,

the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil

jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the

supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the Prætorian

præfects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently

requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was

not oppressed with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure

and talents were employed to cultivate that dignified style of

eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste and language, still

preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. 150 In some respects,

the office of the Imperial quæstor may be compared with that of a

modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which seems to

have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never

introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The

extraordinary title of _count of the sacred largesses_ was

bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the

intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment flowed from

the voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the almost

infinite detail of the annual and daily expense of the civil and

military administration in every part of a great empire, would

exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.

The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed

into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to

examine and control their respective operations. The multitude of

these agents had a natural tendency to increase; and it was more

than once thought expedient to dismiss to their native homes the

useless supernumeraries, who, deserting their honest labors, had

pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession of

the finances. 151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom

eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with

the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines

from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,

in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the

public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were

deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the

empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all

the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive

operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,

chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the

palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated

in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,

and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious

provinces of the East. 152 5. Besides the public revenue, which

an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his

pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,

possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by

the _count_ or treasurer of _the private estate_. Some part had

perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some

accessions might be derived from the families which were

successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable

portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and

forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the

provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile

soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country

his fairest possessions, 153 and either Constantine or his

successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by

religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where

the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a

sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the

consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects

or slaves of the deity and her ministers. 154 But these were not

the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot

of Mount Argæus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race

of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for

their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These _sacred_

animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial

games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a

vulgar master. 155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important

enough to require the inspection of a count; 156 officers of an

inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;

and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,

treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent

functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the

provincial magistrates. 157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry and

infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the

immediate command of the _two counts of the domestics_. The whole

number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into

seven _schools_, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the

East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to

the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up

in the courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature,

silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a

martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. 158 From the

seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of

the _protectors_, whose advantageous station was the hope and

reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the

interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the

provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their

master. 159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the

office of the Prætorian præfects; like the præfects, they aspired

from the service of the palace to the command of armies.

142 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 8.]

143 (return) [ By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the

military character of the first emperors, the steward of their

household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)

Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,

and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign

ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the

royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]

144 (return) [ Gutherius (de Officiis Domûs Augustæ, l. ii. c.

20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the

master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate

_scrinia_. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful

authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of

Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history

before the reign of Constantine.]

145 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first

quæstors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the

foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,

long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,

and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is

contested by other writers.]

146 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty

as the highest number of quæstors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)

insinuates, that if the dictator Cæsar once created forty, it was

only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of gratitude.

Yet the augmentation which he made of prætors subsisted under the

succeeding reigns.]

147 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.

Dion. Cas. p. 755.]

148 (return) [ The youth and inexperience of the quæstors, who

entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,

(Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove

them from the management of the treasury; and though they were

restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by

Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c.

24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.) In

the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the quæstors

was more ably supplied by the _procurators_, (Dion Cas. p. 707.

Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards

called, _rationales_. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the

provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of

quæstors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the

Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive

fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,

(Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house

of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in

the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of

quæstors must have naturally ceased.]

149 (return) [ Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et

edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam

quæstoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have

acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir

apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to

Hadrian, his quæstor and cousin. See Dodwell, Prælection.

Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]

150 (return) [ Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus

responsa.—Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam

Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.——Claudian in Consulat.

Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and

Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]

151 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.

xii. tit. 24.]

152 (return) [ In the departments of the two counts of the

treasury, the eastern part of the _Notitia_ happens to be very

defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in

London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain

was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul

alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]

153 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 2, and Godefroy

ad loc.]

154 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.

Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from

that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses

(see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures

that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of

the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being

indeed from the goddess of war.]

155 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.

Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative

to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the

Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about

sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between

Constantinople and Antioch.]

156 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of

the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the

favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]

157 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxx. leg. 4, &c.]

158 (return) [ Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these

military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de

Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix

Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]

159 (return) [ Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,

obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these

honorable soldiers were _Clarissimi_.]

The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was

facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of

posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally

connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three

hundred _agents_ or messengers were employed, under the

jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names

of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the

emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting

whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates

or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of

the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm

influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible

number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent

admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable

management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.

These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,

were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the

progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent

symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open

revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice

was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might

securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the

guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or

refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria

perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to

the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or

Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the

malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary

administration was conducted by those methods which extreme

necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were

diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161

160 (return) [ Xenophon, Cyropæd. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno

Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure

this Persian metaphor.]

161 (return) [ For the _Agentes in Rebus_, see Ammian. l. xv. c.

3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of

Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among the

passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most

remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the

death of Julian.]

The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal

_quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather

than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied

this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose

sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in

the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to

violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the

clearest evidence of his guilt. 162 The annals of tyranny, from

the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially

relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as

the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom

and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger

of ignominions torture. 163 The conduct of the provincial

magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the

city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use

of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental

despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited

monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of

commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and

adorned the dignity of human kind. 164 The acquiescence of the

provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to

usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort

from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their

guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction

of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The

apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the

interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of

special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,

the general use of torture. They protected all persons of

illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,

professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,

municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,

and all children under the age of puberty. 165 But a fatal maxim

was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in

the case of treason, which included every offence that the

subtlety of lawyers could derive from a _hostile intention_

towards the prince or republic, 166 all privileges were

suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same

ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly

preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the

dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to

the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious

information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even

as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually

hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.

167

162 (return) [ The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the

sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of

torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself

is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et

quæ veritatem fallat.]

163 (return) [ In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis

(libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were

_intacti tormentis_. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and

it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.

xv. 57.]

164 (return) [ Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,

doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)

liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may

learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians.

(Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]

165 (return) [ Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)

has collected these exemptions into one view.]

166 (return) [ This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.

xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of

Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the

Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]

167 (return) [ Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to

justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of

treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus

with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of

the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.

majestatis crimine omnibus æqua est conditio.]

These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to

the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation

was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those

advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed them to

the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great

empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the

avarice of their masters, and _their_ humble happiness is

principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,

gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight

on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious

philosopher 168 has calculated the universal measure of the

public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and

ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of

nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in

a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which would

tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at

least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same

princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the

provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various

customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly

discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of

Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode

of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary

government. 169

168 (return) [ Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 13.]

169 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this

importance with some degree of perplexity.]

Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.

The name and use of the _indictions_, 170 which serve to

ascertain the chronology of the middle ages, were derived from

the regular practice of the Roman tributes. 171 The emperor

subscribed with his own hand, and in purple ink, the solemn

edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city of

each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of

September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word

_indiction_ was transferred to the measure of tribute which it

prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the

payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned

to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the

expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the

computation, an additional tax, under the name of

_superindiction_, was imposed on the people, and the most

valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the

Prætorian præfects, who, on some occasions, were permitted to

provide for the unforeseen and extraordinary exigencies of the

public service. The execution of these laws (which it would be

tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate detail) consisted

of two distinct operations: the resolving the general imposition

into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the provinces,

the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the

collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the

cities, and the provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured

into the Imperial treasuries. But as the account between the

monarch and the subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal

of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding

obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the

same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever

was honorable or important in the administration of the revenue,

was committed to the wisdom of the præfects, and their provincia.

representatives; the lucrative functions were claimed by a crowd

of subordinate officers, some of whom depended on the treasurer,

others on the governor of the province; and who, in the

inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent

opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the

people. The laborious offices, which could be productive only of

envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the

_Decurions_, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom

the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the

burdens of civil society. 172 The whole landed property of the

empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch)

was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser

contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate

_census_, 173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of

ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged

to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known

period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this

difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular

distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors,

who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable or

pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an

estimate was made of their common value from the average produce

of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an

essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the

proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their

affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the

intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished

as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason

and sacrilege. 174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in

money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be

legally accepted. 175 The remainder of the taxes, according to

the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished

in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.

According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in

the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or

iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the

provincials 17511 to the Imperial magazines, from whence they

were occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the

army, and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The

commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make

considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from

allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value

of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive

simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted

to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it

is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost

strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must

introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and

the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was

insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends

to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to

derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission

of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of

paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and

happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and

of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended

between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus.

Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the

evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor

of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and

uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole

surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had

not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,

which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the

administration of the Roman emperors. 177

170 (return) [ The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as

high as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father,

Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but the

commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the

first of January. See l’Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and

Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two

accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the

Benedictines. —— It does not appear that the establishment of the

indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before

he had been created _Augustus_ at Rome, and the remission granted

by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have

ventured while only _Cæsar_, and under the necessity of courting

popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius

Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the

author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Cæs. c. 39.

Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7—G.]

171 (return) [ The first twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book

of the Theodosian Code are filled with the circumstantial

regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they

suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is

at present in our power to attain.]

172 (return) [ The title concerning the Decurions (l. xii. tit.

i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it

contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws

to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of

citizens. * Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing,

according to the census of property prepared by the tabularii,

the payment due from each proprietor. This odious office was

authoritatively imposed on the richest citizens of each town;

they had no salary, and all their compensation was, to be exempt

from certain corporal punishments, in case they should have

incurred them. The Decurionate was the ruin of all the rich.

Hence they tried every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they

concealed themselves, they entered into military service; but

their efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were

compelled to become Decurions, and the dread inspired by this

title was termed _Impiety_.—G. ——The Decurions were mutually

responsible; they were obliged to undertake for pieces of ground

abandoned by their owners on account of the pressure of the

taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies. Savigny chichte

des Rom. Rechts, i. 25.—M.]

173 (return) [ Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt,

et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6. See Cod.

Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy’s Commentary.]

174 (return) [ Siquis sacrilegâ vitem falce succiderit, aut

feracium ramorum fœtus hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum, et

mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale

subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod.

Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not without

its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to prove the

minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the

penalty.]

175 (return) [ The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased.

Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse

non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]

17511 (return) [ The proprietors were not charged with the

expense of this transport in the provinces situated on the

sea-shore or near the great rivers, there were companies of

boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this commission, and

furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In return,

they were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the

indiction and other imposts. They had certain privileges;

particular regulations determined their rights and obligations.

(Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were

made in the same manner, by the intervention of a privileged

company called Bastaga; the members were called Bastagarii Cod.

Theod. l. viii. tit. v.—G.]

176 (return) [ Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. l.

xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3)

to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority,

either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who

had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against

Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the

various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price,

the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered

governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.]

177 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published

the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two

months after the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of

528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English

measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]

Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment

seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a

capitation. 178 The returns which were sent of every province or

district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the

amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was

divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province

contained so many _capita_, or heads of tribute; and that each

_head_ was rated at such a price, was universally received, not

only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value

of a tributary head must have varied, according to many

accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some

knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more

important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces of

the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid

of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius

had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces

of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy

of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. 179 A

moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of

extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may

therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine

pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions

of Gaul. 180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts

from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two

difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by

the _equality_, and by the _enormity_, of the capitation. An

attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the

interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.

178 (return) [ Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with

weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while

he explains the _caput_, as a share or measure of property, he

too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]

179 (return) [ Quid profuerit (_Julianus_) anhelantibus extremâ

penuriâ Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas

ingressus, pro _capitibus_ singulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos

aureos reperit flagitari; discedens vero septenos tantum numera

universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 5.]

180 (return) [ In the calculation of any sum of money under

Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the

excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof

of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman

pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one

twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760

of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once

been divided into forty-eight _aurei_, was at this time coined

into seventy-two smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That

five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver,

and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for

fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman,

or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That

the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings.

From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of gold, the

usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds sterling,

and we may fix the currency of the _aureus_ at somewhat more than

eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M.

Letronne, “Considerations Génerales sur l’Evaluation des Monnaies

Grecques et Romaines” Paris, 1817—M.]

I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of

human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of

property, the most numerous part of the community would be

deprived of their subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax

from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue.

Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman capitation; but in

the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as the

tribute was collected on the principle of a _real_, not of a

_personal_ imposition. 18011 Several indigent citizens

contributed to compose a single _head_, or share of taxation;

while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone

represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical

request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the

Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris

personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the

Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that

he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting

off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded

the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the

allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with

the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of

the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.

II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds

sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be

rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of

the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch

of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of

France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond

the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought

perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of

inhabitants. 182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of

fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations

of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal

proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above

fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four

times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their

Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not

so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as

in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern

France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of

every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied

on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the

whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands

of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman

world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent

condition was a less rigid servitude. 183 In such a state the

poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed

the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were

filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the

means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the

comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the

high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be

illustrated by the following example: The Ædui, one of the most

powerful and civilized tribes or _cities_ of Gaul, occupied an

extent of territory, which now contains about five hundred

thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun

and Nevers; 184 and with the probable accession of those of

Châlons and Maçon, 185 the population would amount to eight

hundred thousand souls. In the time of Constantine, the territory

of the Ædui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand _heads_ of

capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince

from the intolerable weight of tribute. 186 A just analogy would

seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, 187

that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number

of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of

government, their annual payments may be computed at about four

millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that although

the share of each individual was four times as considerable, a

fourth part only of the modern taxes of France was levied on the

Imperial province of Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be

calculated at seven millions sterling, which were reduced to two

millions by the humanity or the wisdom of Julian.

18011 (return) [ Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the

Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light

on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.

Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one kind of

capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,

strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a

proprietor’s or landlord’s tax. But, besides this, there was a

direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed

property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;

its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released

different persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts

painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above

sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty,

and all unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five,

widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and clerici—whole dioceses,

that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the

plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was only an

ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption was

extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly

capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it

fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves.

These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the

land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from

his coloni and laborers.—M.]

181 (return) [

Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, Hîc _capita_ ut

vivam, tu mihi tolle _tria_. Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.

The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more

satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this

remarkable passage. The words, suo vel _suorum_ nomine, betray

the perplexity of the commentator.]

182 (return) [ This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is

founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and

marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in

the _Contrôlee General_ at Paris. The annual average of births

throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to

1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all

928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes

9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the

people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776,

that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By

the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the ordinary

proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about 1 to

26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868 persons of

both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the

more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will

amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French

Government, (which are not unworthy of our own imitation,) we may

hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this

important subject * Note: On no subject has so much valuable

information been collected since the time of Gibbon, as the

statistics of the different countries of Europe but much is still

wanting as to our own—M.]

183 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian.

l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent

genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum.

Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]

184 (return) [ The ancient jurisdiction of (_Augustodunum_) Autun

in Burgundy, the capital of the Ædui, comprehended the adjacent

territory of (_Noviodunum_) Nevers. See D’Anville, Notice de

l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers

are now composed, the former of 610, and the latter of 160

parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in

476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by

the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la

Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average

number of 656 persons for each parish, which being again

multiplied by the 770 parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and

Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for the extent of

country which was once possessed by the Ædui.]

185 (return) [ We might derive an additional supply of 301,750

inhabitants from the dioceses of Châlons (_Cabillonum_) and of

Maçon, (_Matisco_,) since they contain, the one 200, and the

other 260 parishes. This accession of territory might be

justified by very specious reasons. 1. Châlons and Maçon were

undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the Ædui. (See

D’Anville, Notice, p. 187, 443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they

are enumerated not as _Civitates_, but merely as _Castra_. 3.

They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth

and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.

Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the

territory of the Ædui, in the reign of Constantine, along the

beautiful banks of the navigable Saône. * Note: In this passage

of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the original number to have been

32,000: 7000 being discharged, there remained 25,000 liable to

the tribute. See Mem. quoted above.—M.]

186 (return) [ Eumenius in Panegyr Vet. viii. 11.]

187 (return) [ L’Abbé du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i.

p. 121]

But this tax, or capitation, on the proprietors of land, would

have suffered a rich and numerous class of free citizens to

escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is

derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in

merchandise, the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute

on the trading part of their subjects. 188 Some exemptions, very

strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to the

proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates.

Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal

arts: but every other branch of commercial industry was affected

by the severity of the law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria,

who imported the gems and spices of India for the use of the

western world; the usurer, who derived from the interest of money

a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious manufacturer, the

diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of a

sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the

revenue into the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of

the Roman empire, who tolerated the profession, consented to

share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. 18811 As this

general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was

styled the _Lustral Contribution:_ and the historian Zosimus 189

laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by

the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled

by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and

unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property

had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be

justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the

nature of this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it

was arbitrary in the distribution, and extremely rigorous in the

mode of collecting. The secret wealth of commerce, and the

precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only of a

discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the

interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader

supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the

payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land tax, may

be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by

any other means than those of corporal punishments. The cruel

treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and

was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who,

disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious

and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 190

188 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. i. and iv.]

18811 (return) [ The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to

this disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii.

tit. i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself of it, he made sure

of some way of replacing this deficit. A rich patrician,

Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had made

representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to

tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the

diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept

his offer—G.]

189 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much

passion and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the

elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr.

Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]

190 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit vii. leg. 3.]

These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute

authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the

_coronary gold_ still retained the name and semblance of popular

consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the

republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success

of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the

virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his

triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after

the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain

a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of

zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the

size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of Cæsar was

enriched with two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy

crowns, whose weight amounted to twenty thousand four hundred and

fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was immediately melted

down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it would be

more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example

was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of

exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable

present of the current gold coin of the empire. 191 The

spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of duty;

and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it

was supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of

the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to announce

his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation

of a Cæsar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or

imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The

peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at

sixteen hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand

pounds sterling. The oppressed subjects celebrated their own

felicity, that their sovereign should graciously consent to

accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their loyalty and

gratitude. 192

191 (return) [ See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The

Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of

gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, _hundred_ pounds

weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius. *

Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had

borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous

oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his citizens

wished to bestow, and Æschines to deprive him of?—G.]

192 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were

supposed to be exempt from the _Aurum Coronarium;_ but the _Auri

Oblatio_, which was required at their hands, was precisely of the

same nature.]

A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom

qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The

subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline

of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the

dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the

rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase

of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice

of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances

which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The

threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the

foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended,

on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were

cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by

the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The

forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration

contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers;

and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by

subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence

preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic

governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some

protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,

which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the

successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of

Slaves or Barbarians. 193

193 (return) [ The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to

his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,)

distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a

Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might

suffice for the other.]

Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part I.

Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of

Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian

War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And

Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of

Constantius.

The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and

introduced such important changes into the civil and religious

constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided

the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians,

the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every

attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of

the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most

abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness,

dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some

degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the

character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,

as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial

union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest

admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his

most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just

portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of

history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon appear,

that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to

reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure

monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper

and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different

periods of the reign of Constantine.

1 (return) [ On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant

tout le mal ru’en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu’en dit Zosime.

Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and

Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.

The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose

character or situation variously tempered the influence of their

religious zeal.]

The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been

enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was

lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his

strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and

from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he

preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to

the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in

the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he

might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less

reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,

the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of

all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been

suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not

incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of

an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just

estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences

derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of

Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was

indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost

continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in

giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints

of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his

measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed

magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most

arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices

of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,

he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he

conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his

abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal

victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of

the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the

motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the

moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling

passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own

situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness

of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would

enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire.

In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged

on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the

undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and

justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the

administration of Constantine. 2

2 (return) [ The virtues of Constantine are collected for the

most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere

pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even

Zosimus, and the _Emperor_ Julian, acknowledge his personal

courage and military achievements.]

Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the

plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few

exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the

conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed

tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from

the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the

Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of

the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into

the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of

Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired

his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating

into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or

raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The

general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years

of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of

real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by

the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and

prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of

Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various

innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an

increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his

festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the

oppression of the people was the only fund which could support

the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites,

enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped

with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret

but universal decay was felt in every part of the public

administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained

the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The

dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose

to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The

Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian,

assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of

Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors,

laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a

diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems

and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing

robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In

such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of

Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged

monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus

relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to

that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive.

The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by

the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of

tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather

murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will

suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who

could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the

feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of

his interest.

3 (return) [ See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore

optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient

Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am

inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written _vix_

mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the

wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses

the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.

_Trachala_ decem annis præstantissimds; duodecim sequentibus

_latro;_ decem novissimis _pupillus_ ob immouicas profusiones.]

4 (return) [ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse

pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Cæsares, p. 336.

Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,

&c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the

profuseness of their founder.]

5 (return) [ The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.

Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.

8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.

c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the

remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]

6 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, attempts to ridicule his

uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the

learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,

p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that

Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this

admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]

The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of

Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his

domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the

longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and

Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent

revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial

family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But

the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by

the Gothic Claudius, descended through several generations; and

Constantine himself derived from his royal father the hereditary

honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been

twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his

youthful attachment, 7 had left him only one son, who was called

Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three

daughters, and three sons known by the kindred names of

Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious brothers

of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and

Hannibalianus, 8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank,

and the most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a

private station. The youngest of the three lived without a name,

and died without posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in

marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new

branches of the Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards

became the most illustrious of the children of Julius

Constantius, the _Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had

been decorated with the vain title of _Censor_, were named

Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of the great

Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and

Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity.

His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her

preëminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of

the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties, that an

innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved, for

some time, his life, the title of Cæsar, and a precarious hope of

the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the

Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of

modern courts would apply the title of princes of the blood,

seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined

either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in

less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family was

reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had

survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as the tragic

poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.

7 (return) [ Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina

as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly

rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one

of the panegyrics: “Ab ipso fine pueritiæ te matrimonii legibus

dedisti.”]

8 (return) [ Ducange (Familiæ Byzantinæ, p. 44) bestows on him,

after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,

as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of

Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is

approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]

Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir

of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an

amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at

least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most

eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to

form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious

disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with

the title of Cæsar, and the administration of the Gallic

provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early

occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war

which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their

powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well

as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the

Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of

Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event

of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were

united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who

loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now

governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his

illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image

of his father’s perfections. The public favor, which seldom

accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of

Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,

of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of

a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with

reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented

murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they

fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as

public felicity. 10

9 (return) [ Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be

applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or

to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mém.

Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliothèque

Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel

History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]

10 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x.

6) styles him “egregium virum;” and Julian (Orat. i.) very

plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See

Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]

This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of

Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient

of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of

his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he

resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from

dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that

while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of

Cæsar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic

provinces, 11 _he_, a prince of mature years, who had performed

such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the

superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his

father’s court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every

calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such

painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able

to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may

be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or

perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who

were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his

resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time,

manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a

secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and

government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he

invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his

magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate

favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he

himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge

his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some

apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being

may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of

the empire. 12

11 (return) [ Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with

Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The _year_ in which Constantius was

created Cæsar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two

chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not

be ignorant of the _day_ of the anniversary. For the appointment

of the new Cæsar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.

p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primauté

de l’Eglise, p. 1183.]

12 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the

secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]

The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were

sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends

and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any

reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised

an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of

Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard

and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his

most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary

vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Cæsar; 13 and

as the people, who were not admitted into the secrets of the

palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity, a

poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal

devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14 The

time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of the

twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor, for

that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the

most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every

eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the

general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was

drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder.

15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was

apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the

tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.

The examination was short and private; 16 and as it was thought

decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of

the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in

Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by

the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of

poison. 17 The Cæsar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was

involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of

Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite

sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only

crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of

these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,

the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,

were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who

has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his

hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic

events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,

whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of

Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one

of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in

the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment

of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had

compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at

least of a degenerate son. 20

13 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p.

610.]

14 (return) [ His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his

panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in vile

acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250, Tillemont,

tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]

15 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.

28.]

16 (return) [ The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,

speaks with becoming caution. “Natu grandior incertum qua causa,

patris judicio occidisset.” If we consult the succeeding writers,

Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,

Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear

gradually to increase, as their means of information must have

diminished—a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical

disquisition.]

17 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general

expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;

but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of

an antithesis to Fausta’s _warm_ bath, chooses to administer a

draught of _cold_ poison.]

18 (return) [ Sororis filium, commodæ indolis juvenem. Eutropius,

x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus had

married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on

the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general

pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.

47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,

which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.

iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The

obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely

allows any inference, and there is extant but one meda which can

be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]

19 (return) [ See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.

19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.

c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument

against the reality of the fact.]

20 (return) [ Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.

c. 10.]

The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that

the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are

reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common

feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend,

that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of

the accusation by which his credulity had been so fatally misled,

he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he

mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the

bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the

lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of

Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I

unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would

deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if

we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will

inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only

in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder

of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.

They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his

step-mother Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose

disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the

ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phædra. 22 Like the daughter

of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an

incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father’s wife; and

easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of

death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as

the most formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the

aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely

fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or

pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a

criminal connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial

stables. 23 Her condemnation and punishment were the instant

consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated by

the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to

an extraordinary degree. 24 By some it will perhaps be thought,

that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the

honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the

throne, might have softened the obdurate heart of Constantine,

and persuaded him to suffer his wife, however guilty she might

appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary prison. But it

seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we could

ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended

with some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have

attacked, and those who have defended, the character of

Constantine, have alike disregarded two very remarkable passages

of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The former

celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the

empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many

princes. 25 The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the

mother of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years

after his father’s death, survived to weep over the fate of her

son. 26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers

of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may

still remain some reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that

Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of her husband.

2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a

great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who

were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to

justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the

satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the

splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28

21 (return) [ In order to prove that the statue was erected by

Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the

Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,

Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary

histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]

22 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our

original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints

from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and

imperfect narrative.]

23 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,

116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the

innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his

three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed

between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor

is prudently silent.]

24 (return) [ If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to

believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene

of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by

exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild

beasts.]

25 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of

Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least, she

was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the

fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A

Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:

Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancêtres: Moi, fille,

femme,sœur, et mere de vos maitres.]

26 (return) [ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.

edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious

of queens.]

2611 (return) [ Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats this

inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals,

with too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of

proof on this curious question.—M.]

27 (return) [ Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]

28 (return) [ Saturni aurea sæcula quis requirat? Sunt hæc

gemmea, sed Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. ——It is somewhat

singular that these satirical lines should be attributed, not to

an obscure libeller, or a disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius,

prime minister and favorite of the emperor. We may now perceive

that the imprecations of the Roman people were dictated by

humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]

Chapter XVIII: Character Of Constantine And His Sons.—Part II.

By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to

devolve on the three sons of Fausta, who have been already

mentioned under the names of Constantine, of Constantius, and of

Constans. These young princes were successively invested with the

title of Cæsar; and the dates of their promotion may be referred

to the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of the reign

of their father. 29 This conduct, though it tended to multiply

the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused by the

partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to

understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the

safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary

elevation of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The

former was raised, by the title of Cæsar, to an equality with his

cousins. In favor of the latter, Constantine invented the new and

singular appellation of _Nobilissimus;_ 30 to which he annexed

the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold. But of

the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire,

Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of King; a

name which the subjects of Tiberius would have detested, as the

profane and cruel insult of capricious tyranny. The use of such a

title, even as it appears under the reign of Constantine, is a

strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted on

the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers.

31 3111

29 (return) [ Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are

sufficiently correct to justify the orator.]

30 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the predecessors of

Constantine, _Nobilissimus_ was a vague epithet, rather than a

legal and determined title.]

31 (return) [ Adstruunt nummi veteres ac singulares. Spanheim de

Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357. Ammianus speaks of

this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The Valesian

fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle

acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]

3111 (return) [ Hannibalianus is always designated in these

authors by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to

his honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano

Regi. See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque

circum socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer means

the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact

supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it

inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the

privilege of doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such

little importance in itself, and attested thus formally by

contemporary authors and public monuments. St. Martin note to Le

Beau i. 341.—M.]

The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these

five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The

exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war and

the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the

education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in

the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous

archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different

weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the

infantry. 32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though

not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons

and nephews of Constantine. 33 The most celebrated professors of

the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman

jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who

reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal

youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of

mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by

adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private

life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had

learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his

equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness

on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His

destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated

in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of

flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury,

and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their

rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from

whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a

smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted

them, at a very tender age, to share the administration of the

empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the expense of

the people intrusted to their care. The younger Constantine was

appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his brother Constantius

exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their father,

for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East.

Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to

revere Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of

the great Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier,

to which he annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and

Greece. The city of Cæsarea was chosen for the residence of

Hannibalianus; and the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the

Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the extent of his new

kingdom. For each of these princes a suitable establishment was

provided. A just proportion of guards, of legions, and of

auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective dignity and

defence. The ministers and generals, who were placed about their

persons, were such as Constantine could trust to assist, and even

to control, these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their

delegated power. As they advanced in years and experience, the

limits of their authority were insensibly enlarged: but the

emperor always reserved for himself the title of Augustus; and

while he showed the _Cæsars_ to the armies and provinces, he

maintained every part of the empire in equal obedience to its

supreme head. 34 The tranquillity of the last fourteen years of

his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible

insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island of Cyprus, 35 or by

the active part which the policy of Constantine engaged him to

assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians.

32 (return) [ His dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by

Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p. 53,) and allowed by

Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]

33 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian,

Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim’s elaborate Commentary.

Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with laudable

diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from

succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]

34 (return) [ Eusebius, (l. iv. c. 51, 52,) with a design of

exalting the authority and glory of Constantine, affirms, that he

divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided

his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected

from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.]

35 (return) [ Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or

rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the

market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the

elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions

of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]

Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians

form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners

of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the

ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents

of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were

sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes

spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the

Vistula and the Volga. 36 The care of their numerous flocks and

herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather

of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The

movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives

and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and

covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation

was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to

lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to

advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised

the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. 37

Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a

sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or

javelin, though it was formed only of horses’ hoofs, cut into

thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the

manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under

garment of coarse linen. 38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians

were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver

of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing

fish-bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of

dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which

they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage

manners, since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would

have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the

arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. 39

Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of

prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which

they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce

countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their

minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with

horror and dismay.

36 (return) [ Cellarius has collected the opinions of the

ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.

D’Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and

accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]

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120 (return) [ The splendor of the school of Berytus, which